Mr & Mrs! China adventure - Trip report

[munitalP]

After a couple of stops, our 8 hour ride was over, so rugged up (the temperature indicated was minus 20) we ventured out onto the Harbin platform where we were again swarmed by “official” porters.

Outside the train station, we joined the official taxi line with a continuous bombardment from unofficial taxi drivers. We waited for over an hour for a taxi in the worsening cold. I cannot believe the lack of taxis willing to come into the rank – I would put money on it to say that this was a crime syndicate in operation and the official drivers were not happy to risk retaliation by the crims – and the driver who did venture into the rank and took us to our hotel (with an additional passenger!) charged us 3 times more than our return trip (on the meter at least as again we were bribed by a taxi driver to drive us to the station).

Advice to those venturing to Harbin by train and needing a taxi.
1. If you are unable to pre-organise a pick up, unless you want to use an unofficial taxi (not recommended), be prepared to wait
2. If you have little luggage, walk out of the station, across the square and up the “big” street until you find a hotel where the concierge can organise you a cab
3. The meters mean nothing – organise a price upfront, 50RMB from the walking street area to the station is about right (AUD$8) – the driver will stick to this
4. Wear a seat belt – Harbin traffic + Ice + Snow + ordinary state of repair cabs = seatbelt

For the first time on our holiday we were staying at a hotel of less than (rated) 5 stars – the IBIS Harbin. Not flash, missing all the trimmings, the bed was nice, the room functional, heating/cooling in the room worked, the front desk spoke passable English, situated in the centre of Harbin (CBD) with major shopping centres within a 500M radius (including all the big names such as Prada, Hugo Loss, GA etc...), 1 block from the walking street and 2 blocks from Disney Snow & Ice (Zaholin Park) and a short walk to the river. On top of this, 3 nights stay cost us AUD$89 (total) booked through Accor website and the internet was free!

View from hotel lobby

 

[munitalP]

We ventured out in search of dinner, with a recommendation of a restaurant nearby called something unpronounceable in English by the concierge, anyway, we didn’t find it that night but we did find the walking street, found out that the Russians had played a huge part of the sculpturing of Harbin and saw our first ice carvings lit up at equal intervals along the walking street.

The temperature was a tropical minus 28 or so and I had a smile from ear to ear (which finally left when we boarded a train to head home) – hey, this is what we came to China to see, and so far, I wasn’t disappointed! We bought frozen sugar coated fruit on a stick from a street vendor – awesome, Kim had grape and I had banana...

After a quick bite to eat at a well known restaurant, we headed back to the hotel where I threw a couple of cans of Bud out onto the window ledge and they were quickly chilled to a good drinking temperature. Beer, Internet and bed...

 

[munitalP]

A couple more pics...

 

[dajop]

Hey great TR! Following with interest, and this has suddenly alerted me to a possibility. I have to be in Beijing for work next week and your TR is putting me on the verge of going a little earlier (or leaving a little later) and taking a quick overnight (single night) trip up to Harbin to see the ice festival - looks impressive. Although don't really have the clothes to cope with -28! Oh well will investigate!

 

[munitalP]

Jan 05

Out of bed and in search of coffee and breakfast. We had spotted an awesome cafe on the walking street last night so ventured out in the cold in search...
On checking my wallet, I realised I needed cash, so first priority was an ATM with English instructions, so on direction from the hotel staff, we wandered the streets of Harbin in search of an ATM.

We did find an awesome Russian built church; we found a number of beggars and finally found an ATM with very bad English instructions!

Breakfast of warm pastries, hot orange juice and scalding coffee had, we walked in the general direction of the river (frozen) where there were activities happening on the river such as ice slides, dog sleds, horse drawn sleds, snow mobiles, 4x4 buggy hire, ice fishing and lots more. We wandered around this area for a while taking in the sights then ventured back toward Zhaolin Park – the venue for the Disney part of the Snow and Ice festival.
We entered for 50RMB each (100 for day and night access) and were immediately awestruck by a 5M high snow sculpture of a lion – wow!

