We arrived in Harbin and finally got a taxi willing to take 3 people with 3 suitcase. They have the smallest taxis ever and almost no trunk at all. The size of the trunk could fit a carry-on no problem, but we struggled to get ONE suitcase in it. It just meant a cozy ride into town.
The driver did a group video call while driving so that he could show his friends his passengers in the back (us) and we had a few pictures made via screenshot...haha!
WE arrived hungry and ready for lunch. It was delicious! Rice, cabbage,
sweet and sour pork,
tofu,
and spicy green beans. Mmmmm!!!
Unbeknownst to us...Mom's last real meal in Harbin.
The city is snow for it's ice sculptures and snow sculptures. It was really amazing and so much fun to see....and FREEZING (-7 degrees Fahrenheit)
This was one of my favorite smaller sculptures. I thought it was well done.
Fish anyone?
The city is also very unique in it's architecture. It has a huge Russian influence. Everything from the buildings to the food to the music and decorations...all had Russian flare.
Coca-Cola Bears made out of snow.
This year is the year of the pig, so we are seeing TONS of pig everything right now. This one made me laugh because it reminded me of Hudson with the glasses and music and peace sign.
This one was for Hudson...Yes, I am smiling but I was also telling my friend to hurry and take the picture because it was COLD.
So, when in Rome do as the Romans...so ice-cream it is! It sounded strange to me to be eating ice cream outside in such freezing cold weather, but it was actually really good. The flavor was a mix between vanilla and banana. It was cold but because it was warmer than the outside temperature, it didn't seem so cold.
They made 2, 019 snowmen to celebrate the year 2019
Here is the where all the trouble began. This is the statue at the riverfront.
We walked on to to see the river...it stays frozen from November through April. They have all kinds of activities out ON the river during the winter season.
In all of the excitement over the river, Mom got separated from me. I was asking a local worker a question about the activities on the river and turned around and Mom was gone. She didn't realize that she had gone down to the actual river. She was trying to get into a better position for a picture when she saw what she thought was pavement (actually the river not covered by snow) When she stepped there her legs went out from under her and she fell and broke her leg.hip.
Some man was kind enough to cover her with his jacket and another lady put her scarf under Mom's head for a pillow while we waited for the ambulance to arrive.
This is now the second time I have been in an ambulance in China.
They took her to Harbin No. 1 hospital. She got first rate treatment there. Thankfully, my friend was there to help. They would not take foreign credit card and will not treat until you pay in advance. She loaned us the money to pay for everything! This is us wheeling mom to get her X-ray.
Here we are waiting for the x-ray room to open up and us wheel her in. After the x-ray, it was confirmed that she needed immediate surgery. I'll leave out all of those details ;)
This is the heater in her room. It was so hot in there that I kept the wind open just so the temperature would go down to 86 degrees Fahrenheit to 81 degrees Fahrenheit inside her room.
After surgery she was a little loopy and telling the doctors that she was leaving and going to her hotel room now.
She soon realized that she wasn't going to be able to go anywhere. She was a little bummed about it all, but a little tiger stuffed animal keychain can cheer anyone up.
So, in hospitals here, it is the patients family's responsibility to care for them at all times. This was her first round of medicine (3 more got added after the first day) and it was my job to hook it up, watch it, and change it to the correct medicine at the correct time. I also needed to go outside and buy things like a bed pan, toilet paper, blanket, food for each meal, etc. It was tiring to say the least.
This was Dr. Jiang. He was amazing. He went out of his way to help Mom any way that he could. He did things that were not in his job description to help and we were very thankful. Oh, Mom also made the news! Her pictures and X-rays and a whole story about "the old American lady that fell" has been seen by many! :)
Just some more unique architecture for a Chinese city
Another view of the river...it's hard to see in the picture, but there is a man taking an afternoon run on the river. People also like to take cars and go karts on the river.
We saw many snow sculptures.
More pigs in the snow...and I guess they painted the snow?
It was interesting to see the workers still carving out some of them. I asked about it and was told that during the summer they build buildings and work on bridges and in the winter they carve snow and ice.
They had a competition for college aged kids to do a snow sculpture. I like this one best (they weren't as good as many of the others, but fun to see...you gotta learn sometime)
They made an exact replica of the Temple of Heaven out of snow.
It was pretty impressive.
We were absolutely freezing! These hot sweet potatoes on the street just warmed you right up...well, my hands and face were still frozen, but the rest of me felt better.
Again...still working on this one. They had gotten behind schedule because they had not had as much snow this year to work with so they had to bring it in.
This is the world's largest snow sculpture. I don't remember how big.
They had an ice slide.
We decided to go down it once. I was excited, but Xiao Jun was scared.
It actually was faster than I expected.
