It has been quite some time since I indulged in a literary revelation of recent life experiences, and seeing as I'm now on vacation, I believe now is a good time to bask in the luxury of no classes.
After four months of school and with the arrival of the holiday season, staying academically motivated became increasingly more difficult. Strangely, despite the Christmas decorations spotted around Beijing and fun celebrations with close friends, it simply did not feel like the holidays, at which point I realized that such holiday spirit is truly dependent upon being around family and engaging in family traditions However, it was not the lack of a true holiday that drained my interest in school, but rather that I had become simply tired of school's routine. Nevertheless, classes came to a much anticipated though somewhat anti-climatic end with finals earlier this week, complete with plenty of studying to send off the semester of course. With ends come beginnings, and so my friends and I headed off on a trip to Harbin in northern China.
Eight hours on a comfy train and suddenly we were in a the coldest place I'd ever been. And not just cold as in, "Oh, I should put a jacket on, it's a tad chilly." No, this kind of cold is more accurately described as a force that completely takes a hold of your body, infesting your mind with nothing but thoughts about how cold it is, why it is so cold, when or if your frozen toes, fingers, cheeks and ears will possibly be warm again, and why in the world anyone would want to live in such a place. I'm quite sure that my four layers should have been enough to insult my thin blood from this vicious weather, especially when we spotted guys in jeans and t-shirts walking the streets, who didn't look a bit cold. Apparently one can get used to such temperatures.
But enough about the weather. That's not exactly why we went. No, we went for the effects of such weather, namely the snow sculptures and ice lanterns, and ended up with much more than we expected.
Our local friend who kindly met us at the train station and brought us to the hotel rooms she booked was a bit crazy, maybe only nervous, perhaps only the result of trying to make a good impression on her friend's boss, but my gosh girl! when you insist on slowly stumbling through your English even when we tell you that we can perfectly understand you if you speak Chinese and it would greatly improve the efficiency of our interactions, you do not fail to uphold that unwritten Chinese rule about saving face. Our frustration was enough to make us say goodbye after only just meeting her and take it upon ourselves to deal with everything ourselves.
This brings us to the lovely hotel she booked for us. The furnishings were quite nice, a bit modern and a little flashy, enough glitter and sparkles to put it just on the verge of being tacky or cheesy. As I was with two other girls and four boys, we ended up with three rooms and luckily no one had to sleep on the floor. No, we all indulged in the luxury of the plush beds and slept like babies every single night, as the rooms were rather quiet, and although the hotel was completely booked, we didn't see or hear many other guests in the hall ways and small lobby. However, those that we did see were mostly Chinese men, hardly any women or children. Hmmm... and that sign in the lobby displaying the room rates: honeymoon suite (complete with round bed and glass enclosed bathroom)... double room... rest room hourly rate??? How very curious! And is that basket under the minibar filled with sexual contraceptives and pleasure enhancers? Oh dear.
It all fell into place suddenly. Our friend had indeed booked us into a nice hotel, a hotel that catered the very short term visitor. We figured that this was not exactly a brothel, it was far too classy for that. No, this was probably the type of place where forbidden lovers met, the married businessman entertaining his mistress. We couldn't be quite sure of such a theory, but as if to confirm our suspicions, as we were checking out, a man had just received the keys to a room he booked for two hours. Well, that confirms that. Lesson learned: hotels with hourly rates may be a better option than your average place because the beds are sure to be comfortable and silent (memory foam instead of springs), the rooms are sure to be quiet (thicker walls so neighbors are unheard), and the rates are rather reasonable. Who woulda thought!Truthfully, I have fun out of time to elaborate on the rest of my short, cold journey, as I am heading off in precisely five minutes for a month of trekking around southern China, Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. So naturally I cannot write much more about my cold adventures, save a few thoughts...
Our bus ride to the germ warfare museum was quite eventful in that our bus (rightfully) hit another vehicle as the woman madly cut off the bus, resulting in us having to hope onto the next bus, now packed with two full buses worth of people.
The germ warfare museum (the Japanese did cruel experiments on healthy human Chinese subjects during the second world war, for the purpose of biological warfare, and ultimately destroyed the complex when they were being convicted) was depressing and strangely disappointing because nothing besides the administrative building turned museum remains standing, and there were Japanese tour groups going through it.
The snow world was, well, snowy. I just kept wondering who made all these enormous structures and how long it took.
We (finally) saw the ice lantern festival after nearly missing it the second night. We hadn't realized the park closed at 9pm, and were very disappointed about missing the famous lit ice, but luckily just before we hoped onto a sleeper bus to Beijing the next day, we got to do a loop around the park. Very pretty, worth seeing.
Okay, time to go, now. Let's see how many pictures I can load in two seconds!
Much love,
Kenzie
