Kim, being on NZ time woke up about 0400. As we had retired about 2200 last night, I more-or-less had enough sleep too. We chatted and got ready around 0600 and left the hotel at 0645 to find the E21 bus just outside the hotel; perfect timing!
We arrived at the airport just less than 3 hours prior to departure, so check-in was painless and we were in the lounge in no time for breakfast. Our Hong Kong Airlines flight to Harbin had been upgauged from an A320 to an A330 which invalidated our previous seating requests to be together. We got assigned seats that appeared to be down the back, so we asked to be moved forward slightly. Little did we know that economy class starts at row 38 and were ended up in the third row.
We sat on board for a while for reasons that weren’t properly explained and left 30 minutes late. The flight was very comfortable with an extremely light load. The only thing that let it down was the meals which were very insubstantial and cheap, even though I loved the big tub of tofu-fa (tofu version of cream-caramel) as dessert. I would describe Hong Kong Airlines as a “light” full service airline, and there’s nothing wrong with that for the price we had paid.
I asked the crew if the aircraft was a temporary lease aircraft as it didn’t have any personal entertainment. She explained that it was previously dedicated to the London route configured as an all-First/Business aircraft. We can get entertainment streamed through wifi to our phones, tablets and laptops! And here I was thinking that it was a dumb basic aircraft!
About an hour before landing I started paying attention to the scenery. It looked flat, bleak and dusty. As we gradually descended and approached Harbin, I realised that it wasn’t dust. The pale brown stuff was actually snow. Just before touching down, from a lower angle it looked more bluish white.
Coming in to land at Harbin Airport.
We landed at Harbin on schedule despite the late departure and parked remotely before being bused to the international terminal. The international terminal building was a small one which was in a somewhat forgotten corner of the airfield. Formalities were relatively quick for us who disembarked promptly. Coming out to the public area, we realised that there weren’t any ATMs and both money changers were closed. In desperation, we changed HKD100 to CNY70 with some Hong Kongers so we could board the bus into the city.
It was around -15 degC outside as we stepped outside to board the bus. We were asked to put chain around our two pieces of luggage and padlock it, and keep the key. China isn’t that dangerous, is it?
It started to get dark along the way and it was night by the time we reached the city about 1700. The bus dropped us near the railway station, not where the formal taxi rank was but where lots of touts were waiting. There was wind blowing and I was struggled with the cold, having to remove my gloves to unchain/unlock my luggage from the baggage hold.
We so badly wanted to get to a warm place, we paid for the first taxi that could take us to the Ibis Hotel, even though the driver refused to use the meter. We checked in and found the Ibis to be typically Ibis, which was adequately functional, simple but comfortable.
Best of all, it was one building away from the ATM and one block from dinner (actually we realised it was next to food street next day). We had dinner of dumplings and grilled aubergines. We ordered what the waitress recommended as there was no English menu. The pricing on the menu was rather high and we expected to pay a hefty CNY100 for everything, but the total damage only came to CNY55. There must have been some misunderstanding. Most strangely though was the fact that they had ran out of tea … inconceivable for a Chinese restaurant.
We retired around 2000. Sad but true!