Andrew Aigner-MuehlerChapter 16..My weekend away to Harbin and Dandong
April 13th 2009 01:30
Another weekend has just gone by, and I have just taken another weekend trip. This time too Harbin.
I was lucky enough to have a five day break from my teaching duties. The students had exams on the Thursday and Friday, meaning that I had no classes for those two days. Already, I have a three day break, and for the living life of me, I was not going to sit around Chengde for five days and be bored. So, I jumped on the train at 06:53 am Thursday morning to Shenyang costing 110 rmb for a hard sleeper. Most of this journey, I did lie down, as I have seen this part of the country before, as I have already traveled it twice.
At 19:21pm I arrived in Shenyang, and I had to move quickly to purchase a ticket to Harbin. I was hoping to depart at 20:50pm from Shenyang in a hard sleeper, but after a half an hour at the ticket booth, as already mentioned in a previous chapter that people in Shenyang are not the friendliest towards foreigners, they will rather turn their heads and laugh at you, hoping that you will go away, on this occasion it was no different. The supervisor for the shift finally came over, and apparently there were no trains going out for the rest of the night with a spare seat whether it was soft seat or hard seat neither did they have a spare sleeper whether it was soft or hard. If you look at the train timetable on the net for trains between Shenyang and Harbin, there is one or two an hour. I ended up paying 38rmb for a ticket which I had to stand for the whole trip. The train trip goes for 6 hours and 54 minutes. Anyway, I boarded the train. Passengers who were already on the train, possibly from Beijing let me share the corner of the seat with them, but it was uncomfortable, so I stood up for an hour or so, and then that was tiring. I decided to sit down on the ground in the aisle way, but every two minutes I was getting up to let someone by. I could see other passengers who also did not have a seating ticket; they were lying on newspapers on the floor, of which some were lying underneath the seat. After 15 or so minutes, luckily the carriage captain (conductor) felt pity for a foreigner not having a seat, so he took me to the conductor’s room at the end of the carriage where they sit, and I sat in there for the rest of the trip, with the window open, and with my head down on the table. Believe it or not, the time went fast. It would have been more comfortable than sitting in a hard seat. For half of that time, I also shared a seat with three other Chinese people, which I did not mind. Every time a Chinese person walked past the room, they gave me a smile and a nod (you know that ‘oh yeah, alright’ smile).
At 03:44am Friday morning the train arrived in Harbin. I walked out of the station, jumped into a taxi after a bit of bartering, of which did not work. I had to keep on telling the taxi driver, in Chinese the address, where I wanted to go. For those of you, who have been to Harbin, and the ones who are planning to go. Harbin has a lot of one way roads; you may think the driver is lapping the block. The taxi will take side streets, of which how a car or bus can go down them is another thing, these side streets are bumpy like an off-track in the Australian country, and I mean bumpy, holes and ditches everywhere. I had planned to stay at the YHA Harbin Little Fir International Youth Hostel which says on the website it is at 33 Xue Fu road. After a couple of phone calls, and a couple of times driving up and down the road we finally found it. It is situated 100 metres of Xue Fu road. The taxi cost my 34rmb by the metre. The taxi driver did say before hand 30rmb to me, but did not charge me. If we did not lap the block a few times looking for the hostel, it would have cost 27rmb.
This hostel is the only hostel in Harbin. Even so, it is also a 20 minute bus ride from the railway station on bus number 343 costing either 1 or 2 rmb, depending on the bus driver, the hostel is quite centrally located to catch buses to each of the tourist attractions. Every bus, which passes the hostel, goes to one of the tourist attractions. For example, bus #67 and 85 goes to the Siberian Tiger Park, bus #106 goes to the south of the city where the church of St Sophia is and all of the Russian styled architecture buildings are. Bus #203 goes to the Dragon tower. Bus #88 goes to Sun Island. Bus #343 also goes to the site of the Japanese 731 army unit. The hostel is a 15 minute walk from the bar street of the north. If you walk out of the hostel. Turn left at the main road (Xue Fu road). Walk to the intersection where KFC is on the corner (Bar Street). Turn right. Along this road on the right hand side you will see half a dozen bars and/ or KTVs. Just off, bar street and behind these bars you will find a wicked food night market where you can get a cheap bite to eat. This is around a 10 to 15 minute walk from the hostel.