We walked around the park for ages, taking in the ice buildings, the ice sculptures and the snow sculptures – this place was amazing, and it was only a taste of what was expected at the main event.

 

[munitalP]

After quite a few hours, sore feet, feeling a bit cold – the temperature was hovering between -18 and -22 depending on who you believed – we went back in the direction of the hotel and found a restaurant to have a late lunch at. 4 beers, 4 courses and less than $20 – hmmmm the food was even good!

After lunch we went for a wander through the local shopping malls, first was the trendy mall attached to the hotel with Prada, Hugo Loss, Mont Blanc and many other designer labels - it was a joke really, there would have been 5:1 ratio of staff vs. customers – someone really screwed up their demographic research when building this mall or at least fitting it out with these excessive cost brands – let’s face it, this is a country where the poverty line is set at less than USD$1 per day (then you are officially poor) and the average earning per capita of the agricultural sector in China is USD$1750 per annum!

Admittedly there are some wealthy people, there always are, but Harbin is not a financial hub nor an industrial megacity where wages are high. I read in the news paper about a couple stealing mail from their building mail drop to “supplement” their income – they went to jail for 12 months for 40RMB (AUD $6.30) – go figure...

Another mall across the road was getting more to earth with their goods, and here we searched the mall high and low to buy some socks – yep socks and we couldn’t find any (except short sports socks) for sale! What were we doing wrong one asks? Anyway, we decided to make use of the hotel laundry and pay to have some socks washed and dried at a thieving 30RMB (joke) per pair.
On returning to the room, mysteriously a couple of pairs of clean socks were hiding in the bottom of my suitcase so problem solved and a couple of hours wasted. After mucking about at the hotel for a few hours, we headed out in the cold in search of dinner where we found a great restaurant very close to the river where there were and amazing number of Europeans eating. We had a selection of local dishes – had trouble getting Soya sauce but all in all a nice meal and again, cheap.

Leaving there we popped into a Russian shop we had seen earlier and haggled a couple of bottles of Vodka down from 140RMB each to 50RMB – cool bottles with a crystal bird mounted inside. I do believe that I will be afraid to drink this gut rot, but the bottles are very cool...

Back to the hotel and we were ready for a good night’s sleep.

 

[munitalP]

A bit of Engrish for a laugh...

 

[munitalP]

Jan 06

Today was the planned day to visit the main Snow and Ice festival. On leaving the hotel, we discussed with the concierge regarding the best method of getting there and he tried to describe about hiring a taxi for a few hours and have him wait – that’s my version, his was far from coherent! Far from clear on what the process was, I said to Kim that we should just get a cab and work it our ourselves from there – so far on this trip, that method had worked well and I wasn’t fussed. We decided to shoot around the corner and grab pancakes and coffee from the golden arches for breakfast then head over to the festival.

Once outside, we realised it had been very cold overnight and there was ice everywhere. I had to laugh as we passed the trendy mall, 50 or 60 shop attendants outside shovelling snow and ice, cleaning up outside the front of the building – hehehe, I bet Mr. Versace doesn’t teach that in his marking school...

At breakfast, we got talking to an ex US marine who was tutoring somewhere in Harbin. Nice guy with some good advice – he confirmed what we thought the concierge had said and now understood that the festival was off the beaten track without public transport access. He did suggest that the Holiday Inn had a bus to and from, however wasn’t sure of any other details.
We left the arches and went back to the hotel to get the concierge to organise a cab to take us to the festival and wait a couple of hours for us then bring us back at a fixed cost.

People going to the festival in Harbin, a worthy note – this is the best way to do it! Hire a cab for 3 hours including the to and from, ask the driver if he has discounted entrance passes, they get a kick back and it keeps them happy, fix a price – we settled on 200RMB (I actually paid him an additional 50RMB tip) and trust him when he takes you to some shady joint somewhere in town to pick up the tickets – just make sure that you can see the official seal embossed on the ticket before accepting mind you there is little chance they will rip you off we were told.

