Fall Freeze

It's not even December yet and the Songhua is already frozen solidly enough for people to walk across it!

Ice City Roads

We got a lot of snow (for here) this November plus the usual fluctuations in temperature, which resulted in some incredibly icy roads even for Harbin! Pictured is the first bus I tried to take home from work. It got most of the way up this hill coming out of Qunli, but then got stuck on the black ice at the intersection. Most of us got out two or three times to try to push it along, but after moving a bit it would stall again and I finally called it and started the long walk home...

School "Parking"

Schools here apparently aren't expected to budget any space for parents to pick up their kids at the end of the day, 'cause every school I have the misfortune of passing by at a certain point in the afternoon is like this. People double and tripled parked, completely blocking side streets and even major, congested roads while they hang out waiting for their kids...this incredible selfishness and disregard for others (pictured above, but blaringly, shockingly manifest in all kids of ways in life here) is one of the things that has stunned me the most about modern China. The old China of Laozi and Confucius that I read about never prepared me for this, nor did my extensive reading about Communism. Who knows, perhaps this is a moment in time that will fade away as the country develops, but in the meantime it is what it is!

First(ish) Snow of Fall

Technically this was our second snowfall this fall, but it's the first that stuck! Early November and we're already into the winter weather, but I guess we can be grateful things got going in November instead of October!

Sadly enough, the bad visibility in the photo is due more to the incredibly bad air pollution lingering from the night before (when it was off the chart up in the 1,000s) than to the snow. The screenshot is from 9pm the night before. As you can see, by that point half the stations had maxed out at 999. (Later on in the evening when I checked all but two had maxed out.) By way of comparison, if I'm not mistaken a "bad" air day in Los Angeles or London is when the readings get up over the 70s. Not the 700s mind, the 70s. I won't lie, I can't help wondering when the lung cancer diagnosis is coming!

Dusk On Zhongyang Dajie

The air pollution isn't a great feature of life in Harbin in the fall and winter, but it does make for some gorgeous sunrises and sunsets! I took this at dusk a few days ago looking across Zhongyang Avenue down West 13th Street.