The reason for going to Harbin was to visit the Japanese 731 army unit museum which is around a 20 minute bus ride from the hostel (going right and out of town) in Pingfang. If you like me, you will not know what to look for. It is almost where the bus number 343 terminates. If you have a good conductor on board, they will look after you and stop the bus at the museum. The bus cost me 1rmb there, but 2rmb coming back, don’t ask me why. Once at the museum, I walked into the building by the gate to pay my 20rmb admission which I expected. The lady behind the counter will ask you for your passport (don’t forget to take it). She will look at the photo page. Then she said to me, “oh it is free for you”. This is great. You walk in through the gate; show the ticket to the man at the gate. Once you get to the building, a girl will take that ticket from you, and then you enter. It is one big building, with a series of smaller rooms on the top floor where you start and then more on the ground floor where you end before heading out the back to. The museum has all of its captions in Chinese and English. The museum is home of the secret Japanese research establishment during world war two. This is where prisoners of war were injected with deadly viruses, dissected alive and heated slowly until they died by the troops of unit 731 of the Japanese army. I am not a history buff, or into wars and that, but Pingfang is a must place to visit while in Harbin. While in the building, you will tend to feel a bit cold and get a few shivers, and you soon realize why the Chinese have little respect for the Japanese. After visiting Pingfang, I also have little respect for the Japanese, and even so the Americans for letting this happen when they knew about it.
Once I left Pingfang, I took bus 343 straight into the city where it terminated at the railway station, and walked to the north of the city where the church of St Sophia is. The church of St Sophia is a Russian Orthodox Church situated on Zhaolin Jie, about a 15 minute walk from the railway station. Situated by the church, you will find a lot of underground shopping malls, which were bomb shelters in the years gone by. Here you will also find good places to get something to eat. Once eaten, walk in a northerly direction towards the Songhua River for about 5 to 10 minutes you will past Zhaolin Park, this is where the Ice lantern festival is in the winter time. Luckily, I was able to see a bit of what it may have looked like in the winter with a three quarter of it still remaining and not yet melted. Walking further on for another 5 minutes you will come to the Songhua river, which in the winter time is hard enough they use it as a highway for trucks. On this visit, it was still three quarters frozen, but not hard enough to walk across. Walk to the left for a few minutes you will come across the Flood Control Monument. After standing on the shore line for a while and looking over at the other side and seeing the cable car going over the river and the boats which are all tied up on top of the ice, I say this part of town will be very pictures come July. I am not a fan of the cold, hence not coming here in January or February for the Ice and Snow festival. I noticed with my time just walking around Harbin, I did not see any western tourist or foreigners. It is April, the weather was perfect for one and a half days, where it was 24 degrees Celsius, and the city was thriving. A city usually has more going for it, in the summer time, and I think this city does, but it is just because the ice and snow festival is the draw card. I suggest coming up here in July, if you are like me and hate the cold.
Anyway, if you start to walk south back into the direction of the railway station from the flood control monument, you will walk down Zhongyang Dajie. This is the main shopping district and street. Around here you will find some really beautiful pieces of Russian styled architecture. Spend a bit of time around here, soaking in the buildings. You will also come across a couple large department stores around Zhaolin Jie by the church of St Sophia, which basically sit on a square of themselves.
Once back at the railway station, if you walk in a south easterly directly, straight down the road opposite the front door of the railway station, and walk for 10 minutes you will come to a large intersection which will have statues of ice skaters and also a monument dedicated to the Russians (of which I can not tell what it was about, as it was in Russian). From there, if you walk down the street in a north easterly direction, you will come across half a dozen blocks of shops, but if you take a slow 30 minute walk, you will come across the giant Ferris wheel, which was not in use when I was in Harbin, as well as a giant gold Buddha. This is a nice part of town. If you got the time, take a walk down to here. I tried to catch a bus back to the railway station, but unfortunately, no one could tell me how to get back by bus, so I walked back.
I should also warn you too, while in Harbin, you get a local coming up to you wanting to practice their English and to become your friend. They will offer to walk around with you, and tell you things about their city. These people are translators and tour guides; they have a section of the city where they work in. They will try to get you to go to certain tourist attractions. I think they get a commission for whom they get along there. After a while, if they see, that you are not interested and are not going, they will leave you. This happened to me.