 

[munitalP]

As luck would have it, there was an American gentleman (Walter) in the lobby waiting for a cab, he had done all the hard yards organising it, so what the heck – we joined him and off we went.

After the mucking around for the tickets (we saved 10RMB per ticket – not much but at least the driver got his kickback) we finally got to the festival. I cannot say enough about this. I can try words like awesome, brilliant, inspiring etc but they all understate how absolutely wonderful the Harbin Snow & Ice Festival is – everyone needs to see this...

I’ll let the pictures speak for themselves.

After leaving the festival, we went back into town where the three of us went to the same restaurant Kim and I had lunch the previous day. I was forced to order on condition I wouldn’t be responsible for what was served. I got the beer right, the pigs feet were a bit off, the fried “dumplings in family way” were, well lets just say I have worked out what “family way” means, and the other items such as warm lettuce with oyster sauce were just ordinary. But, it was authentic local dishes, and apart from the pig bits, we ate almost everything with healthy doses of Harbin Draught to cleanse the pallet.
Bidding farewell to our new friend, we headed back to the hotel and packed our luggage, tonight we were taking an overnight sleeper to Beijing, saying goodbye to Harbin.

I will return – maybe next year, except this time we will stay in the Hyatt or Hilton and spend at least 5 nights there, go to the Siberian Tiger park and all the other things we missed.

Our train was a quite late departure, so after ensuring everything was packed, we wandered down to the Disney Park, cameras in hand and fired off 100’s of pics of the lit up sculptures and carvings.

We took a cab to the train station and sat in the waiting room for about 20 minutes before we wandered out to the train to board. The ticket people has screwed up our request for being in the same sleeper (!) and after some shuffling around with the help of a great young Russian guy, we managed to get a sleeper together and settled in for an overnight train trip to Beijing.
I will never travel this way again. Never.

The narrow hard beds, 2 strangers in the cabin, stinking squat toilets, bad mannered fellow PAX, non English speaking staff and generally slow and noisy train – forget it, it will be a 737 from Harbin back next time.

 

[munitalP]

Jan 07

We arrived to a cold Beijing and needing to transfer to Beijing South rail station. Once outside and seeing a long line of people waiting for taxis, we decided that a 2RMB fare on the metro would be the choice of transport across Beijing. What we found typical of the Beijing Metro on certain lines is the escalators were not working so we had to carry our cases down a number of flights of stairs – I am sure there was an elevator somewhere, but I couldn’t see it. We squeezed onto a train for a few stations then transferred to another line for a few more stops to the station. Good luck for us – the elevator was right next to where we got off the train and we shot up to ground level to go buy tickets to Shanghai on a high speed train.

Searching ground level, we couldn’t find an open ticket booth, so up another level where we found on very grumpy ticket sales person who was having a very bad hair day – slamming peoples tickets and change through the slot and even though I couldn’t understand a thing that she was saying, tone was easily understood.

After finding out that I couldn’t pay by credit card, I went in search of an ATM, got some cash then went back and spent the next 5 minutes explaining to Miss. Grumpy that 1. We wanted to be seated together and 2. First class car.

We ended up seated together in second class which at the end of the day, wasn’t too bad, but I wouldn’t do it again. The cost of rail travel in China is cheap enough to travel first, so why not?

Although the travelling time was the same, this trip seemed to take a lot longer than the trip up to Beijing and by the time we reached Shanghai, I was tired, needed a shower, a beer and some sleep – I’m not sure in what order...

 

[munitalP]

I had booked us into the Longemont Hotel on the opposite side of the river from Pudong – I believe this used to be the Shanghai Regent, but anyway, the 5 star goodness just oozed out right down to our bellboy offering to nip over to a chemist to pick up some cough lozenge’s for Kim as it seemed she had caught a Harbin bug...

