the last of Harbin

The last adventure of the Harbin trip was getting home from the train station.  We arrived at 11:30 pm and it was almost midnight by the time we got off the train and out of the station, and we were not prepared for the massive taxi line.  The line was HUGE, taxis were few, and it was surrounded by touts trying to convince people to take unofficial taxis or random cars instead for exorbitant costs.  It was not a pleasant situation to be faced with so late at night when all we wanted was to be home and in bed.  After waiting for about 10 minutes with no movement in the line, we decided to walk to see what we could find instead...and were continually confronted with taxi drivers only willing to bargain and not use the meter.  Its funny, up til this point I had been struck at how 'safe' the Beijing taxi drivers seemed, never trying to cheat me, drive around in circles, or not use the meter, but this experience taught me that they just haven't had the upper hand before.  Once the supply-demand curve swung enough in their favor, they were all about taking advantage!  We ended up randomly getting on a bus we saw which was the last one of the day, and fortuitously, it went by my metro station, close enough to my apartment to walk home.  Definitely not something I would have counted as a factor before when considering train schedules, and it could have been a lot worse, but talk about a stressful end to the trip!

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Harbin, China