In Harbin, they will say the Dragon TV tower is a place that you should go too. I took a bus number 203 there from Xue Fu road, from the hostel. It is a 40 minute bus journey, way out of town, on the east side. Besides the tower there are only offices out there, nothing else. The day I went out there to see the tower it was very smoggy in the morning, and in the afternoon it was rainy. I did not go up there, due to the smog, as you would not be able to see much. It is a tower, that at its peak is 336 metres high, but the viewing platform is at 181 metres. It will cost you 90rmb to go up.
In one of my previous chapters where I visited Dandong and Shenyang, I mentioned that I received a formatting message on my memory card of my camera, which I thought I lost all of my photos. While in Chengde, I tried to retrieve the photos back by going along to photos shops and emailing Kodak and that without any luck. This visit to Harbin, has paid off, I entered a photo shop100 metres down the road, straight in front of the railway station, I handed the girl my memory card, after 10 minutes or so and checking out the A to H drives, the girl retrieved all photos that I had taken on the disk, and saved them to a disk for me. Yeah it cost me 70rmb, but it was worth it. I got back memories that I thought I had lost. So, maybe this trip to Harbin I will remember for all the wrong reason, and not for Harbin it self.
Late on the evening of my second day in Harbin, I boarded a train to Dandong. I left at 20:40pm, it cost me 117rmb for a hard sleeper. It was a night service, so I slept all of the way, until I awoke at 6 in the morning, just before my arrival into Dandong at 09:08am.
As previously mentioned Dandong is where you can exit China and enter North Korea, if you are lucky. You can be put off by reading books that Dandong is a small place, but that is far from the truth. It is quite a large town which is a pleasant weekend away. It is a nice town by the water. I initially booked to come back here to take photos of the things that I thought I had lost, but with retrieving my photos it gave me a chance to visit the museum ‘Cenotaph of the war to resist U.S aggression and aid Korea’, of which is a 5 minute bus journey in a north westerly direction from the train station. If you jump on bus number 104 (1rmb) from the train station. The bus will turn left on to Shiwei Lu. It will then turn left, then turn right, and then turn left again. Get off at the first stop, which will also have a service station on that corner. Walk down that road, cross over the railway tracks, and then turn left at the main road. Walk past the Amway shop on the left, cross the road, buy a drink, and walk another 3 minutes. You will come across car park markings on the road and then see the entrance to the museum. Half way up the hill, I lost count of how many steps there were. This was the time, I needed a drink. I was puffed. Once at the top, walk inside and pay your 15rmb entrance fee. The first hall, which will have the tower that you viewed from the bottom of the hill, has 13 rooms of photos etc, but the captions are all in Chinese or Korean. Nine of the rooms are above each other. You will have a steep climb on each of the stairs to get to the net floor, but once you are up the top of the tower from the viewing platform, the 15rmb is money worth spent. You have a 360 degree view of Dandong, of which you can see North Korea from a distance too. Once you make it down from the tower, and walk out side. There is a paddock full off old artillery and planes that was used in the Korean War. You can view from the platform for nothing or you can wander amongst for 5rmb. To the right of the main entrance and the tower you have another building, which confused me, if I had to pay or not. The window says 50rmb entrance fee but no one took any money from me, so I entered for nothing. The building has 8 halls of photos, weapons, clothing, vehicles, artillery, documents etc from the Korean War. Each item has an English caption. Even if you have to pay 50rmb, it is money worth spending. You can easily spend 3 hours in just this building looking at everything, but I only had 2 hours for the whole museum, so I quickly rushed through it, but still tried to read most of the captions. I would have liked to stay an extra hour here.
Over my two recent visits here in Dandong, it has been money worth spent. This town is a must to come too.
For a quick bite before you board the train to go to your net destination, pop across the road from the train station and on the left hand side of the road you will get a cheap bite to eat. Dumpling soup for 5rmb or fried noodles for 1rmb.
At 13:10pm, I board the overnight train to Chengde which surprisingly cost me 196rmb for a hard sleeper. A little more than I expected.
