Central Street

I was holding out on writing the first blog post of the new year. It’s a whole new year, a fresh slate, this blog post carries a lot of weight. I’ve been waiting the past few days for something ‘inspirational’ or out of the ordinary to talk about. I’ve been waiting to be struck with Zeus’s lightning bolt of creativity. Of course, this lightning bolt wouldn’t actually hurt, it would be made of rainbows and sparkles, but it would have the same “zap” effect as all other lightning bolts.

I don’t think I’ve been hit with a lightning bolt by any means, but our team has done some things that are pretty blog worthy. We took a day trip down to Central Street yesterday. In Harbin, Central Street is where a ton of shops and prime shopping and markets are centralized (I’m talking Nike, Reebok, Starbucks). Upon looking at ground level, one would almost think they’re in NYC. However, looking upward you can’t help but notice the Russian architecture all over the place; it’s really quite exquisite. We were pleasantly surprised to learn that the day we decided to visit was the Harbin Ice Festival Opening Day Celebrations. This meant that there was dancing in the streets, Chinese flag dancers, Chinese dragons and lots and lots of people, performances, and dancing. It was quite a special treat for us. We ran errands the majority of the day as well as enjoyed dinner at a Russian restaurant {a very…hearty…meal}. We finished the night with some good ‘ole fashioned KTV. [For those of you who don’t know, KTV is something similar to karaoke, but it’s more like karaoke on crack. You buy a room with just you and your friends, pick your songs, pick up a microphone, set the strobe lights and away you go!]

There are two crucial lessons and observations that I think I learned yesterday.

Lesson #1: White people are fascinating. Walking along Central Street yesterday I was exposed to more white people that I have seen combined these past 5 months. I found myself continually staring at them, so curious about their choice of clothes, their hairstyles, and their accents. If the probability of them being Russian wasn’t so high, I would have walked up to them and asked “what’s your story? Why are you here? Why Harbin, why?!” They were simply…intriguing. I couldn’t help but to have a small taste of what plays through the Chinese people’s minds when they see me walking down the street.

Lesson #2: My entire life I have fully underestimated the power and good that a dance party can do for the soul. This is a crucial difference between men and women. For a lot of my life I have spoken out against my own gender because {lets just be real here} women are super confusing. However I am now regretting not taking hold of this glorious ability to instantaneously change my mood and my outlook on life. Dancing to pop songs with terrible lyrics and a boppin’ beat, singing as loudly and as terribly as you possibly can in the company of other girls (some boys) and a microphone seems to make all the cares of the world disappear. How no one has taken these effects and encapsulated them into a pill yet, I have no idea, but I bet you it would make millions.

We chuckled coming out of our KTV experience as we realized that the cold wasn't as bitter as we thought it would be. Michael decided to pull out his iPod touch to discover how cold it actually was. Michael's iPod touch informed us that it was -6◦F. We actually looked around at each other and actually said "ehh, it's not too bad out here". Harbin is changing us.  

We are sad that we will soon be saying goodbye to our friend, Gary. He leaves for Paris soon and ...well, we'll miss him. We have loved getting to know him and were super happy that he could join us for the day excursion yesterday. 

The boys rockin' to a "man song" at KTV

It says "Welcome to Harbin" in ice...in case you can't tell