Harbin Day 2

Well I am a little annoyed. My Internet connection I finally worked out is in my room does not want to work with my computer. Later a boy with glasses will hopefully show up and show me how to make it work. I suspect I may need some extra software which would be sad. I also made the point of getting a computer in this wang ba with a USB port, but it does not recognise my stick. With a bit of luck I will be on line properly soon and finally be able to upload my backlog of photos.

Today I wandered through the Russian part of town. It is very interesting. I then visited the riverside park, and stopped at the virtual geocache. Again I need to upload the photos. The shops here are almost identical to those in the west and also have similar prices. It is like Germany. There is this old building, and when you go inside you could be in Myers or David Jones in Sydney.

I crossed the river by ferry, only 2 yuan, and visited the park on the other side. This is part of the dichotomy of China. I found a place that sold real cappachinos as I was hanging out for a coffee. It cost 38 Yuan, so I did not have one. Yet the ferry was only 2. Mcdonalds to KFC would be about 20 Yuan (or less) for a meal deal. I ended up having two free coffees in the Walmart supermarket at the nescafe stall.

Back to the park. It was quite expensive to get in, but it was perhaps the best park I have visited in China. It is called Taiyangdao park. I spent many hours in there including an interesting visit to the Russian Art Gallery. I am not sure if they were open. But they sold me a ticket at half price. I joined with a tour guide an one other Chinese man. The man knew some English and translated for me. In the end I got out my Chinese dictionary and we used this to translate difficult words like Mammoth and Abstract.

On the way back, I tried to cross over the bridge. But it turned out to be a railway bridge (I did not pay enough attention to the map). I asked a group of people if I could walk across and they said I could not. So they walked me back to the ferry terminal. They turned out to be going to school, though I suspect it was university. The level of English language amongst the younger people is very impressive.