Afterwards, we were covered in fine snow because that's how they stop you...you fly into a hep of snow at the end :)
so much fun!
The sunset
This was my favorite of all of the ice castles.
And this was was a very close second. I was surprised to see a church with "stain glass windows" and pews and such. It was beautiful.
The colors kept changing.
This was a huge ice replica of a Pepsi vending machine. You could go inside and slide down the small ice slide and come down where the drinks would normally come out.
We went up to the highest point so that we could see all of the sculptures at once. It was sooooo COLD inside...because of all of the ice, the temperature inside this area is a full 30 degrees cooler than whatever the outside temperature is. Brrrrrrrr.
This gives some perspective to the actual height of these things.
I liked this snow sculpture.
One of my favorite things was walking down the street at night. I loved the atmosphere.
This was my favorite jiaozi place! We ate here three times. IT was the best dumplings ever....much better than any I have had until this point.
You only have 3 choices....one chef per kind of dumpling.
My favorite walking street was just a little more crowded on a Sunday.
Yum. I really did love the food :)
So, our short little trip turned into an 11 day adventure of trying to get back to the rest of the family. We called to talk to everyone...all of the kids came running when they realized they could see Grandmommy.
Ahhhh, I love these two! I was so glad to se/talk to them!
So, all of the buildings are set up so that you enter on the left and walk to your right and then actually enter the building on the right.
you have to walk through these "freezer doors"
and then again....It's pretty affective in keeping the heat inside the building and the cold outside.
I was determined to have a cold coke, so I sat it outside Mom's hospital room window. I only had to wait 15 minutes...perfect :)
No freezers or refrigerators needed! ALL of these are different kinds of ice-cream...just sitting outside the on the street.
My kiddos and Jonathan eating at McDonald's while I was gone.
We ate several sweet potatoes while there.
They are known for different sausages.
My sausage on a stick.
This was the line for the ice-cream!
frozen cotton candy anyone? ;)
jioazi
I was trying really hard to find ANYTHING Mom would eat. I kept trying all kinds of food...I finally found something she would eat at least a bite of.
I guess everyone stores their drinks in the window. I saw so much ice on windows and doors on the inside of buildings.
More architecture
St. Sophia Cathedral...it was one of the places that I wanted to see, but it's closed for renovations. I was happy just to see it from the outside. It turns out that it was a 5 minute walk from the hospital. I didn't know I was going get to see it, but so happy that I did.
It was beautiful at night, too!
Jonathan sent me this picture while I was gone. Katherine bought herself a new backpack. It really looks like her.
Yep...the joys of trying to video chat. Unstable connection, haha!
This just made me smile. My friend went to a crochet class where they had all kinds of things that you could make using crochet...but this was the best :) I'm glad she sent me the picture.
This was the one "non Chinese" restaurant that we ate at. It was a Russian restaurant.
I wasn't exactly sure what kind of food was considered Russian and I'm still not convinced that everything on the menu was, but it was good all the same.
I ordered these amazing onion rings.
My main course was this. It was called "Assorted Russian Sausages Main Dish" It sounded authentic so why not. It was good...baked sausages covered in cheese. Some were better than others, but I enjoyed trying it. It wasn't as good as the onion rings though ;)
I was very thankful that Mom was given an actual room instead of one of these spots in the hallway. I had a friend one time who had one of these beds when she was giving birth. No thanks.
Some of the pictures are out of order, but it's ok. Our sausages on a stick.
Frozen candied fruit on a stick
I wish I had a picture of her face. This taxi driver was amazing! First of all, she had a real sized car! She said that she had only been driving it for 2 weeks. Second, she was so patient and caring. Mom was in a lot of pain, but she knew just how to get her out of the car and in a wheelchair. You could tell that she had done this before. She actually locked up her taxi and took Mom all the way inside the airport. When she got her in, she gave her a hug and had tears in her eyes. She couldn't even speak. She was certainly a huge blessing!
Waiting for the plane. We had to wait in a certain area until it was time for them to take us through security, etc. We are on the way home!
We got to one part of the airport and they had us waiting in a big room that opened up to the outside. He (the guy pushing the wheelchair) said it would be cold and parked her right next to the heater.
We had to get on a bus that was going to drive us all out to the plane. This is the very steep incline they used to get her into the bus. Only one problem....
We got to the airplane and they told her to get off the bus, but they had no ramp to get back off. WE had to wait for them to send some workers to lift the wheelchair outside. I was worried that they thought she was going to be able to walk up these steps, but thankfully they had a lift on the other side of the plane and we entered through that special door. It was pretty cool.
She got to ride first class! I told her that there were easier ways to get first class ;)
I actually got to sit in first class for 30 minutes :) So I had to document it :) They called me up when they were preparing to land so that I could be up there to help mom if she needed anything. I'll take it :)
