Friday, September 12, 2008

Welcome to our Neighbourhood


Welcome to our neighbourhood. This is the entrance to the courtyard of the Foreign Experts living complex. The complex also houses foreign students as well as graduate students. There are Canadians, English, Americans, Russians, Iranians, Syrians, French and a number from various french and english speaking African countries. Our apartment is located on the 15th floor and can be seen in the background. (extreme ight hand corner, 2nd floor from the top)

Nonie is standing in the courtyard ready with the mop for some serious apartment cleaning. The entrance to the building is manned twenty four hours a day and locked after 12:00 Midnight. We are told that teachers will most likely be let in but students will not be. Not a problem for us, as we are usually in bed well before then anyway. When we go out for our runs at 5:15, the guard unchains the door for us.

Our office is located in a huge building built back when the Russians were in charge. As you can see not much has changed. It is actually four different buildings that have been added to over the decades with the newest one built in the Fifties and the first in the Twenties.



The campus is quite small considering it houses over 40,000 people. It has a lovely pedestrian mall running through the middle of it. The second picture is one of many dining halls that are located on the mall. This one has three floors and can sit over 3,000 students at a time. Nonie is standing in front of the only service area on campus. There is a grocery store, our bank, copy place and some private food stalls.



Basketball seems to have caught on here. The first picture is of the 20 or 30 basketball courts located in front of the complex. The students are out there at first light till well after the sun has set. There are few lights but they continue to play in the dark. Check out the cool motto of the local security company. Words to live by.



These three wheeled delivery carts are everywhere and you would be amazed at the size of the loads that these delivery guys can peddle. They are the "go to" guys if you purchase something big and need to get it home. The last picture is the local Bike Barn outlet in Harbin. They can fix anything on two wheels. You find a lot of these entrepreneurs on the street fixing everything from cell phones to disposable lighters.
Zai Jian (good bye) from our "HOOD".















































































































































































































































































































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