I apologize for the lack of posts in the past week. I came down with a cold over the weekend and have been sleeping more than usual in an attempt to fight off. This does seem to be working, but it has prevented me from blogging as much as I normally do. So, here's a brief update.
This weekend I will be traveling to Harbin/哈尔滨, the capital of Heilongjiang/黑龙江 province in the far north-east of China. This is the province that is the closest to Russia, in what used to be considered Manchuria, and as such has a strong Russian influence. Harbin itself was founded by Russian Jews only a couple hundred years ago, and has several synagogues and Orthodox churches, both of which are relatively rare in China.
Our original plan was to stay in a place off of AirBnb, a site similar to VRBO where private owners can list their houses and apartments for rent. This didn't end up working out because, as Harbin is not a huge tourist city, especially for English-speakers (which AirBnb mainly serves), there were a small number of places listed and none of them could sleep all three of us in a way that made sense. So we ended up booking a hotel through a Chinese website instead. Our original plan to get to Harbin was to take an early morning fast train there on Friday, leaving at 7am and arriving at 3pm (8 hours for a trip of about 770 miles) and then to take a night train back, leaving Monday night at 10 and arriving in Beijing at 11am. However, due to a terrible case of not-being-on-the-ball-itis, we couldn't buy either of these tickets. So we will take an afternoon train on Friday, arriving that night, and a similar train on Monday for the trip back, as those were literally our only options at that point.
As for what we're doing in Harbin, I've left that up to Ben and Martin, since I took care of (to varying degrees of success) the travel arrangements, so I'll let you know, with pictures, when I return.
This weekend I will be traveling to Harbin/哈尔滨, the capital of Heilongjiang/黑龙江 province in the far north-east of China. This is the province that is the closest to Russia, in what used to be considered Manchuria, and as such has a strong Russian influence. Harbin itself was founded by Russian Jews only a couple hundred years ago, and has several synagogues and Orthodox churches, both of which are relatively rare in China.
Our original plan was to stay in a place off of AirBnb, a site similar to VRBO where private owners can list their houses and apartments for rent. This didn't end up working out because, as Harbin is not a huge tourist city, especially for English-speakers (which AirBnb mainly serves), there were a small number of places listed and none of them could sleep all three of us in a way that made sense. So we ended up booking a hotel through a Chinese website instead. Our original plan to get to Harbin was to take an early morning fast train there on Friday, leaving at 7am and arriving at 3pm (8 hours for a trip of about 770 miles) and then to take a night train back, leaving Monday night at 10 and arriving in Beijing at 11am. However, due to a terrible case of not-being-on-the-ball-itis, we couldn't buy either of these tickets. So we will take an afternoon train on Friday, arriving that night, and a similar train on Monday for the trip back, as those were literally our only options at that point.
As for what we're doing in Harbin, I've left that up to Ben and Martin, since I took care of (to varying degrees of success) the travel arrangements, so I'll let you know, with pictures, when I return.
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