Today my friend Sunny and I rode the 336. This route connects the old train station (哈站) in the center of town with a suburban village in Haxi (哈西) called Wanggang (王岗). The route starts just South of the train station on Haicheng street (海城街) which is actually a temporary location while the train station is renovated. I assume there will be a bus terminus built into the station as part of the current renovation, but for now the terminus is just under a bridge on Haicheng street. The route then follows Tielu street (铁路街) to Xidazhi street (西大直街) where it turns Southwest and begins heading down towards the Haxi area. It follows Xidazhi street and then veers South onto Xuefu Road (学府路) before turning West onto Zhongxing Avenue (中兴大街) at the clothing city (服装城).
Here is a good point to introduce a fare feature on certain bus routes. On some of the longer routes there is a variable fare of either 1 RMB or 2 RMB. This is achieved by switching the door of entry. In general on Harbin buses you enter at the front door and pay as you get on the bus, then you exit at the rear. On certain routes at a specific stop they will switch this to entering at the back and paying as you exit the bus through the front door. If you only use the bus on one side of the switch-over stop, then you only pay 1 RMB. But if you travel through this stop, then you pay once on entry and again on exit for a fare of 2 RMB. The 336 does this at the fabric city stop, which marks the switch between the more suburban portion of the route and the more urbanized portion.
After this it winds South to Hashuang Road (哈双路), which it then follows to its terminus in Wanggang about halfway between the third ring road (三环路) and the freeway ring (哈尔滨绕成高速). This is a little bit past the Wanggang train station (王岗站) which is the first station after leaving Harbin to the Southwest. In the reverse direction the route is identical until you reach HIT at which point it follows Songhuajiang street (松花江街) Northwest to the train station instead of Tielu street.
We started our journey from the Xuefu Kaide (凯德广场) and headed South past all of the universities on Xuefu road. After turning at the fabric city the typical urban mix of apartment buildings, malls, and office buildings began to thin out until we hit a bit of farmland just before the third ring road which at this point is called Xinshan road (新山路) to the East and Dakang road (达康路) to the West. In Wanggang we could see a bit of urbanization for about one block in either direction from the main road, but after that it quickly dissipated back into farmland. There was a primary and a secondary school as well as a nice little street market, but nothing else of particular interest.
After exploring for a bit we hopped back on the bus and headed into the city. The middle portion of this route is not the most interesting. It basically just runs along Xuefu road and Xidazhi street. After getting to the train station, we decided to grab some lunch and stopped in at a little wonton (馄饨) shop around the corner from the station. We then headed back on the bus, but did not make the full circuit back to Kaide. Instead we got off at the Xidazhi street stop and went to Sky bar for a few drinks.
