jiayan

After another complementary breakfast, we boarded a 3.5 hour bus to Manzhouli. We found our hotel (we had already booked the rooms), dropped off our luggage, and set out to find lunch. Unfortunately the area we were in has mostly clothing shops and very few restaurants (that’s how some places in China is set up, there are specific streets for restaurants and shopping areas). We decided to go straight to 国门 (borderline to Russia) and tried to find some place to eat before going to the border. But the taxi driver recommended this other local restaurant and we had lunch there before heading to 国门. 国门 is a site where you pay 30RMB to go to the border between Manzhuli and Russia and can take pictures and buy small items. We ended up not going through the border because three of our group were not Chinese and foreigners were not allowed to go through (although technically we are all foreigners since we have an American passport) because they were worried about spies (?).

Statue in front of our hotel in Manzhuli

Where you would buy admission into 国门

The train Mao rode through Manzhouli

Group picture with the train!

We went to this giant dollhouse place instead and bought some Russian dolls and took more pictures.

Entrance to an art musuem

They had statues of zodiac - snake people minus me

China!!

Afterward, we could not decide where to go since most places were closed or did not have activities. We planned to go to this area with a big lake the next day but the taxi driver since it would not take the whole day. We ended up going there that evening and watched the sunset and moon rise again.

By the Big River

Sunset!

We went to this hotel near our hotel for dinner because they have Russian cuisine (most of Manzhuli’s residents can speak fluent Russian) and because there was supposed to be a performance.

We were too early for the performance but the hotel has a bowling alley and we bowled one and a half game (100RMB/hour).

The bowling alley - pretty nice too!

One of the team, minus Nancy

The other team, minus Nancy again..

Celebrating

Leaving the bowling alley we saw an acrobatic show in the hotel. After the performance they had a disco dance floor (which ironically Nancy has been wanting to do all day) and we danced for about 15 minutes. Colin (and it also happened to be his birthday) was very popular on the dance floor – this Chinese woman (who speaks fluent Russian) kept trying to take off his shirt, very amusing. And to continue our nightly event from Hailaer we went into a convenience store before returning to the hotel.

Taking pictures while on the dance floor

Group picture!

The next day we took a plane (only 2 hours as compared to the 30 hour train ride!) back to Beijing but we landed in the middle of nowhere (a part of Beijing we are not familiar with) and had to take a 1 hour shuttle bus to Sidan and then another 40 minute train ride back to Beida. All in all it was an adventure for the whole trip and very rewarding experience.