The reception asked us if we would like to upgrade our two night stay for an additional 800RMB to a mini suit near the top floor – an offer too good to refuse, so I splashed out the folding and we were quickly flying up to floor 54 of 55 with a magnificent view of Shanghai through our floor to ceiling windows.

After a quick shower, we wandered down to the exec club for a drink – too bad, it was closed, so down to ground level to another bar where we had a night cap then off to bed...

 

[munitalP]

Jan 08

I had promised Kim we would buy her a D&G coat before we left, so today was a day of shopping and burning what little credit was left on my ANZ card (!) on clothes. Kim got what she wanted, I found a Prada scarf that didn’t break the bank and with Kim not feeling great, we went back to the hotel quite early, well at least that was our intent until we got off at the wrong metro stop and wandered aimlessly somewhere in Shanghai until it was dark. We got directions from a hotel concierge and made our way finally to the hotel – cold, hungry and with a far lighter wallet.

We decided on having dinner at the hotel, so an inspection of the menus had us into the Chinese restaurant where we had a Sashimi platter to start, Singapore style noodles and something else unmemorable. I had a couple of beers and shared a bottle of wine with Kim, officially, my ANZ card was at its limit after this indulgence, but what the hay – we are on holiday right?
We popped into the bar from the previous night to say hello to the super friendly barman, had a night cap then bed – a reasonably quiet day.

 

[munitalP]

Jan 09

Our last day in China. We had a nice breakfast in the exec club as we had the day before, and planned what we would do to kill time through the day. Our flight was about 2000, so we did have a bit of time up our sleeves. We had decided that another suitcase would be in order, a cheapy from the market to get our purchases home safe and sound. We also decided that our trip to the airport would be on the MAGLEV, the 450km per hour train from Pudong to the International so I was looking forward to that.

Checking out of the hotel, we left our luggage in storage, and caught a cab to Ji’Ang Temple where we jumped aboard a metro train (green line) to the market at the science museum stop. After ignoring sellers for quite a while, we finally settled on a knock off samsonite case and paid about AUD$25 for it. A quick look around, the market, I bought a compulsory silk fan – the starting price was 250RMB, I paid 20RMB, and we were off to the hotel, returning the same route.

I kept the meter running on the cab while we loaded our luggage, then we were off to the MAGLEV train station. This cab driver made a number of impressions – particularly in the panels of other cars, he was a madman who had a hatred of corners, other taxis, busses, trucks, pedestrians and cyclists – in other words, everyone else on the road, and he wasn’t afraid to show his elevated levels of testosterone off! He managed to frighten me a couple of times.

 

[munitalP]

We gladly got out of the cab at the MAGLEV station to be immediately accosted by men trying to sell stuff like watches and phones. I got really pissed off and in a very stern voice – nearly a yell, told them to go away, we weren’t interested. I think they realised that they had pissed me off, so the backed off – good.

Upstairs, we met a couple of ladies on their way back to Australia as well except on a CX flight, by the time we got our tickets and managed to get through to board, they had taken the train previously. We looked for them at the airport, but alas, we never did catch up and have a chat.
The MAGLEV. I got off that train with a grin that I couldn’t remove for hours! Knowing the engineering behind this machine still does not prepare you for 451km per hour on a train – woo hoo!

If anyone goes to Shanghai and does not take a ride on the MAGLEV train – you have missed out on the most exciting thing since public hangings – it was awesome! Do it!

Our arrival at the airport got us there 3.5 hours before boarding, so we had nowhere to check luggage, so we went upstairs and into an Italian restaurant and had dinner. From reports of the shared lounge, I didn’t expect that I was going to get a meal at the lounge, so this was a good diversion until the check in opened.

We got assigned our seating, row 2 – with a window seat for Kim, and the same for the SYD/MEL flight. A certain melancholy was setting in, a realisation that our wonderful holiday was coming to an end and after clearing immigration, this melancholy grew. Rather than trying to convert RMB back to AUD, we carefully spent all we had left on tee’s, a handmade stamp for me (vulgar isn’t it!), and a couple of other small things. We had been handed an advice not to purchase anything with a liquid volume greater than 100mls including booze – it wouldn’t be allowed on the plane, so my plans for replenishing my Wild Turkey Rare Breed and Heritage stocks were dashed.

