Just Another Saturday in Harbin

So, I had a full day this Saturday. We began the day with another scrimmage versus the men’s former national team players, a group of guys from about 37-50 years old. We had scrimmaged them last Saturday and although an official score is not kept, we lost pretty badly. This week, we played the first half with our top lineup of three lines and were outscored 6-3 in that period but played much better. The rest of the game allowed us to get everyone some playing time. Below you can see the two teams posing for a photo.


Dr. Gao had asked us before we went home for the Holiday if he could take us out to a meal to meet some of his friends. We had never got the chance, but today we had planned a luncheon. So at noon we hopped into the car and headed out to lunch with Dr. Gao and Mr. An, and two of Dr. Gao’s friends. We had to brave some very intense Saturday traffic and the normally 5 minute drive took about a half hour. We arrived at a Peking Duck restaurant and were met by three more of Dr. Gao’s friends and his Niece. His Niece, Xu Lin, and another of his friends Zhang Ran, both spoke English and were happy to speak with Tim and I during the meal. Xu Lin, who will soon turn 24, is in graduate school getting her masters in Linguistics, which she says is very boring. She speaks Chinese, English and a little French. Zhang Ran is older at 28 and is about a year into his job as a cameraman for a local TV station. Both have been studying English since middle school.

The interesting process that we got too see today was the roasting of the Peking Duck over the fire and taken out and carved in front of us before being placed on the table. It is eaten as a type of wrap or taco with a sauce, some duck meat, some and some vegetables in a wrap. You can see the photos of the process below:





Lunch was about a 3 hour affair with much drinking and toasts and Dr. Gao and Mr. An again let us know of their support of our efforts. They are very nice men. You can see them in their fun mode below.


After lunch they asked if we wanted to head for a massage and sauna, so how could we refuse another relaxing day. We spent a good 3 hours at the same sauna I was brought to the first time. It was Tim’s first experience, but almost identical to the one I had the first time.

After some relaxing time, we headed off to the big in-country rivalry game between QiQiHar and Harbin’s Asian League hockey teams. All of the men’s national team players come from one of these two teams. It was a closely contested 3-2 game that QiQiHar ended up winning in the third period. The crowd was rather small for a Saturday night, but we had a good time. We were again treated like royalty in the nice leather seats on the red line just above the benches (but we really could have sat anywhere in the place). They served us some warm tea each period and we were whisked off to the VIP room between periods.

All in all a good day in Harbin, just another Saturday….