Day 1:
Well, I'm cold.
We're in some god forsaken Best Western on the outskirts of Harbin. Harbin should be the Chinese word for SIBERIA. There isn't anything around, mostly because it's January and freezing cold. As we were flying in from Shanghai, I started to realize that after the rather interesting northern China terrain, you are left with basically nothing but snowy flatlands. Fun times. After arriving at airport, we got in a cab (definitely made to seat two comfortably, but we squished four college students... yes?) and drove an hour to this ever lovely hotel out in the middle of nowhere. I don't want to make this sound bad, because truthfully, things could be a LOT worse. Really, they could.
After attempting to take a "quick" nap that ended up lasting all afternoon, we all sleepily stumbled to dinner. Enthusiastic about our new surroundings, we decided we would try the local cuisine, a hybrid of Russian and Chinese food. After finding what seemed to be a food street near our hotel, we chose the one restaurant with Russian writing. Turns out it was just Chinese food. At this point, I need to put in my words of gratitude for Amanda Shen. Amanda is the only person in our group who speaks Mandarin, and she has spent the majority of this trip (all one day of it) translating for us. Thank God for Amanda. We had a relatively good dinner of kabobs, noodles, and some of the local Harbin beer.
We haven't really seen the city yet, so I'm waiting on tomorrow for my full impression. We smartly have hired a driver for the entire day, so tomorrow we're up and running. More to come later :)
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