Harbin Day 2

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Here are the pictures from Day 2 in Harbin the first place is a city park on an island. The second is a natural preserve/zoo for tigers.

Sun Island Snow Art Park

With so much snow and so many freezing days, someone came up with the idea to make the snow into something warm and cozy. Cozy as in cement that is painted white. Not cozy compared to a warm fire in the fireplace, but compared to the -18 temperature it is nice. So they start by making huge blocks of snow on the frozen river around the island. Then they move these blocks by truck into stacks and carve them into some awesome sculptures. Check out the pictures.

Tiger Park

Load all the tourists into small buses, where half of the windows are covered with steel bars and the other half are just glass. So I am forced to decide between a good photo and a good measure of safety. You can see by my pictures I chose the seat with out the steel bars. How many times will I have the chance to get eaten alive by a tiger? At least this bus had windows that were frozen shut and a fully operational door. That way we can let the tiger out, after he crashes through the window. What the pictures do not show is the 8 year old 2 seats ahead of me. I nicknamed him dinner, because in the event of a tiger attack I could easily toss him to the hungry beast to save myself. After scraping the ice off the inside of the windows, I snapped some good pictures. Well actually 2, then I scrapped the frost away and took some more, until my battery died from the cold.

Like all good zoo's you have the opportunity to feed the animals. Along the walkway above their pens, they offered meat chunks for $1.50 or live chickens for $7.50. I followed in my father's footsteps and took the cheap way. If you go, get some people together and splurge for the live cow at $120 and bring a video camera. You don't want your kids to forget the trama.

Overall both places are worth visiting even in artic temperatures.

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