End of Summer

Zhongyang Avenue - Harbin's pedestrian street - is a big draw in both the summer and the winter. I'm still enjoying the leafy greenness of the trees, the beer gardens, and the blue skies, but even though September's barely begun a chill is already beginning to descend!

Amusement Park Church

I made another visit to the Harbin Cultural Park (formerly the city's Novoye Cemetery) to see how its "Electronic Amusement Hall" (formerly the cemetery church) was doing. Still closed and unrestored unfortunately...

Looking at the church from the walkway that connects it to the old cemetery bell tower.

The church is still in quite a state. Renovation work just began on the Harbin Railway Station's Church of the Iveron Icon, so perhaps Holy Dormition Church will be next?

Jile Temple

I finally made it back to Jile Temple after far too long. It's always such a lovely, peaceful place. (Although there must have been a holiday or an exam coming up, there were more people running around burning incense than normal!)

My favorite of the Temple's pagodas.

You can just barely see the ferris wheel of the Harbin Cultural Park (formerly Harbin's Novoye Cemetery) peeking out from behind the trees.

Daowai Traffic

First time I've seen THIS in Harbin! Daowai District is so great...

Summertime on the Riverfront

After a rather wet start we're finally enjoying the gorgeous blue skies of a Manchurian summer.

It's always so nice to see people out flying kites in the squares along the Songhua Riverfront.

Alas, accidents do happen on occasion! (But how is quite the question, I wouldn't have thought you could drive down to this part of the riverfront!)

Sunset on Youyi Lu

Sunset downtown along Youyi Road. Despite all its craziness, Harbin really is a lovely city!

This Also ≠ Parking

I'm told it's fairly common here to bribe your way out of parking and traffic tickets, and judging from this ridiculousness on the sidewalk along Xinyang Road I can only assume that it's true. If there are any OCD Chinese out there I can only assume they've all had breakdowns and been confined to mental institutions or had to leave the country, 'cause this isn't even the worst of the parking nonsense here!