To Beijing from Harbin
I am again in Beijing, but I now feel the warmer for it. Having arrived from Harbin this morning how could I not? The temperatures there are—but I’ll talk (read: complain) of that in its place.
Shopping the last time I was here got me thick gloves and a pair of greater thermal pants. I later got a face mask which made me appear like something out of Counter-strike or something from Afghanistan. Wearing the thick, woollen, itchy, static-laden thing kept fogging up my glasses with my breath, but it was a necessary evil: Harbin’s air is such that all unprotected skin turns numb in seconds.
About Harbin itself…well, I once heard that if one has nothing good to say, then one ought to shut up. Fortunately I don’t buy that adage, or I’d say nothing at all about Harbin, which, I am sure, is a short, innocent-sounding name for the Harbinger of Icy Doom.
The first day (the 25th), I had breakfast in the hotel. It was a buffet. It was quite nice, but not much so, because of the near-total lack of truly filling foods and the overabundance of cream cakes (cakes that are made up of a little cube of sponge in the centre, then sprayed with about one inch of cream on each side to give the illusion of size). I visited Great Peace Island, which is really just a bit of frozen land in the middle of a frozen lake. The idea of a white Christmas, as I said earlier, has now even less appeal to me! There’s not much there to be seen, but there is, is good (compared to the miserable, cheating rest of Harbin). We got cheated by a bunch of slick, smooth-talking pony owners who promised to take us past Great Peace Island to the entrance of the Snow and Ice Sculpture Exhibition; they only took us as far as the jetty—ten minutes from our starting-point and half-an-hour by foot to our intended destination, and demanded—demanded, drat them!—RMB 10 for each passenger! May they spend ten thousand white Christmases naked in the snow, every last one of them! We walked a long time that day, but I don’t care to know how far: it would be quite depressing.
It was pretty, and it was cold. I was pretty cold. The sculptures were great, as were the six inches of glaringly white snow in every direction. What was not at all great was the numbing of the limbs by the wind (that dratted wind went right through my gloves and shoes: oh how my toes and fingers hurt!); the slippery and uneven ground, and the omnipresent stink. The family must’ve walked at least 10 hours that day, covering about 40 to 50 kilometres each. I will never forget how achingly tired I was when I sank down onto the hotel bed that night! Then again, that memory is best forgotten, as it is quite unpleasant, as well as the taxi drivers who refuse to take one up if the fee that will be collected is less than RMB 35! I stood in minus 29 degrees Celsius air that night for half-an-hour vainly trying to hail a taxi; I had to take a bus in the end.
The next day (the 26th), we visited St. Sofia’s Church. It’s a large, Russian church about 50 years old, with imposing and grand architecture. It looks great in a picture or from afar, and looks better up close. Unfortunately, it is a sorry thing now because of the Revolution. The Chinese looted and destroyed it and pretty much reduced it to a shell of its former self. They now use it as a museum of Russian influences on Chinese culture, which meant that I had to buy tickets to get into a church for the first time in my life! And just to make sure that nobody ever thinks that the church is used for religious purposes anymore, they put up a thirty-foot inflatable Santa in front of the building and blasted secular Christmas songs from huge speakers all around the place. I hope never to hear ‘Rudolph’, ‘Frosty’, or ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ in the vicinity of a cathedral again! Talk about grandeur gone to seed… [Sob].
At least the train ride back to Beijing was enjoyable, if only because I knew I’d never see cold, frozen, stinking, dirty, filthy, slippery, icy Harbinger of Icy Doom again for at least a year. And the train cubicles had individual TV sets, to the surprised joy of my two brothers. They both vowed not to sleep till two am, and as far as I know they both made good on that oath.
I arrived in Beijing about 12 hours ago. Since then, I have endured 9 hours of walking. My feet are sore, my clothes dirty (I just bathed for the first time in 4 days), my head aching, my hair flat (a near miracle!), and my whole tired. I am content, however. I’m warm, I’m sated, and I’ll not see Harbin again. Oh, the relief.
And I saw the Forbidden City from the inside. I never before knew one emperor could need so many rooms to do so little! There were rooms for Changing Clothes before Ceremonies, rooms for Resting after Changing Clothes before Ceremonies, rooms for Ceremonies, rooms for Keeping Jade Imperial Royal Seals, etc. etc. ad infinitum. It took hours of walking just to get into the inner court from the outer! What’s more, cold, bitter wind was blowing most of the time.
