Summertime Scene

Shirtless old guys and chuar / 串 (street barbecue), this pretty much sums up Harbin in the summertime!

Riverfront From Above

A look north up the Songhua Riverfront from the lift over the river.

Sun Island

I finally got on a ferry and visited Sun Island! But I accidentally got on a ferry doing a tour of the wetlands near Sun Island, so I saw a lot of this for an hour before getting to the island itself...

Part of the sculpture park in the Sun Island Scenic Area featuring sculptures by Chinese sculptor Yu Qingcheng. The Scenic Area is a separate park on Sun Island and cost ¥30 or ¥35 to enter. (Not sure of the price 'cause a friend bought the tickets. Sorry!)

The neat dragon centerpiece of a square in the Sun Island Scenic Area.

A mini mountain beautifully set next to a pond in the Scenic Area.

This corner of the Island was particularly beautiful...and utterly spoiled by the Chinese music blaring from loudspeakers strategically scattered along all of the walkways.

The lovely stone path up the little mountain.

The pavilion at the top of the 'mountain.'

The esplanade along the ponds.

More of the ponds.

I took the lift over the Songhua back to downtown Harbin instead of doing the ferry again. For some reason the lift leaves and arrives at very Disneyesque castles...

Looking north up the Songhua at Sun Island, with Songbei (newer, left-bank Harbin) and a couple of the bridges connecting the two sides of the city in the background.

Mèn Guō ("Stew Pot")

This doesn't technically pertain to Harbin since I tried 焖锅/mèn guō ("stew pot," a Manchurian speciality) at a restaurant in Shenyang, but since it is a Manchurian speciality and I tried it at a restaurant with a location in Harbin I thought I might as well post the pictures here! Apologies for the poor quality of the pictures, I was snapping shots as the waiter was putting things together! Pictured is the first layer in the 'pot' of vegetables, mushrooms, and garlic.

After the vegetable layer came the meat (some of it marinated) and shrimp!

Once all the meat and veggies were in round one of cooking commenced.

Our 'pot' just after the first round of cooking. I hadn't eaten breakfast and it was after 2pm, so I was good to go at this point! I didn't realize more had to happen till the waiter came back over!

When the waiter came back he started whipping the super dark sauce you can see spread over the contents of the pot really fast till it had the consistency of tar. (And to be honest, it looks a lot like tar too!) 

Once the tar-like sauce was evenly spread over the meat round two of cooking began. At this point I was so hungry I was starting to chew on my chopsticks!

Then, at long last (well, maybe not that long!), our food was ready to eat! Everything tasted amazing!

One last glimpse after dinner. I think my friend and I did a pretty decent job at finishing off our 'pot'! I can't wait for my next opportunity to have mèn guō!