Overnight Odysseys and My Home in Harbin

With only one full day in Beijing, a group of students and I decided to go to the Temple of Heaven Park and the Pearl Market, both of which were near our hotel (relatively speaking…Beijing is HUGE). The Pearl Market was a one-stop shopping heaven, with anything you could possibly want and things you never knew you did want. Since we still had to transport our bags to Harbin, I resisted the temptation to get anything. Next we headed to the park. The Temple of Heaven was beautiful and lush and we wandered around for a while.

Entrance to the Temple of Heaven Park

One of the beautiful temples in the park

As the sun (or the rays that make it through the smog) started to fade over the Beijing sky, the CET Harbin group headed to the giant Beijing train station. We piled into a train—Z15—that would take 11 hours to get us to Harbin. It turned out that our tickets were for soft sleepers, so there were four of us to a cabin, each with our own bed, light, pillow, and storage space.

My cabin on the train. My bunk was the top right.

The soft sleeper car in our overnight train to Harbin.

I walked up and down the aisle of the car and felt like something out of a 1950s movie or a film noir. However, when I reached the end of the aisle and entered the squatter toilet stall at the end of the car, I decided that maybe this was not the place I would run into Cary Grant or Humphrey Bogart. But, with the exception of the squatter toilet, it still was quite the life of luxury.

The ride was smooth until I got my first taste of the unique Chinese time zone situation. China, despite its vast size, has only one time zone. Harbin is northeast of Beijing, so the sun rises at around 4:30AM and sets at 7:30PM. Having forgotten about this change, my cabinmates and I failed to close our shades. So as the sun rose over the beautiful countryside, I woke up at 5AM.

The rest of the ride was smooth and we arrived in Harbin promptly at 7:15. After breakfast and some briefings, we toured the Harbin Institute of Technology, or Hā Gōng Dà. The institute has about 40,000 students, so it looks like a small city.

Dorm 6: My home for the next 8 weeks.

Most buildings are several stories tall and there are restaurants, supermarkets, conveniences stores, basketball courts. EVERTYHING you could possibly need. Even better, the prices are soo cheap. We lunched at the black market, 黑市场,which is sketchy in name only. Noodles for 6 RMB? Count me in!!!

The supermarket on campus. It sells food, toothpaste, stationary, purses, tea leaves, etc... Basically anything you could possibly want.

The rest of the day was spent setting up internet, taking placement exams, and dining at a restaurant with Northeastern, or dōngběi, food since Harbin is in the northeast. Today we will continue our orientation process and finally meet our Chinese roommates, since each of us shares a double with a Chinese student. It is also my final day without a language pledge, so I have to get out all of my urges to speak in English before I am reduced to the vocabulary of a five-year-old.

再见！