After eating our brought-along instant oatmeal for breakfast, we lugged our suitcases out the door of our hotel at 5:30 and a taxi pulled up in front of us--fabulous! The driver appeared to be dropping his wife off for work and seemed as pleased to have a fare as we were to be so promptly picked up. We showed him our note in Chinese written by Charlotte, “Please, sir, take us to airport.” No worries!
At the airport, we were able to decipher the signboards (thanks, Annie) and queued up with the other waiting Chinese at the appropriate numbered check-in desk. The system is to read the signboard for your flight and go to the listed check-in desk which is not associated with any particular airline. Showing passports then retrieves a booked ticket. Even though there were others in line at the desk we chose, it was unmanned. Mark figured out another line to stand in and we got through quickly. Once through security, we bought much too expensive coffees and read until our flight was announced. Interestingly, the Chinese leap out of their seats and rush to line up when a flight is announced. They also jump up in the plane the instant the off-seatbelt sign dings and rush to see how far down the aisle they can get. A bit disconcerting for a foreigner until you get used to it.
We had a lengthy layover in Beijing but found a plug for the computer so we looked at and labeled pictures, blogged, read, and ate a little lunch while waiting. Both flights went smoothly and even served food. Arriving in Manzhouli, we scanned the crowd for Zhiyong. As promised, he was waiting with a sign bearing our names. He waved it at us--more so we could identify him than for him to identify us, I think, since we sort of stuck out in the crowd of Chinese. Zhiyong had thoughtfully hired an interpreter for us. Natalie was originally Russian but married a Chinese man and moved to Manzhouli. She spoke several languages. Zhiyong’s English is limited at this point although he plans to take intensive English when they return to Boston. Of course, our Chinese is nonexistent!! They dropped us at our hotel and left us to rest and freshen up for an hour or so.
Zhiyong then taxied us all to a very nice hot pot restaurant and the four of us lingered over a progressive dinner with Natalie being our go-between. I finally decided at this point to give up my struggle with chopsticks and asked for a fork (which I have used since). After dinner, we walked back in the direction of our hotel. Many people were out in a large plaza exercising and dancing. We were of interest mostly because we were away from the tourist area.
A bit further on, there was a show going on at a stage set up on the edge of a park. We watched modernized Chinese fan dancers and then gorgeously attired Mongolian singers and dancers before it began to rain. We caught a taxi back to the hotel and said goodnight to Zhiyong and Natalie promising to meet them for breakfast in the morning.
Manzhouli is a small city by Chinese standards--about 300,000. In its present form, it is also a very new city. There has been a city here for a long time but in the 90’s, with the liberalization of trade, it started growing due to its proximity to Russia. It is now China’s largest inland port. The city itself suddenly sprouts from the middle of the prairie surrounding it. The boundaries are quite distinct--city, country. The main city is home to almost entirely modern high rise buildings of 5-8 floors and a few of some 30 stories. The buildings are an array of amazing colors--canary yellow, bright pink, deep coral, burnt orange, robin’s egg blue and spring green. One of the young women in Charlotte’s family commented delightedly that she felt like she was in a foreign country! We did also see a few poorer neighborhoods on the outskirts of town that were composed of single story dwellings on long dirt alleys. The city was filled with cars and trucks but also bicyclists and occasional bicycle-powered carts. We only saw a rare donkey-pulled wagon.
Our hotel was situated on a long pedestrian mall intersected by very busy streets. Every night loud music played and crowds gathered to watch (paid? we wondered) graceful couples ballroom dancing in a circle to the music. We would lean out our large fifth-floor window to watch. At night, the entire street and surrounding area was aglow with Las Vegas-like bright neon lights. Thankfully, our room had very good sound-proofing windows although I slept with earplugs nightly anyway. One unexpected thing was that the hotel required us to leave our passports with them. When they opened the locked drawer it was full of…..Russian passports.
As I mentioned, Manzhouli is right on the Russian border. It is also filled with Russian tourists. Most of the street hawkers would start talking Russian to us and look at us in baffled amazement when we responded, “English” or “American”. Apparently, one very big seller with the Russian tourists is fur anything--coats, capes, hats, scarves. Natalie commented that even with airfare costs from Moscow figured in, the fur apparel items are two thirds the cost that they are in Russian.
I must also report that Manzhouli has been HOT! We brought warmer clothes with us for naught! All that added luggage weight.
No comments:
Post a Comment