Our new hotel is wonderful. Run by a group of adorable women who helped us so much despite a lack of English. They explain everything in slow, measured Chinese. After last night we had barely any money, the women walked us to the nearest cashpoint that would work with our foreign cards and joked as we walked. Sam and I, for lack of a hairdryer and a desire to leave the last hotel as soon as possible, went outside with wet hair this morning. As we walked in the -25°C air our hair froze, completely stiff to the touch.
Whenever people ask me about China, one of the first things they ask, without fail, is about the pollution: 'Is it terrible?' 'Is it ever sunny?' 'Do you get ill?' In Ningbo however, I really don't notice the smog too much. There have been days when we have been issued warnings and free masks to keep us healthy, but in actual fact pollution affects me very little in Southern China. In Harbin however, we can feel the difference. Here, all heating is provided by the Party and as coal is still the main source of energy up here, the smoke pours out everywhere. I think that, added to the temperature, makes you feel like there is a heavy, cold blanket surrounding you constantly.
We spent the day walking around what we now found to be a beautiful city. Having been under Russian control around the time of WWII, much of the architecture is very European. Having to stop to regain feeling in our feet and hands, Starbucks became our new home with their perfectly situated shops at half an hour intervals. In one of these breaks, we met an Englishman called Chris who had been living here for 6 years. He had left his job in Canada for a supposedly more quiet life in China, starting off teaching he is now a psychologist with, like every foreigner, random- modelling/ acting/ teaching jobs on the side. He, not unlike other foreign men, cited his Chinese wife as the reason for his fluent Mandarin.
Walking around the city, there were ice sculptures everywhere. Many of them depicting famous people, or the treasured Harbin beer. On the river, that has totally frozen over, they have built a huge slide that takes its riders from above the river bank on a carpet whizzing to the bottom. They also built 'zones' where people could effectively play bumper cars on hover-craft-type machines or drive around in tanks. We didn't have a go, but we did walk around a maze made of ice that was still being sculpted as we tried not to get lost.