I was lucky enough to have a five day break from my teaching duties. The students had exams on the Thursday and Friday, meaning that I had no classes for those two days. Already, I have a three day break, and for the living life of me, I was not going to sit around Chengde for five days and be bored. So, I jumped on the train at 06:53 am Thursday morning to Shenyang costing 110 rmb for a hard sleeper. Most of this journey, I did lie down, as I have seen this part of the country before, as I have already traveled it twice.
Japanese research establishment meseum, Pingfang
At 19:21pm I arrived in Shenyang, and I had to move quickly to purchase a ticket to Harbin. I was hoping to depart at 20:50pm from Shenyang in a hard sleeper, but after a half an hour at the ticket booth, as already mentioned in a previous chapter that people in Shenyang are not the friendliest towards foreigners, they will rather turn their heads and laugh at you, hoping that you will go away, on this occasion it was no different. The supervisor for the shift finally came over, and apparently there were no trains going out for the rest of the night with a spare seat whether it was soft seat or hard seat neither did they have a spare sleeper whether it was soft or hard. If you look at the train timetable on the net for trains between Shenyang and Harbin, there is one or two an hour. I ended up paying 38rmb for a ticket which I had to stand for the whole trip. The train trip goes for 6 hours and 54 minutes. Anyway, I boarded the train. Passengers who were already on the train, possibly from Beijing let me share the corner of the seat with them, but it was uncomfortable, so I stood up for an hour or so, and then that was tiring. I decided to sit down on the ground in the aisle way, but every two minutes I was getting up to let someone by. I could see other passengers who also did not have a seating ticket; they were lying on newspapers on the floor, of which some were lying underneath the seat. After 15 or so minutes, luckily the carriage captain (conductor) felt pity for a foreigner not having a seat, so he took me to the conductor’s room at the end of the carriage where they sit, and I sat in there for the rest of the trip, with the window open, and with my head down on the table. Believe it or not, the time went fast. It would have been more comfortable than sitting in a hard seat. For half of that time, I also shared a seat with three other Chinese people, which I did not mind. Every time a Chinese person walked past the room, they gave me a smile and a nod (you know that ‘oh yeah, alright’ smile).
Church of St. Sophia, Harbin
Flood Control Monument, Harbin
At 03:44am Friday morning the train arrived in Harbin. I walked out of the station, jumped into a taxi after a bit of bartering, of which did not work. I had to keep on telling the taxi driver, in Chinese the address, where I wanted to go. For those of you, who have been to Harbin, and the ones who are planning to go. Harbin has a lot of one way roads; you may think the driver is lapping the block. The taxi will take side streets, of which how a car or bus can go down them is another thing, these side streets are bumpy like an off-track in the Australian country, and I mean bumpy, holes and ditches everywhere. I had planned to stay at the YHA Harbin Little Fir International Youth Hostel which says on the website it is at 33 Xue Fu road. After a couple of phone calls, and a couple of times driving up and down the road we finally found it. It is situated 100 metres of Xue Fu road. The taxi cost my 34rmb by the metre. The taxi driver did say before hand 30rmb to me, but did not charge me. If we did not lap the block a few times looking for the hostel, it would have cost 27rmb.
This hostel is the only hostel in Harbin. Even so, it is also a 20 minute bus ride from the railway station on bus number 343 costing either 1 or 2 rmb, depending on the bus driver, the hostel is quite centrally located to catch buses to each of the tourist attractions. Every bus, which passes the hostel, goes to one of the tourist attractions. For example, bus #67 and 85 goes to the Siberian Tiger Park, bus #106 goes to the south of the city where the church of St Sophia is and all of the Russian styled architecture buildings are. Bus #203 goes to the Dragon tower. Bus #88 goes to Sun Island. Bus #343 also goes to the site of the Japanese 731 army unit. The hostel is a 15 minute walk from the bar street of the north. If you walk out of the hostel. Turn left at the main road (Xue Fu road). Walk to the intersection where KFC is on the corner (Bar Street). Turn right. Along this road on the right hand side you will see half a dozen bars and/ or KTVs. Just off, bar street and behind these bars you will find a wicked food night market where you can get a cheap bite to eat. This is around a 10 to 15 minute walk from the hostel.
