Japanese germ warfare

This morning, we had better luck with taxis getting the Japanese Germ Warfare Experimental Base, which was in the south side of Harbin city. The ride took about 45 minutes and upon reaching there, we decided to get the taxi driver to wait and keep the meter running; it wasn’t the kind of place we could hail a taxi easily and we didn’t fancy waiting/searching in the cold.

Entry was free and we paid about NZD3 for the audio guide which was a bit of a waste of time. We had trouble reading the captions and listening to the guide at the same time, and the former were actually quite adequate.During the Japanese occupation of Manchuria, they experimented the impact of biological warfare on humans. Some of their findings were discovered by the Americans who subsequently translated. They also experimented the impact of hypothermia by getting their Chinese victims to stand in icy waters. Vivisection was also amongst the horrific crimes they committed here.

I don’t like coming face-to-face with historical atrocities. I turned away from the videos re-enacting the various experiments.

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After lunch in the city, Kim and I walked around our neighbourhood. It was our final chance to buy something. We put a bit of effort into understanding the Android smartphones available.

• Good entry-level local brands (like my existing phone) were about CNY500.
• More highly-spec’ed local ones are about CNY700.
• International brands are about the same as overseas, eg. CNY3-4000.
• Both the local ones and international brands intended for China don’t have Google Play (Android’s app market) but instead have local ones. We weren’t sure how we could put Google Play on; there is something on Youtube but we can’t access it in China.
• My only choice seemed to be fake international brands, eg. Samsung which sell for about CNY900 (starting price) as they come with Google Play straight up.

After a bit of deliberation and bargaining, we managed to get myself a Samsung Galaxy S4 for CNY700 (NZD140) with dual-SIM. The real thing (single-SIM) costs about NZD800. It looks and feels like the real thing and is lightning fast and very smooth to operate. The camera was disappointing but we knew that beforehand. It wouldn’t be reasonable to expect it to be just as good for that price.

Mark and I had a Chinese BBQ (like Korean BBQ) for dinner. We were joined by three Malaysian girls (two from Kuching) whom Mark had shared a taxi with earlier in the day. The company was very much welcome and we had good yarns about various aspects of life. Kim missed out as he opted for McDonald’s.

Leaving the restaurant, we noticed that the glass doors had been frosted over (not double-glazed). It is my last night here in Harbin; I was just starting to get used to dressing/undressing all the time when going outdoors/indoors. There is quite a sequence to doing things and it took us a while to master, eg. nose/mouth mask then ear muffs, then beanie – you can’t put on your nose/mouth mask after your beanie as they hang on your ears.