Harbin

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The Long Awaited Second Vacation Installment - Heat

After a month-long hiatus from blogging, I have returned to China with a load of photos, many experiences, and four new countries to my list. AnnaRae, Ashlee, Ben and I traveled to Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, and Indonesia.
This was my first experience with Southeast Asia since my focus has been East Asia. I will not bore you with an in-depth retelling of my travels, so do not worry.
In Thailand we did the typical travel that I am used to, seeing as much as I can. We went to a lot of places in three days: Grand Palace, floating market, tiger temple, snake farm, temples, museums, and the bridge over the River Kwai. Not only did I see the bridge, but I also walked across it. I visited the prison museum nearby that showed the living conditions for the POWs.
The Thai love their king; the country is full of his picture. There are more pictures than tuk tuks, and the streets are full of tuk tuks. Tuk tuks are motorized pedicabs with roofs. The Thai also are laid back and helpful. Sometimes, they offer help a bit too insistently.
Our entrance to Cambodia is something I will never forget. We woke up before the sun rose to take a bus several hours. The bus could not drop us off at the border itself, so we took tuk tuks to the border. It would be easy to walk across the border, if not for the corrupt visa men at the border. We haggled for the cost of a visa because they refused to abide by the sign. To put it simply, I was pissed that I could not stop such corrupt behavior. Between the Thailand/Cambodia border are casinos. Apparently, the Thai go there, the no-man's-land, to gamble.
The best word to describe the ride from the border to Siem Reap is dust. Most of the roads and bridges were being constructed as we drove across. We drove across a road as it was being paved. We stayed at an Irish pub and guesthouse in Siem Reap. I ate yummy Irish cuisine (yes, I said it) while surrounded by Irish paraphernalia. The posters on the wall made me homesick. One of the posters was the same as one in the beach house.
Just outside of Siem Reap was Angkor Wat. I saw Angkor Wat! It was amazing. I climbed stairs and walked among the vast ruins. As I walked around the hallways, I came across statues of Buddha, covered in cloth and surrounded by incense.
Siem Reap had a night market, which had a fish massage place called Dr. Fish. We put our feet into a pool with fish that nibbled off the dead skin. It felt weird and wonderful. Once you got used to being tickled, it was a relaxing experience.
I experienced ancient history in Siem Reap and modern history in Phnom Penh. For general knowledge, the Khymer Rouge controlled Cambodia for several decades. Within that time, thousands of Khymer were detained, tortured, and killed. The most infamous prison, Tuol Sleng, a.k.a. S.21, is in Phnom Penh. Originally a school, S.21 became a museum of genocide. The extent of documentation, such as photos of every prisoner, was frightening. The museum added stories from the surviving guards, which varied from calls for justice to indifference. The silence in the classrooms-turned-torture-chambers was deafening. The Choeung Ek killing fields were another educational site about the Khymer Rouge. The grounds were FULL of dead bodies. Clothes and bones poked out of the dirt that we walked over. I walked on the bones of genocidal victims! That was unsettling.
In addition to killing fields and prisons, Phnom Penh also had a palace. I knew that France influenced Cambodia, but the palace showed proof. One of the palatial buildings was named after Napoleon III and was built in a French style. I thought it was interesting that the French building was in disrepair while all the other, non-Western buildings were in comparatively perfect condition.
For those of you interested in Cambodia but fear the language gap, everyone speaks English. Cambodian TV is basically American TV.
Our next stop was Singapore. We stayed at a hotel in the red-light district before moving to a hostel in Chinatown (牛车水). The red-light district hotel was called Hotel 81-Lucky. Feel free to laugh. Around the hotel were scantily-clad ladies of the evening standing about giving me the evil eye like I could steal business. The hostel was a better choice; Chinatown was a wonderfully, ethnically diverse neighborhood. There was a mosque, a Buddhist temple, and a Hindu temple within footsteps of each other. Singapore has a large Indian population, Moslim and Hindu. We celebrated Chinese New Year in Chinatown, the best place in Singapore to celebrate Chinese culture.
Onto the last stop in the trip, Bali. Indonesia was the easiest place to enter. Upon arrival, you pay 10 USD at one counter. Behind that counter, you get the visa and entry stamp. It was a piece of piss and no corruption. The Balinese also speak very good English; they say more than “hello” on the street. We stayed on the southern and northern part of Bali, and experienced two types of beaches. Kuta Beach, in the South, was a popular tourist spot. However, the beach was covered in trash. We swam in garbage. In the North was Lovina Beach, famous for having black sand. The black sand beach was clean and appealing.
My least favorite part of the trip was the vendors and drivers, who honked and called us over. They were almost as insistent as their Chinese equivalents, with the exception of Singapore.

