Is that the moon?

"My hometown is a 28 hour train ride from Nanjing."

My friend 宇琦 mentioned this my first week in China. (宇琦 was 康凯's roommate during our study abroad program in Nanjing, China. Each student from the States was placed with a student from China.) How does anyone spend that much time on a train without going stir crazy?  Little did I know that four months later I would clock a 56 hour travel time adventure from Cambodia to Laos (and love every second. Kathryn, admit it. It was fun.) Now I love long train rides because I just sleep or journal the entire time.  One of my favorite parts of our Southeast Asia trip was talking with Kathryn on the buses. It is true that it didn't matter where you are as long as you are in good company.

Many months ago, 宇琦 mentioned he wanted to show us  his hometown and take us to the Harbin Ice Festival. I don't particularly like the cold or fare well in it so I originally wasn't planning on going. I got hit by a case of fomo so I agreed to tag along. In total there were seven of us (brave enough/foolish enough) going to face the cold.

After taking two days in Nanjing to recover from our Southeast Asia adventure, 康凯 and I hopped on a sleeper train to Shenyang.

As my friend Bri says, "Shenyang is a hardship post for a reason."

I have never been in such a polluted city. Yes, it was worse than Beijing. One day, we took a two and a half hour bus ride from Shenyang to go skiing. When I was with my friend J.R. on the slopes, I pointed to the sky.

"J.R., you can see the moon!"
"Kat, that's the sun. Do you remember seeing a full moon last night?"

Oops.


The smog is unreal. He had to convince me that the gray circular object in the sky was the sun. Soon after it quickly disappeared behind thick blankets of smog.

I had a discussion with 宇琦 about the pollution.
Me: "沈阳的污染很差!"
宇琦: "不是, 我们的空气很差, 我们的污染很利害."

Me: Shenyang's pollution is terrible.
宇琦: Incorrect. Shenyang's air quality is terrible. Our pollution is intense!
(Sorry, that last part is hard to translate. Please tell me if you can offer a better translation.)

Despite the pollution, I was glad to be there. My friend 宇琦 brought along his friend and they were fantastic hosts. I love having locals take me around their city. I think it is one of the best ways to travel.

Shenyang is close to the North Korean border. 宇琦 knows I've been itching to go.
"可欣, you could walk over but the guards will probably be really confused about why someone is sneaking in. When people come to Shenyang when they sneak out of North Korea."

After three days in Shenyang, we took a short train ride to Harbin. Many people warned me about the cold. It is just a sneeze away from Russia. The cold ain't so bad if you are wearing a SARS face mask, two parkas, two pairs of socks, three hats, and three pairs of pants. I felt like a fluffy marshmallow. Have you and a friend ever faced each other while holding stability balls and run into each other at full speed? Yeah, we played that game on the streets without the balls. I didn't mind the cold probably because we were only there for two days.

The first day, we walked down the main shopping street. I got giddy with excitement because I knew that the ice sculptures that lined the street was just a teaser of what we were about to see at the ice festival.


So, at many attractions and museums around the world flashing a student id will get you a nice discount. At the festival, the difference in cost between a student ticket and general admission was 180 RMB (29 USD). The entrance fee is absurdly expensive (but absolutely worth it).
We showed the staff our student ids and all of the Chinese students from our group got in but all of the Americans were denied entry.Our student ids didn't have expiration dates so they didn't believe we were still students.

We stood there futily arguing with them. Nobody wanted to pay for the regular ticket. Then, someone (Maggie?) had the idea to use smartphones to get online to prove our enrollment. They let me in after I showed them my grades from senior year. Two of my friends (JR and Maggie) were still stuck on the other side of the turnstile. I graduated from college and got in. Those two were legitimately still students.

J.R. tried everything and could not get in. I found a LinkedIn account of someone by the same name that was an alumnus of the same university. Sure, the guy now was a COO of a bank now but I didn't show the guards that part of the page. They somehow bought it. I like to think I'm sneaky and convincing and not that the staff just have in after hearing us nag and argue for over an hour.

one of the many slides

How do you describe this place? It was a winter wonderland. Unreal. And so China. There was an Angry Birds park. China loves them some Angry Birds. There were slides, castles, sculptures, and a smurf park.

Drinking Harbins in Harbin under a Harbin

Angry Birds Park

There were food vendors scattered thought the park. There is a watery tasting Chinese beer made in Harbin called Harbin. I asked one of the shop keepers if I could take a Harbin to go. Why nobody else in the park didn't do it is beyond me. (Hope that wasn't illegal.) I asked for a cold beer but they only had "room temp." Good thing it's below freezing.

Our eyelashes kept freezing together.

I tried to take pictures and video but my phone kept shutting off. My camera lens froze. Electronics (and humans) do not function properly when it's that cold.


The next day we went to a robot restaurant for lunch. Robots cook some of the dishes and bring the food to your table. We thought it would be more robot less human automated than it was but it was still neat.   Robots + food. What more can you ask for?

Soon after lunch JR and I headed to the train station. Poor thing was sick and we had a 30 something hour train ride home to Nanjing. Delays ended up adding four hours to our train ride. At the beginning of our ride I was feeling a bit sick too. (Sharing food is bad! But not really. I do it all the time. Sharing is caring.) During our 34 hour ride, I slept 30 hours only waking up from my fever.

Three things I'm grateful for:
1. Having local hosts-宇琦and his friend were so wonderful. They helped arrange hostels and train tickets. 宇琦's friend also bought my plane ticket to Taiwan and Hong Kong. When you use Chinese sites, you have to pay with a Chinese credit card. Good thing or I else would be on taobao all the time.

2. Before I left my Chinese tutor was worried I didn't have enough clothes. She insisted I borrow a jacket. I wore her parka inside of mine. She also bought me a packet of heat packs. They are like hand warners but you stick a patch to your shirt.
3. Skiing for cheap-When Lanier, Kris, Sam and I went indoor skiing in Seoul they had a 50% off foreigner discount. In Shenyang we happened to go on ladies day. Each man can bring a lady to ski for free.

I am so proud this post is up less than two months after my last post. My next post should be up this week. I'm catching up!

I hope y'all have a fantastic week!