Zhongyang dajie, Harbin
The reason for going to Harbin was to visit the Japanese 731 army unit museum which is around a 20 minute bus ride from the hostel (going right and out of town) in Pingfang. If you like me, you will not know what to look for. It is almost where the bus number 343 terminates. If you have a good conductor on board, they will look after you and stop the bus at the museum. The bus cost me 1rmb there, but 2rmb coming back, don’t ask me why. Once at the museum, I walked into the building by the gate to pay my 20rmb admission which I expected. The lady behind the counter will ask you for your passport (don’t forget to take it). She will look at the photo page. Then she said to me, “oh it is free for you”. This is great. You walk in through the gate; show the ticket to the man at the gate. Once you get to the building, a girl will take that ticket from you, and then you enter. It is one big building, with a series of smaller rooms on the top floor where you start and then more on the ground floor where you end before heading out the back to. The museum has all of its captions in Chinese and English. The museum is home of the secret Japanese research establishment during world war two. This is where prisoners of war were injected with deadly viruses, dissected alive and heated slowly until they died by the troops of unit 731 of the Japanese army. I am not a history buff, or into wars and that, but Pingfang is a must place to visit while in Harbin. While in the building, you will tend to feel a bit cold and get a few shivers, and you soon realize why the Chinese have little respect for the Japanese. After visiting Pingfang, I also have little respect for the Japanese, and even so the Americans for letting this happen when they knew about it.
Once I left Pingfang, I took bus 343 straight into the city where it terminated at the railway station, and walked to the north of the city where the church of St Sophia is. The church of St Sophia is a Russian Orthodox Church situated on Zhaolin Jie, about a 15 minute walk from the railway station. Situated by the church, you will find a lot of underground shopping malls, which were bomb shelters in the years gone by. Here you will also find good places to get something to eat. Once eaten, walk in a northerly direction towards the Songhua River for about 5 to 10 minutes you will past Zhaolin Park, this is where the Ice lantern festival is in the winter time. Luckily, I was able to see a bit of what it may have looked like in the winter with a three quarter of it still remaining and not yet melted. Walking further on for another 5 minutes you will come to the Songhua river, which in the winter time is hard enough they use it as a highway for trucks. On this visit, it was still three quarters frozen, but not hard enough to walk across. Walk to the left for a few minutes you will come across the Flood Control Monument. After standing on the shore line for a while and looking over at the other side and seeing the cable car going over the river and the boats which are all tied up on top of the ice, I say this part of town will be very pictures come July. I am not a fan of the cold, hence not coming here in January or February for the Ice and Snow festival. I noticed with my time just walking around Harbin, I did not see any western tourist or foreigners. It is April, the weather was perfect for one and a half days, where it was 24 degrees Celsius, and the city was thriving. A city usually has more going for it, in the summer time, and I think this city does, but it is just because the ice and snow festival is the draw card. I suggest coming up here in July, if you are like me and hate the cold.
Anyway, if you start to walk south back into the direction of the railway station from the flood control monument, you will walk down Zhongyang Dajie. This is the main shopping district and street. Around here you will find some really beautiful pieces of Russian styled architecture. Spend a bit of time around here, soaking in the buildings. You will also come across a couple large department stores around Zhaolin Jie by the church of St Sophia, which basically sit on a square of themselves.
Once back at the railway station, if you walk in a south easterly directly, straight down the road opposite the front door of the railway station, and walk for 10 minutes you will come to a large intersection which will have statues of ice skaters and also a monument dedicated to the Russians (of which I can not tell what it was about, as it was in Russian). From there, if you walk down the street in a north easterly direction, you will come across half a dozen blocks of shops, but if you take a slow 30 minute walk, you will come across the giant Ferris wheel, which was not in use when I was in Harbin, as well as a giant gold Buddha. This is a nice part of town. If you got the time, take a walk down to here. I tried to catch a bus back to the railway station, but unfortunately, no one could tell me how to get back by bus, so I walked back.
I should also warn you too, while in Harbin, you get a local coming up to you wanting to practice their English and to become your friend. They will offer to walk around with you, and tell you things about their city. These people are translators and tour guides; they have a section of the city where they work in. They will try to get you to go to certain tourist attractions. I think they get a commission for whom they get along there. After a while, if they see, that you are not interested and are not going, they will leave you. This happened to me.
