Blog o'travel: A stopover from Harbin to Hailar in Qiqihar (齐齐哈尔)

I really wanted to see Inner Mongolia at the start of this trip. I decided to have a quick stopover in Qiqihar before heading on to see the grasslands of Inner Mongolia. So, I planned to just spend one day in Qiqihar. I got to the train station and then I had to go through the (now daily routine) check of my passport stamp , my visa stamp when I arrived in China , the health check , the vaccine check and that was before looking at the ticket check.

At Qiqihar they saw from my health app. that I had been through a couple of places that had rumours of positive tests in the last 2 weeks so they made sure to tell me to wear the mask at all times (which was a bit suffocating but fair enough.)

Welcome to Qiqihar! (欢迎来到齐齐哈尔)

I found a place about 2 km from the train station , a nice family run hotel place where they offered a nice place to stay for the night.

Then I walked around the local park for a while.

As I was walking around the park , somebody rang me asking for my location (something which is quite hard to give when one is unfamiliar with the town.) Then, they asked what hotel I was staying at so I gave them the address (from the meituan app.) I decided to head back in the general direction to the hotel.

Something which I have never seen anywhere else.

A statue of a heavy guy.

I need to find a shadow fast

This is better.

Time for the skin to recover.

Peaceful scene

Serene

As I reached the hotel , the owners started shouting in my direction that the woman in charge of registering people was at the hotel.

So, I was marched down a couple of blocks to a place where I had to register all my details again. On the way down, the woman in charge asked me a few questions like where did I come from, how long have I been in China (I would love to have that on a t - shirt at some point (with my visa and passport stamp pictures on the back of the t -shirt. ).) She thought it hilarious that I mispronounced Yiwu [Something , I can never understand.]

Eventually, I filled out all the forms, she took a photo of me with the mask on (which was a first) and then slammed the door of the building as I walked out. I thought I better move on to Hailar as soon as possible.