Onions' Alma Mater

Flying down from Harbin to Tianjin on Sichuan Airlines, the route map shows the Diaoyu Islands even though it's not a destination.  Nationalism is rampant!

Why in Tianjin?  It was the visit Onions' alma mater "Zhong Guo Ming Hang Da Xue"

Civil Aviation University of China!  Founded in 1951 here in Tianjin right next to China's first military airport.

All couples get to see their lives before each other.  Onions lived in this dorm on campus for his first three years. Six to a room here. He was on campus for six total for an undergraduate and graduate degrees.

Turns out the dorms, still leftover from the early days of the university don't have bathing facilities, so he had to go to this and students still do) go to this bathing building!  NO AMERICAN kid would ever stand for this.

The building that house Onions' major!

Being an aviation university, the roads had airline logos and had aviation themed names!

Just in case you forget who's in charge!

All over campus he was commenting on the changes.  "This bridge has a new cover!"

His dorm for his last two years (there was a stop somewhere along the way to account for the sixth year).  Being a graduate student he now only had to share a room with one other person.

I had to ask why all the water bottles.  It's the water building of course.

Come in and fill your hot water bottle.  Duh!  It dawned on me that I now understand my grandparents obsession with the hot water bottle.

The lake at the center of campus. It was fun to experience the return to his alma mater. Someday he'll see Cornell!

Siberian Tigers

Leaving Hailaer on the overnight train, we arrived in Harbin for a day. The main goal was to see the Siberian Tiger Park and Breeding Center.  I didn't have high hopes and was anticipating a few sad looking tigers. I was happily wrong.

The main part of the visit involves getting in a bus and driving through the park to see the animals in their "habitat."

....and now we're locked in our bus driving through the park.

And the tigers just start walking around and checking us out. Some of them climb up and stick their faces right onto the side of the bus.

The park also breeds African lions.

After the bus ride, you are encouraged to purchase an animal to feed to the tigers.  Turns out since we arrived at the end of the day, they had already eaten.

A tiger amongst the remants of a former animal (my bet is chicken!).

The second half of the tour allowed us to walk through the more traditional zoo part of the breeding center.  Turns out the center has over 1,000 tigers on site!  The challenge isn't breeding them, but actually getting them back into the wild.

Tigers nap in all kinds of positions.

So, I have to say that I know understand why tigers are revered.  They are absolutely beautiful in every way. The way they look, move, stare...EVERYTHING.  I'm a fan!

A white tiger!

The center also has many of the other "cats."  I always thought that ligers were fake, but according to Wikipedia they do exist.  A liger has a male lion father and a female tiger mother.  Vice versa for the tigon.  The liger was no out of it's house so we didn't see it.

Another big lion, but we also saw leopards, lynx, puma...name a big cat, we say it.

Jaguar!  Ok, so I left the park inspired by these cats.  Perhaps someone will say that I shouldn't have spent money supporting this center from keeping the animals in captivity.....but I learned a lot and have a new appreciation for these animals.

Hulunbuir Grasslands

On a trip with MANY highlights, our afternoon spent walking on the hills and grasslands in Hulunbuir was the best moment on the trip.

After our bus ride back from Genhe, we drove out to Hulunbuir where in the summer (when the grass is tall and green) tourists stay in yurts and ride horses.

Haha........this horse looks like me when I try and scratch my back!

We had the entire place to ourselves.

A most romantic afternoon....with great afternoon light.