Harbin - A Winter Wonderland - Part II

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On Wednesday, January 23rd, we got up and headed out to see other parts of Harbin - another sightseeing street and the temple area. First we walked down a street near our hotel to see the provincial musuem. We weren't interested in going in the museum, but it was on our way to another street with more western-style churches and then, at the far end, were the temples.

We walked along the avenue and noticed another Russian Orthodox church. It appeared to be in limited use as a church, but was not open on that day. Across the street, we saw another church, some kind of Christian church, which had a white exterior. Again, I don't know that it is used much as a church, but it has been preserved and was a curiosity in this Russian/Chinese city. Further down the street, we passed another, smaller, church. This was a Lutheran Church, and not only was it still in use, they were having services when we entered! Wow, a real Christian Church, here in China! I was delightfully surprised. The worshippers invited us in and wanted us to have a seat, but we didn't stay. The service was in Chinese, and they were singing a song from a hymnal. It was like some kind of bizarro world we had stepped into. We thanked the ladies at the door for letting us in and continued down the street towards the temple zone.

We hopped on a bus to get us down the street, and then entered the neighborhood with several temples. The first temple we entered was actually a working temple, we walked through a gate and around the corner and realized that this was a place where people lived and worked. We headed down the street to the next temple, this one with a courtyard with a large Buddha and seven pagodas in the courtyard. We wandered through the buildings and snapped the requisite photos. Then we headed out to the busy street once again, this time looking for a restaurant to get warm and have lunch.

We entered a restaurant that was good and steamy inside. It turned out to be a hot-pot restaurant. These are restaurants where you get a pot of hot water in front of you and your order raw food and throw it into the boiling water to cook it. I have avoided these kinds of restaurants til now, because I don't want to eat food that's mingling with meat. But this pot had a divider in it, so Kathryn had her side and I had mine. The food was good and we got nice and toasty warm in the restaurant (which is half the reason we went in).

Next up, making our way to the LongTa Tower or Dragon Tower. Our friends who had been in Harbin two weeks earlier told us about it, and we wanted to see for ourselves. It's basically a big TV tower that has an observation deck at the top. We took a bus most of the way there, but were unsure where the bus would stop, so we got off after a few stops and took a taxi the rest of the way, which wasn't far after all. We made our way to the top and snapped several photos from the deck. Boy was it cold up there! We waited til dusk to snap a few more photos when the city was all lit up. Afterwards, we headed back to the other part of the city, near the train station/our hotel/the tourist area. We wanted to see St. Sophia lit up at night, so took a taxi most of the way and then walked down the street to the church. Down the street from St. Sophia is the park where the original Ice Lantern Festival takes places. This is a smaller city park but, similar to the larger Ice Festival Park, has ice sculptures that are lit up at night. We wandered around the Ice Lantern Festival, snapping photos and admiring the handiwork on the ice pagodas, ice bridges, large faces, Noah's Ark, and the ice sculpture competition winners. Guess what, there were a few with Olympic themes, go figure!

On Thursday, our last day, we had one last stop to make. We wanted to check out the Germ Warfare Museum on the outskirts of the city. It was like a Chinese concentration camp run by the Japanese, this is a small remnant of the Japanese occupation in the 1930s-1940s. This was the site of a Japanese Army base where they totured and experimented on thousands of Chinese and others, to test the human reaction to biological and chemical threats. This is just one sad reminder of the perils of war and horrific consequences of attempting to torture and exterminate another race. They mention that the US government, upon learning of the camp, took the medical data in exchange for the freedom of the Japanese military leaders. Whether true or not, this was a sad, scary place. It reminded me of my visit to Dachau, Germany.

We left this memorial site and made our way to the airport. A little frostbitten, a little disheartened by our last stop, but glad for having made the journey to Harbin. The beautiful sculptures and delicious food and good company made for a delightful visit overall. Harbin is indeed a winter wonderland. I highly recommed visiting. Be sure to wear lots of layers to stay warm!

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