In Harbin, they will say the Dragon TV tower is a place that you should go too. I took a bus number 203 there from Xue Fu road, from the hostel. It is a 40 minute bus journey, way out of town, on the east side. Besides the tower there are only offices out there, nothing else. The day I went out there to see the tower it was very smoggy in the morning, and in the afternoon it was rainy. I did not go up there, due to the smog, as you would not be able to see much. It is a tower, that at its peak is 336 metres high, but the viewing platform is at 181 metres. It will cost you 90rmb to go up.
Cenograph of the War to Resist U.S Aggression and Aid Korea
In one of my previous chapters where I visited Dandong and Shenyang, I mentioned that I received a formatting message on my memory card of my camera, which I thought I lost all of my photos. While in Chengde, I tried to retrieve the photos back by going along to photos shops and emailing Kodak and that without any luck. This visit to Harbin, has paid off, I entered a photo shop100 metres down the road, straight in front of the railway station, I handed the girl my memory card, after 10 minutes or so and checking out the A to H drives, the girl retrieved all photos that I had taken on the disk, and saved them to a disk for me. Yeah it cost me 70rmb, but it was worth it. I got back memories that I thought I had lost. So, maybe this trip to Harbin I will remember for all the wrong reason, and not for Harbin it self.
Late on the evening of my second day in Harbin, I boarded a train to Dandong. I left at 20:40pm, it cost me 117rmb for a hard sleeper. It was a night service, so I slept all of the way, until I awoke at 6 in the morning, just before my arrival into Dandong at 09:08am.
As previously mentioned Dandong is where you can exit China and enter North Korea, if you are lucky. You can be put off by reading books that Dandong is a small place, but that is far from the truth. It is quite a large town which is a pleasant weekend away. It is a nice town by the water. I initially booked to come back here to take photos of the things that I thought I had lost, but with retrieving my photos it gave me a chance to visit the museum ‘Cenotaph of the war to resist U.S aggression and aid Korea’, of which is a 5 minute bus journey in a north westerly direction from the train station. If you jump on bus number 104 (1rmb) from the train station. The bus will turn left on to Shiwei Lu. It will then turn left, then turn right, and then turn left again. Get off at the first stop, which will also have a service station on that corner. Walk down that road, cross over the railway tracks, and then turn left at the main road. Walk past the Amway shop on the left, cross the road, buy a drink, and walk another 3 minutes. You will come across car park markings on the road and then see the entrance to the museum. Half way up the hill, I lost count of how many steps there were. This was the time, I needed a drink. I was puffed. Once at the top, walk inside and pay your 15rmb entrance fee. The first hall, which will have the tower that you viewed from the bottom of the hill, has 13 rooms of photos etc, but the captions are all in Chinese or Korean. Nine of the rooms are above each other. You will have a steep climb on each of the stairs to get to the net floor, but once you are up the top of the tower from the viewing platform, the 15rmb is money worth spent. You have a 360 degree view of Dandong, of which you can see North Korea from a distance too. Once you make it down from the tower, and walk out side. There is a paddock full off old artillery and planes that was used in the Korean War. You can view from the platform for nothing or you can wander amongst for 5rmb. To the right of the main entrance and the tower you have another building, which confused me, if I had to pay or not. The window says 50rmb entrance fee but no one took any money from me, so I entered for nothing. The building has 8 halls of photos, weapons, clothing, vehicles, artillery, documents etc from the Korean War. Each item has an English caption. Even if you have to pay 50rmb, it is money worth spending. You can easily spend 3 hours in just this building looking at everything, but I only had 2 hours for the whole museum, so I quickly rushed through it, but still tried to read most of the captions. I would have liked to stay an extra hour here.
View of Dandong from the tower
Over my two recent visits here in Dandong, it has been money worth spent. This town is a must to come too.
For a quick bite before you board the train to go to your net destination, pop across the road from the train station and on the left hand side of the road you will get a cheap bite to eat. Dumpling soup for 5rmb or fried noodles for 1rmb.
The paddock full of planes and artillery behind the Cenotaph of the War to Resist U.S Aggression and Aid korea museum
At 13:10pm, I board the overnight train to Chengde which surprisingly cost me 196rmb for a hard sleeper. A little more than I expected.
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