Travel day to Harbin

Today i started off my day traveling to Harbin, which is only an hour and a half plane ride North East of Beijing. On the airplane we were able to watch via cameras in the front of the aircraft our take off, landing and even the ground under the plane while we were flying. We had personal TV’s in the seat backs so that we could watch TV, movies, play games, and watch the cameras the whole flight for free. The flight was good, and when we arrived at the airport and walked into the terminal we immediately had 2 Chinese women with the airline/winter Universidad meet us and started rushing us down the terminal followed by an escort of 3 police officers. I mean… It’s not like we stick out like sore thumbs or anything. Stacey stopped for a second while we were being escorted to take a picture of the posters and they freaked out! We were brought to baggage claim and the police officers cordoned off a section of the baggage belt and shoved people out of the way.

So after our little bit of royal treatment we got into a rickety van that probably dates back to the 70’s and started our scary drive 40 minutes to downtown Harbin where our hotel is located. I’m not kidding when I say this; we were going 90mph down this 3 lane road. And there were people on the side of the road everywhere sweeping the snow off the roads with wicker brooms! Our driver almost hit 2 people when he blared on the horn and avoided colliding into a car because we were going so fast. Stacey, Kate and I started laughing because it was so scary and crazy because we felt like we were going to die; Richard turned around and asked if everything was ok and if the driving was scaring us. We nodded and he told the driver to slow down, but it was still scary of course.

We checked in at the hotel and everything is fine except for the beds. I went to flop down on my bed and I felt like I had just flopped down onto a stack of wooden boards. It is very hard with little to no give but I guess it’s better than nothing. Lunch was good, we have 3 meal tickets a day so I don’t have to pay for food. The food is very different but it wasn’t as crazy as the ducks feet we all ate at the restaurant. In the afternoon we had a brief meeting and were told that we would get game assignment tomorrow (17th) and that we would have an on ice session. We found out that the women’s games for ice hockey are totally sold out and that the rink holds 5,500 people. I’m really excited/ nervous to work these games; I have never worked a hockey game with more than 300 people. We were also informed that the president of China is going to be at the University Games as well. This really is like a miniature Olympics here and everything is very nice and elaborate, if it’s one thing the Chinese know how to do, it’s putting on a show!

Later in the evening Kate and I were freezing in our room so we tried to tell the people at our hotel that it was cold in our room so I called the front desk and they handed off the phone to 3 different people because they couldn’t understand what I was saying. Finally they said they would come up and help. A lady showed up with a thermometer/Hygrometer and set it down on the table and looked around the furnace in our room. Then a gentleman came into our room and obviously didn’t understand what we wanted had a fancier thermometer/hygrometer and told us it was 26 Celsius, which we already knew because we have a thermostat on the wall and just want to work it. They stood there talking for a few minutes and then took our extra blanket out of room and said they’d be right back. Kate and I just looked at each other like, what just happened? 5 minutes later they came back with 2 down comforters even though our room feels cold I guess we will be warm when we sleep. The language barrier is obviously more extreme up here in Harbin as supposed to Beijing. Well that’s all I have for tonight, I’m going to go sleep on my wooden board (bed) now.