My Journey to Harbin China...

I departed from good old T.F. Green Airport in Providence on Tuesday morning. My parents dropped me off and took my car back to Vermont for its 7 month hibernation. My hockey bag was predictably overweight, and with the sticks added I had to fork over a little extra dough. The flight from Newark to Beijing was a barely noticeable 13 hours over the North Pole down through Mongolia and into Beijing. I arrived in Beijing at 2:00 p.m. the next day with the 12 hour time difference, and proceeded to Customs.

The first thing I noticed is that the air is different. It is tough to describe, but there is a different smell and weight to it somehow. At first, I thought this may have been inside the airport only, but it was the same outside when I reached Harbin. Getting into China requires three forms and three steps: A health questionnaire, immigrations and customs. The health questionnaire you simply hand to the person as you walk through. At Immigration, I was asked no questions, he looked at my papers and stamped my passport and sent me on my way.

Next to pick up all my bags. By the time I got through immigration, my bags were already on the baggage claim. I picked them up and headed through customs to transfer to a domestic flight to Harbin. The customs lady took my card and sent me along, again with no questions, and all was going well as I put my bags through the x-ray, until I realized I forgot my sticks on the oversized baggage claim. So, with a little communication with the x-ray and customs people. They let me run back and get them.

The next step was to recheck my bags for the flight on Air China to Harbin. This was the first place that the guy did not speak any english. Apparently, there is a 10 yaun fee (about $1.25) to board domestic flights. With some writing on paper, nodding and gesturing, we came to an agreement on $2 American as I had not yet had a chance to convert my money. That problem solved, it was off through security screening to the gate. The airport was very crowded with no seats in the waiting area so I stood. I took advantage of a free internet kiosk and was somehow able to navigate to get to an english website. So, I sent a couple of e-mails to let people know I had made it that far.

About 30 minutes before the flight, I finally met Jenny, my contact from the Chinese Hockey Association. Luckily she speaks enough English to translate for me. With her was Mr. An, the team leader for Team China. We all flew together to Harbin, it was very foggy and I slept most of the way. Upon arrival in Harbin, I met Mr. Wang, who works in the NY Islanders office in Harbin and his associate. The five of us headed out on the road for the 30 km trip to Harbin and dinner. The driving was pretty sane until we hit the city. Once in the city the only rule that seemed to be obeyed is that most of the time people stayed on their own side of the road. Otherwise, bikes, walkers and cars all shared the road in a slightly chaotic fashion with lots of horns and no right of way rules.

Dinner was a traditional Chinese “hot pot” dinner, with an assortment of raw sliced meat, noodles, lettuces on a spinning center table and we each had a hot pot to cook what we wanted and sauce to dip into. It was quite good, I had lamb and beef. We also had a local Chinese “wine” which was more like shots that you sipped, very strong. I learned a few words as Jenny was the only one who spoke enough English to speak with me. The word of the day was pronounced “Knee-bomb” which I was told means bottoms up. The Ryan definition is this: Slam the rest of the freaky Chinese wine that tastes like Rumpleminze mixed with 151 and Chardonnay.

After Dinner, we I was taken to the Winter Sports complex, where I will be living with the team. The entire team was there to meet me and seemed excited to see me. I met the captain, who speaks English well and then was shown to my room, not a bad set up with a full sized bed (kinda firm mattress) and my own bathroom, refrigerator, TV and of course… High speed internet. So after a couple long days, it was time for bed.