Spring Festival Travels

Well it's been a long break but I'm back with lots to write about. I started off my travels in Haerbin which is three hours from Russia. The link is at the bottom for all of those pictures, lots of ice and fun things that you do when you're really cold. The city was very beautiful and it did feel like we were in Russia and not China b/c the architecture was so different and on the train the people who we thought were chinese turned out to be speaking Russian and didn't speak chinese at all, which really confused the chinese waitresses in the dining car!

I didn't get pictures yet of the really big ice sculptures yet (my camera battery died b/c it was so cold! Actually 3 of 4 of our camera's died from the cold!) but I'll hopefully be getting some of those later. As for the mean time, it was a long journey and a good time. I saw and played on a lot of ice, a lot of slides, and even rode a horse on the River. I haven't ridden a horse on regular grass! I got on (not smoothly but it worked) The workers then proceeded to chase after the horse to make it run when I wasn't ready and didn't have the reins tight!!! it was a fun experience though, I felt bad for the cold horses though, and the dogs who had to pull ice sleds. Something I missed in Harbin (or Haerbin) was visiting the germ warfare museum.

When Japan invaded China they would steal people from the country side and do many experiments and tests on these poor people. My other friends who went to Harbin after us went to it and said that the Japanese had strung people up naked outside to see how frost bite worked and spread, they would also have huge fields of people on 2x4's and release different diseases in different areas of the fields. The Japanese army also released rats with bubonic plague in villages to see how the disease would spread. Upon living in China we were very quick to learn that the Chinese really dislike the Japanese (since these things happened in their grandparents generation we have been interested in knowing why our students also have a dislike for the Japanese, but this experience gives us a hint) It also turns out that America found out about this incident and vowed to keep it quiet, if we received access to the reports and results. It's amazing how much you can learn about your own country from a distance.

But on that downer note, enjoy the pics.

http://picasaweb.google.com/cccapper/Haerbin