 

[munitalP]

Up to the lounge – what is it with China and freaking escalators – going up only here – well at least there was one for a change!

Into the lounge – what a disgrace as far as lounges are concerned, but still better than out with the masses!

Booze – 1 bottle of unknown white, 1 bottle of unknown French Merlot, 1 bottle of French Red, type unknown, 1 bottle (unopened) of Jack Daniels, 1 bottle of Vodka (untouched until Kim decided Vodka and Orange would help her sleep), Heineken by the can, A Chinese beer by the can.
Drinks – Jug of orange juice, jug of apple juice, bottled water, cans of coke, sprite, fanta coconut milk and tomato juice (no Tabasco sauce though), bottled water
Coffee machine and tea – a small selection of teas.
Food – pre-packaged sandwich triangles, a selection of noodles and rice, steamed dumpling and a small selection of cakes.
Other packaged snacks like crackers and dried noodles.

The Heineken and the Vodka won the medal for the best choice of what was on offer.

After a while, we were called to board, a bag inspection (looking for liquids), and we were on the plane home. The flight left slightly delayed due to an arriving passenger without a Visa, but the Chinese issued him/her a Visa on arrival and we were pushed off – if they hadn’t issued the Visa, the passenger would have been put on the return flight.

I had a light meal option, picked out the good stuff, had a glass or two of champers and reclined and went to sleep. Some reasonable lumps and bumps for about 3 hours as we came up to and crossed PNG, but once into Australian airspace, it all smoothed out and I was dozing again.
Kim’s Vodka and Orange worked well, she slept solid for 7 or so hours including through the lumps and bumps and woke up for breakfast then final descent into SYD. What a shock to the system walking out into the 30+ heat.
We had declared goods – wooden chopsticks and case as well as tea, but after seeing esky’s of goods in the declared lane and the stench of rotting fish (!) in someone’s luggage, the thought of a couple of chopsticks and a bag of tea seemed unimportant to border security and we were ushered through and out.

Realisation – the holiday was an hours flight from being over.

A transfer to DOM and up into the J lounge where we both showered and freshened up for our next short hop down to MEL. On arriving in MEL, our luggage mysteriously appeared on the belt in front of us and we were quickly waiting to be picked up by the undercover long term parking people.

A short diversion to pick the cats up, and then we were off home – holiday officially over.

 

[thewinchester]

Put simply, if there's something you can't find out about a planned trip to China that's not in this thread - its simply not worth knowing about

I've been enthralled by this trip report, hanging out for the next update as it's been that dammed good. Really appreciate all the hard work that's gone into writing it.

 

[munitalP]

Thanks thewinchester for your kind words

Additional pics from the snow and ice fest

 

[munitalP]

and some more... there are a heap more pics at kennys adventures

 

[munitalP]

Kenny, the Koala had a great adventure in China.

I would like to hand Kenny to another traveler to snap a few pics of him elsewhere in the world to get put on his website.

If anyone would care to take Kenny on an overseas trip somewhere, please let me know and I will get him to you.

I hope everyone enjoyed this trip report - I enjoyed writing it and for a change, Kim was with me seeing and doing what I was - it makes a change!

Mr!

 

[anat0l]

I hope everyone enjoyed this trip report - I enjoyed writing it and for a change, Kim was with me seeing and doing what I was - it makes a change!

I can tell you that I enjoyed reading it! Those photos from Harbin are absolutely amazing.

Kenny, the Koala had a great adventure in China.

I would like to hand Kenny to another traveler to snap a few pics of him elsewhere in the world to get put on his website.

If anyone would care to take Kenny on an overseas trip somewhere, please let me know and I will get him to you.

If I'm going anywhere exotic and we cross paths, I'd be happy to take Kenny with me.

For example, Star Mega Do 2010 is looking like a possibility