Advertisement
Published: April 20th 2008
Edit Blog Post
The first thing I saw upon exiting the train station in Harbin was a massive ice sculpture of several pigs (to celebrate the impending Chinese New Year), glowing with green light in such a manner they seemed to be dancing to the music spilling from nearby nightclubs. Harbin seemed to be a lively town. In spite of the cold the streets were packed with throngs of people, including a large number of Russian tourists. There was a whirl of flashing neon lights, music, voices, and the honking of cabs outside the train station.
We opted to walk in search of a hotel, although the frantic running and dodging necessary to cross most streets in China was much harder on the slick ice. The majority of blocky hotels along the main drag seemed rather seedy, so eventually we continued our search down a side street. There, we were met with a large poster of an underwear clad Caucasian woman sprawled suggestively across a billboard, underneath which was listed the price of hourly room rentals. Nice. When the slightly scaring looking bouncer type dressed in a fake army uniform asked us if we were interested in a room we politely declined and
sped away as fast as our frozen feet could take us. Ironically, a few doors down we did find a rather nice clean and affordable hotel and settled in for the night.
The next day we spent in our usual fashion-wandering aimlessly around the town. Harbin is a fascinating place. The name Harbin comes from a Manchu word meaning 'a place for drying fishing nets.' It has also been dubbed the "Moscow of the Orient" for its rich abundance of European and Russian architecture.
The city sprang to life during the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, an offshoot of Russia's trans-Siberian network. After the Russian Revolution many White Russian refugees fled the country, settling in Harbin. When the Japanese took over these immigrants were again forced to flee, some returning to Russia and others to different cities in China, Europe, and the USA. Incidentally, not far from the city are the remains of a massive facility where the Japanese tested chemical and biological weapons on human subjects.
Harbin's architecture is indeed impressive, and the city felt like a world apart, much different from others we had visited in China. One of our main reasons for visiting
northern China in the dead of winter was not in fact due to a death wish of freezing in Siberia, but rather to visit the Ice Lantern Festival. This event is one of the largest of its kind in the world. It begins in January and is scheduled to last a month, but generally runs much longer since the arctic weather can preserve the sculptures into the spring.
Held at various locations throughout the city, the Ice Lantern festival features larger than life structures and carvings made from ice and snow. Some are extremely intricate, others awe-inspiring due to sheer size. Methods of carving vary from high-tech lasers to old fashioned elbow grease. The sculptures are lighted by neon colors from both inside the ice and without making the festival most spectacular at night.
It was an amazing experience exploring the winter wonderland of the Ice Lantern Festival. In the park we visited there were life-size bridges and pagodas, chapels, castles, gateways, and hundreds of smaller carvings ranging from Buddha to Chairman Mao and everything in between. I felt like we had slipped into some fantastic ice kingdom. In spite of the fact that my feet went numb
inside of my ultra-thermal REI-purchased Colombia hiking boots (the temperature was around -15 F) it was a great time.
The following day we visited St. Sofia, a Russian Orthodox cathedral (construction began 1923), that had managed to survive the Cultural Revolution relatively intact (although the inside had been trashed and the original crosses torn from the turrets). Today, rather than a place of worship St. Sofia is a museum, currently housing a photo display of early 20th century Harbin. The church was beautiful, though it made me sad to see the hollow shell of the interior with its chipped paint and faded walls. It must have been truly glorious in its day.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.291s; Tpl: 0.02s; cc: 16; qc: 56; dbt: 0.2515s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb