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Published: January 19th 2011
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In our quest to see as much of China as we can before moving back to the states, I suggested that we take a trip to Harbin in Northern China to see the Snow and Ice Festival. So we have heard all of the stories about the cold and brought many layers of clothes but I know Jason was questioning my judgment when the captain came on the speaker of the plane and said that we would be landing at 12:35 in the afternoon and it was -16 degrees Fahrenheit. At this point I was even questioning my judgment. Anyway, we were there and off to another adventure, a very cold one.
Harbin is considered one of China's most beautiful cities. The city is well known for its unique, Russian and European influenced architecture. As we drove around the city it was easy to forget that you were in China. Once you drove away from the center of town there were the typical Chinese apartment buildings and now there are some Shanghai style high rises going up. You can really see the growing economy here when you travel around a little. They are building up cities all over the
country.
We hit the road running when we got there and after a quick lunch we headed to Central Street. Originally constructed in 1898, the one mile long street is lined with western architecture styles such as Baroque and Byzantine. It is currently a pedestrian shopping street leading to the river at the far end. It was on this street we realized that foot warmers would have been a good idea. Before we went back out for the night we definitely fixed that problem. Next we went to Saint Sofia Church. It was built in 1907 for the Russian population in Harbin and is the largest Orthodox Church in the Far East. After surviving the Cultural Revolution, the church was designated in 1996 as a national cultural heritage site and was restored. As you can see in the photos it looks like they still have a lot of work to do on the inside. We checked into the hotel, put on those needed foot warmers, and went to Harbin Zhaolin Park. The park was named after Li Zhaolin who was a famous anti-Japanese Army general. There are some snow and ice sculptures here that were a nice preview
for what we would see on Saturday. Back to the hotel to finally warm up for the night. How could it possibly be this cold?
They are calling for today’s weather to be colder than yesterday but it is a sunny weekend so that is nice. Our first stop today is Sun Island scenic area where Chinese and International artist gather and create a wonderful snow world. We were wondering how they were able to move so much snow to build the sculptures and then we saw the front-end loader. There was some major construction going on to finish some of the sculptures. Next we went to the Siberian Tiger Park where they protect over 800 purebred Siberian tigers which 100 can be viewed by visitors. They loaded us in a bus and drove us around the park. It was interesting to see and we have heard rumors that you could be there during feeding time but thankfully we did not have to witness that! They also have white tigers, white lions, ligers (cross between a lion and tiger) and jaguars. We then went to the famous dumpling restaurant Dongfang Jiaozi Wang. They were delicious and like always
we ate too many but just couldn’t stop. We went back to the hotel for an hour and then had to leave again for the main event of the weekend, The Ice and Snow World. Life size buildings and castles are built out of ice blocks and lit up at night. It was supper cold but a site to see. They have built slides into several of the structures and the kids there seemed to be having fun with them. We decided we didn’t want to sit on the ice so we stayed away from them. After walking around and having several sets of batteries freeze in the camera, we decided to head back to the hotel for the night.
The last morning we went to see the Winter Swimming event. Several Chinese and a few Russian people dive and swim in a pool cut out in the Songhua River. Crazy I tell you. They didn’t stay in the water long but I don’t know how they were able to do it at all. Then it was time to go to the airport. The great frozen adventure was over (finally!).
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