Spring Festival Holiday Part 1 - Cold

My winter vacation is really long, January 31st to February 9th. What's an American in China to do with all of that time?....TRAVEL!
This is the first installment of my winter vacation. The vacation consisted of two separate trips. Trip 1: Harbin. Trip 2:Thailand, Cambodia, Singapore, and Bali. (Trip 2 blog is to follow)
Before I went to Harbin, I went to Hong Kong with my parents to celebrate New Year's. I had been to Hong Kong earlier in the year but did not have a chance to go around as a tourist. This time, my parents and I went on a tour of Hong Kong Island and a night boat thing to watch the laser show on the water. Every night there is a laser show between Hong Kong Island and Kowloon. On the last day my parents were in Hong Kong, we had afternoon tea at the Peninsula Hotel. WOW! That is one fancy hotel. There were three, forest green Rolls Royces outside! While we enjoyed our tea and little snacks, there was a small instrumental group nearby. I did not count how many musicians were present, otherwise I would call them a quartet or something. It was wonderful to hear classical music again. I never realized how much I missed it. They played everything: Vivaldi's "Spring" and Queen's "Bohemian Rhapsody."
The day after I left Hong Kong, Ben and I woke up early to leave for the train station.
I really experienced Chinese trains on this trip. We decided to use trains because at this time of year travel companies try to screw you monetarily. They know that all of China is desperate to get home for Chinese New Year, so Chinese people will pay anything for that train or plane ticket. Train tickets are cheaper because trains take so long. We took a a train from Shenzhen to Guangzhou, which was under an hour. Then we took one train from Guangzhou to Harbin. 37 HOURS!! Chinese coworkers, including Mr. Zheng who lived in Harbin, thought we were crazy because the only tickets available were hard seats. Chinese trains are split up into seats and sleepers. So we had an upright seat with a slight cushion instead of a slightly comfortable bed. I thought I would get off the train in Harbin with my neck at the oddest angle so that the entire city was sideways. I also feared that the train would be absolutely full of people.
I was only half right. My neck was basically left unharmed, but the train was full. There were people standing in the aisle for the entire trip. When someone got up to go to the toilet, the standers had a respite until that person returned. There were some interesting characters in our train car. I will describe "creepy man," as we came to call him. This man got on the train and stood right next to us. There was no seat where he stood, only the thin aisle everyone had to walk through to get seats. He proceeded to sit down on someone else's luggage (not ours, thank God) and talk to us. His only English phrases were "Hello," "Ok," and "Long live Mao."
His appearance was less than appealing. His bags were full of newspapers and trash and crumbs. The conductor asked everyone for their tickets. Creepy Man would not produce a ticket. He told (no request made) the conductor that he would finish his dinner and then give his ticket. After the conductor pressed him for a ticket, the man started fumbling through his coat and pockets, and came up empty handed. He said he would look for it after his finished eating. He slowly searched through his bags, but could not show a ticket. So he was put off the train at the next stop.
I thought that his behavior towards the conductor was strange. Shouldn't you respect such individuals? While we lined up for the train, some people cut in line. To prevent this, there were employees with megaphones yelling at the line cutters. One employee got into a fight with a passenger. Instead of listening to or politely disagreeing with the employee, he PUSHED him. The employee threw his megaphone to the ground and started pushing back with his hands and gut. I cheered for the employee while some other passengers secretly cut in line. It must be my American mind that cannot fathom such disrespect for people when one is breaking a rule. I had the crazy idea that Chinese people would behave really well in public so as not to lose face. That passenger lost face for me. However, other Chinese passengers do not seem to care about that, even in line for the bathroom on the train. People cut in front of each other and no one says anything.
Upon arrival in Harbin, Ben and I lined up to buy tickets back to Shenzhen. The train ticket purchasing system is weird. We could buy tickets to leave a city but not to return to the city. Those tickets had to be purchased in Harbin. However, all of the train tickets were gone by the time we reached Harbin. There was no way to get home by train, so we bought plane tickets. The cost of plane tickets was more than double for the train tickets.
Now to describe Harbin. It is a absolutely, freezing city full of randomly-placed ice sculptures. There were sculptures outside the train station, on the side of the street used to show posters, and outside hotels. It was so cold that my boogers froze, an experience I had never had. I walked around the city with two pairs of socks, two pairs of gloves, three jackets, one big coat, a hat, and a scarf. I still froze! I grew used to Shenzhen's warmer climate, and did not have a chance to adjust. Harbin is also a city of Russians. Russian is a more common language than English; for instance, our cab driver started speaking Russian to us. At the Ice World park, we saw a Russian performance troupe who sang, danced, and played Russian musical instruments.
We mainly took buses everywhere, which was time consuming. The buses also lacked heaters, so I would get cold after an hour bus ride. Then I would freeze outside.
We went to Harbin's Tenth Ice and Snow World (第十届哈尔滨冰雪大世界)and the Sun Island International Snow Sculpture Art Fair (太阳岛国际雪雕艺术博览会). Sun Island is a misleading name when the entire place is covered in snow.
We only spent three days in Harbin, which was not enough to see everything I wanted. But it was long enough to decide that Harbin winters are too much for me. I do not regret getting a Chinese winter experience though. I saw snow, ice, frost, icicles, frozen hands and noses. I drank hot chocolate. I rode a slide made of ice. (Side note: jeans have traction on ice) I also rode a camel at Ice World! A CAMEL! That animal did not look happy in the subzero temperature. But now I can proudly say that I have ridden a camel in the Harbin snow. How many people can claim that?
Now I am back in Shenzhen for the next few days only to leave again.