Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival (part 3)
January 20th
We went to a large supermarket called 'Metro' in the morning. We discovered this is a members only store, but a lady that spoke very good English let us use her card to enter and shop. Again we bought many things that we have been without since moving to China, such as brownie mix, parmesan cheese, ranch dressing, ground garlic and a few other things. We went back to McDonald's for lunch and then went to see what 'Wal-Mart' looks like in China. It was four floors and twice the floor space as any supercenter in the states. It basically looked just like any other large department / grocery store we have seen in China, except for being called 'Wal-Mart'. We finished the afternoon by walking down Center Street, which is nothing but a lot of shopping stores. We did find a nice bar called 'USA Bucks Bar' to sit and have some hot chocolate. We had planned to go to Zhaolin Park to see more ice and lights in the evening, but we didn't feel like another night surrounded by ice after the night before. Instead, we went to dinner at what was suppossed to be a very nice western buffet at the 'Holiday Inn at the Center of Harbin'. It took us two taxis to get there because the first driver didn't know where to go and took us to the wrong place. The price was 138 RMB each and the selection of food was small. This was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the trip. We should have stayed with going to 'Great Pizza'.
We went to a large supermarket called 'Metro' in the morning. We discovered this is a members only store, but a lady that spoke very good English let us use her card to enter and shop. Again we bought many things that we have been without since moving to China, such as brownie mix, parmesan cheese, ranch dressing, ground garlic and a few other things. We went back to McDonald's for lunch and then went to see what 'Wal-Mart' looks like in China. It was four floors and twice the floor space as any supercenter in the states. It basically looked just like any other large department / grocery store we have seen in China, except for being called 'Wal-Mart'. We finished the afternoon by walking down Center Street, which is nothing but a lot of shopping stores. We did find a nice bar called 'USA Bucks Bar' to sit and have some hot chocolate. We had planned to go to Zhaolin Park to see more ice and lights in the evening, but we didn't feel like another night surrounded by ice after the night before. Instead, we went to dinner at what was suppossed to be a very nice western buffet at the 'Holiday Inn at the Center of Harbin'. It took us two taxis to get there because the first driver didn't know where to go and took us to the wrong place. The price was 138 RMB each and the selection of food was small. This was perhaps the biggest disappointment of the trip. We should have stayed with going to 'Great Pizza'.
