Northeastern China, Where Russia, North Korea and China Collide

We'd spent a sleepless night fretting about our two-hour connection in Shanghai. Everything we'd read insisted two-hours wasn't nearly enough time to clear customs and get back through domestic security. We left Focal Local and headed to Bangkok Airport, sure that we would be spending the next night in Shanghai, but, it turned out that the internet was wrong. We were through customs and sitting at the gate waiting for our flight in about 20 minutes.

Landing in China is bamboozling, as it has been every time we have been here. Every sign is in Chinese, of course, but it's also difficult for example to tell what things 'are' by looking at them from the outside. Whether a shop is a barber, a butcher or noodle shop, they all often look the same from outside. I guess some of this adjustment is called culture shock, and within a couple of days it all feels like 'normal' and far less bamboozling.

Harbin turned out to be pretty interesting. It's close to Vladivostok and was originally intended as the terminus of the Trans-Siberian Railway. This a picture of Nathan on a bridge built by the Russians, though that line no longer runs.

The Russian-ness goes beyond that though, a wave of Russian immigrants arrived here in 1917 fleeing the Bolsheviks, and more Russians arrived in 1945, as the Japanese invasion came to an end. Today, the Russian influence in Harbin feels very much still alive. We had dinner at what can only be described as a Tsarist-era country restaurant, frozen somewhere in the 1930s. Staff were kitted out in traditional Russian folk dress and the items we chose from the menu including a hearty borscht, a plate of pickled cucumbers and lamb stew. Needless to say, it felt slightly surreal sitting in northeastern China eating Russian peasant food, but that's partly why we came here ... because it sounded 'different'.