Dusty Skies

Brown skies as another wave of spring dust blows over Harbin...

Old Railway Bridge

I've been passing this lovely old bridge near the top of Zhongyang Avenue for years now, and I had no idea that it was a pedestrian walkway and not a working railway bridge!

I visited the bridge on a holiday, so it was a little crowded. (This photo doesn't do that statement justice, there were sections that were quite packed.)

A train crossing the Songhua on the new railway bridge.

The lovely little park along the old train tracks on the other side of the bridge. It felt fairly new, especially in the stretches with gaping holes waiting for trees to go in!

A look up the river with its melting ice floes and hazy Songbei shoreline. (As the region melts in the springtime we start getting dust storms sweeping in from further west.)

A look at Stalin Park and downtown Harbin from the bridge.

First Dust Storm of Spring

You know spring is well and truly sprung in Manchuria not by the buds on the trees or the blooms on the flowers (which likely won't come till May!), but by that first rush of gale-force wind bringing dust and sand from the Gobi!

Both of these pictures are from Qunli, one of the newer districts of Harbin on the southwest side of the city. I did see anyone sent flying there, but there's some crazy footage of what the wind did elsewhere in Harbin here.