Day 383 - The Adlibing crew dodges an expansion

Last night, after having a long chat with Lucy, the 14 year daughter at our hotel, we got a surprise visit in our room from her - bearing one huge box. Inside the box was a rather large plastic horse on a large plastic stand that would bring us "good lucky"!! Even after explaining that we couldn't possibly fit it in our bags and carry it with us, we still somehow ended up with the gift. This gift wasn't the first we received from Lucy, as the day before she gave Liv a wooden bracelet - a much more manageable size. This morning we woke up and remembered we now had an extra member of our team to carry around. The whole reason we ended up accepting the horse was because we didn't want to offend the family, but we felt even worse dumping something that was obviously special to them. Plus we didn't want any bad lucky. So, we reluctantly wrote Lucy a small note explaining that the gift was too expensive and special and now we will always have a part of the adlibing crew in China!

One member down, we headed to the bus station and reversed course back to Harbin, where we offloaded our bags at the train station check-in, where the cost went from Y50 to Y20 after simply saying "too much" and starting to walk out. The Y20 was worth it just to watch 2 Chinese men man handle Adam's pack onto the top rack. When we returned later, they asked Adam to get his pack down!!

Lunch was a semi-disaster, as it ended up with Adam losing it all half an hour later. Only the second time in over a year - not too bad. Liv enjoyed sitting in the shady park reading with Adam passed out on her lap.

The train to Hailaer left at just before 8pm, where we settled into the hard sleepers and zonked out in our familiar moving accommodation.

Adlibing it without Adliber number 3.