Manzhouli, China
Trip Start
Sep 08, 2007
1
15
19
Trip End
Oct 12, 2007
Manzhouli,
China
Monday, October 1, 2007
Manzhouli is a brand new city with a population of 300,000. 10yrs ago, the population was just 300. Now it is a thriving clean little city with much safer traffic than in russia. There are still many russians here, as it seems to be built strictly to be a shopping haven for russians wanting cheap goods. Hotels and shops are going up everywhere. The hotel we stayed in was not even finished yet.
Getting accross the boarder was fairly simple considering we were greeted by the military
stephan seeing us off at chita
. It took a couple of hours, mostly sitting around waiting.We decided to check out the indoor downhill ski facility just built and got our taxi driver to wait for us while we did some skiing. While its impressive that they can build one of these things, it was on a par with the bunny hill at Hidden Velley. We soon tired of it, and when on a little sight seeing trip.
Dinner was an experience. We went to a traditional northern chinese restaurant, where you cooked the food yourself in a wok type aperatus in the middle of the table. the wok had a metal container in the middle of it, that had burning wood or coal inside it. Water filled the wok and the water boiled. A chimney was placed over top of the heater and we started pouring plates full of meat and other vegtables into it. Once they were cooked they floated to the top and you had to fish it out with chopsticks. I wasn't up to standards wtih my chopstick skills and ate very slowly. I noticed several chinese watching and laughing.
Next, it was off to the banya after watching traditional chinese line dancing in the main square. This was a little different that what i was expecting from a massage. it basically was a sauna, and a series of hot tubs filled with naked chinese men, 2 russians and me.
When it came time for my massage, i found out that it was not going to be given by a women (my preference), but a little chinese guy who basically scrubbed my skin off. After over an hour of torture, i made my way back to the hotel to get some sleep.