My sole consolation—cold comfort, this—is that it wasn’t in Harbin.
Shopping the last time I was here got me thick gloves and a pair of greater thermal pants. I later got a face mask which made me appear like something out of Counter-strike or something from Afghanistan. Wearing the thick, woollen, itchy, static-laden thing kept fogging up my glasses with my breath, but it was a necessary evil: Harbin’s air is such that all unprotected skin turns numb in seconds.
About Harbin itself…well, I once heard that if one has nothing good to say, then one ought to shut up. Fortunately I don’t buy that adage, or I’d say nothing at all about Harbin, which, I am sure, is a short, innocent-sounding name for the Harbinger of Icy Doom.
The first day (the 25th), I had breakfast in the hotel. It was a buffet. It was quite nice, but not much so, because of the near-total lack of truly filling foods and the overabundance of cream cakes (cakes that are made up of a little cube of sponge in the centre, then sprayed with about one inch of cream on each side to give the illusion of size). I visited Great Peace Island, which is really just a bit of frozen land in the middle of a frozen lake. The idea of a white Christmas, as I said earlier, has now even less appeal to me! There’s not much there to be seen, but there is, is good (compared to the miserable, cheating rest of Harbin). We got cheated by a bunch of slick, smooth-talking pony owners who promised to take us past Great Peace Island to the entrance of the Snow and Ice Sculpture Exhibition; they only took us as far as the jetty—ten minutes from our starting-point and half-an-hour by foot to our intended destination, and demanded—demanded, drat them!—RMB 10 for each passenger! May they spend ten thousand white Christmases naked in the snow, every last one of them! We walked a long time that day, but I don’t care to know how far: it would be quite depressing.
It was pretty, and it was cold. I was pretty cold. The sculptures were great, as were the six inches of glaringly white snow in every direction. What was not at all great was the numbing of the limbs by the wind (that dratted wind went right through my gloves and shoes: oh how my toes and fingers hurt!); the slippery and uneven ground, and the omnipresent stink. The family must’ve walked at least 10 hours that day, covering about 40 to 50 kilometres each. I will never forget how achingly tired I was when I sank down onto the hotel bed that night! Then again, that memory is best forgotten, as it is quite unpleasant, as well as the taxi drivers who refuse to take one up if the fee that will be collected is less than RMB 35! I stood in minus 29 degrees Celsius air that night for half-an-hour vainly trying to hail a taxi; I had to take a bus in the end.
The next day (the 26th), we visited St. Sofia’s Church. It’s a large, Russian church about 50 years old, with imposing and grand architecture. It looks great in a picture or from afar, and looks better up close. Unfortunately, it is a sorry thing now because of the Revolution. The Chinese looted and destroyed it and pretty much reduced it to a shell of its former self. They now use it as a museum of Russian influences on Chinese culture, which meant that I had to buy tickets to get into a church for the first time in my life! And just to make sure that nobody ever thinks that the church is used for religious purposes anymore, they put up a thirty-foot inflatable Santa in front of the building and blasted secular Christmas songs from huge speakers all around the place. I hope never to hear ‘Rudolph’, ‘Frosty’, or ‘Santa Claus is Coming to Town’ in the vicinity of a cathedral again! Talk about grandeur gone to seed… [Sob].
At least the train ride back to Beijing was enjoyable, if only because I knew I’d never see cold, frozen, stinking, dirty, filthy, slippery, icy Harbinger of Icy Doom again for at least a year. And the train cubicles had individual TV sets, to the surprised joy of my two brothers. They both vowed not to sleep till two am, and as far as I know they both made good on that oath.
I arrived in Beijing about 12 hours ago. Since then, I have endured 9 hours of walking. My feet are sore, my clothes dirty (I just bathed for the first time in 4 days), my head aching, my hair flat (a near miracle!), and my whole tired. I am content, however. I’m warm, I’m sated, and I’ll not see Harbin again. Oh, the relief.
And I saw the Forbidden City from the inside. I never before knew one emperor could need so many rooms to do so little! There were rooms for Changing Clothes before Ceremonies, rooms for Resting after Changing Clothes before Ceremonies, rooms for Ceremonies, rooms for Keeping Jade Imperial Royal Seals, etc. etc. ad infinitum. It took hours of walking just to get into the inner court from the outer! What’s more, cold, bitter wind was blowing most of the time.
My sole consolation—cold comfort, this—is that it wasn’t in Harbin.
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