Take Two and Call Me In The Morning

An exciting weekend was enjoyed by the foreign teachers. Thanks to the HIT Foreign Affairs Department we were treated to a full day of sight seeing. Starting early we headed out to our first stop, a pharmaceutical factory located on the outskirts of Haerbin. The company is one of China's largest manufacturers of traditional and herbal medicines along with standard drugs whose names I could recognize. Pictures were not allowed in most areas but I managed to capture a few candid moments. The biggest thrill for me was a tour of the steam plant. Too cool! Coal fired and the cleanest plant I have ever seen. Tried to talk with the shift engineers but they would not let me into the control room. A huge bird cage filled with chirping birds and a shallow pond filled with fish and water lilies was located in the centre of the boiler room floor. If the fish and birds lived then the air and water was considered safe to release and if not then ???? Saves the problem of all those pesky air and water quality tests.

Our next stop was the small town of Acheng. Over a thousand years ago this area was the capital for the Jin dynasty. The Chinese have built a stylish museum to display the various artifacts that have been recovered from the area. You can still see remnants of the earthen wall that surrounded the ancient City. The Jin ruled from approximately 1000 to 1240 AD. Ghengis Khan's rise to power concided with the Jin Dynasty's disappearance. We had lunch in a small roadside diner near the museum. The menu offered traditional Heilongjiang village dishes not available in the big city. One chicken dish was especially tasty and enjoyed by all. That is until the head of a chicken floated up to the top and stared at us for the rest of the lunch.

Back on the bus and back to Haerbin for a visit to the Jewish museum, the Haerbin New Synagogue built in the 1920's. Haerbin was home to a large population of Jews that emigrated from Russia over the previous 20 years to escape the various pograms that were inflicted on them during this period. It was eventually home to over 50, ooo. Like immigrant Jews everywhere, they flourished in their new home building schools, businesses and finally the synagogue. Forced emigration in the fifties saw most travel to the newly created country of Israel. The building was designated a museum in 2004 and has been meticulously renovated to its original condition. Since then, many Jews have returned to visit and to reconnect with family who were buried here.

The highlight of our trip was a visit to the Siberian Tiger Park. The park was established to save the Manchurian tigers from extinction. The tigers have been declared an endangered species with an estimated population of less than 400 tigers remaining in the wild. The park also has a large number of lions in residence as well. The park is quite large, broken up by fenced compounds. Each compound contains a small number of tigers or lions. We were told that the park has over 800 animals in residence with about 200 allowed to roam in the various compounds. The tour was carried out from the safety of a bus which roared us around the park, stopping to provide quick photo ops of the tigers and lions. We were then dropped off at an elevated walkway that meandered through some smaller compounds containing dozens of tigers. They mostly ignored us, playing with each other or just lazing about with bored expressions on their faces. Close up, they are just over sized kitty cats only with paws the size of baseball mitts and claws the size of butcher knives. They rough housed with each other just like little kittens do, emitting a low growl with lots of bass. Definitely not a purrrr! If was quite cold so we did not spend a lot of time in the walkway. We will definitely return when the weather is warmer.