Harbin #2: St. Sophia Cathedral & Snow and Ice World

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I was going to get up really early, but I had a bit of a lie-in as I still had an evil headache. I took some painkillers and headed for a shower. Not the greatest water pressure in the world. Must remember to try a different shower tomorrow. It took me ages to get ready because I had to keep going to the bathroom to use the mirror and there was no space to store stuff, so I had to keep going back and forth my different toiletries. It's hard being a girl at times. I went down to reception and inquired about the ice festivals. I booked a tour for that night to the main night time festival (I was still knackered and dazed so didn't know what I'd booked and had to go back later to check) and then ordered a coffee. I sat at the bar and drank the coffee, well necked it really. Sweet caffeine nectar! I'm sure that helped to get rid of my headache as well as the painkillers.

Since my tour was leaving at 4:30 in the afternoon, I didn't want to go too far, so I bundled up and went for a wander around Harbin. I had seen on the map on the hostel wall that St. Sophia Cathedral wasn't too far away. So after memorizing the directions I headed off. Today the streets were a lot busier than yesterday. There were a lot of people about all bundled up in thick winter clothes. The walk to the cathedral took about ten minutes. It was quite busy in the square and I took some photos of the cathedral's exterior. The cathedral is one only the few Orthodox churches that is still standing on Harbin. While walking around the outside there were a million pigeons on one side of the building and the stupid people were gathered around feeding them. Urgh! Don't feed the winged rats! There was even a stall selling food for them. Vile!

I paid my 20 yuan and got a ticket to enter the church. It's been converted into the Harbin Museum of Architecture and the inside had lots of photos on display of how Harbin has grown and changed over the years. The city has changed a lot. A lot of the photos showed the foreign, predominantly Russian, influence in the city. I knew that there was a strong foreign presence, but it was bigger than I imagined looking at all the photos. There were some descriptions in English, but they were just general overviews of the photos on display. I wish that the individual photo captions had been translated into English, too, they would of been interesting to read. The inside of the cathedral wasn't very grand and was a bit of a crumbly wreck in place.

By this point I was starving, so I headed back along towards Zhongyang Dajie and ended up going into this bakery that I had spotted earlier for a bit of brunch. Once inside the bakery, nothing really appealed to me, but I picked up a sandwich and ordered a coffee. Bless the lass behind the counter trying to communicate with me. They didn't seem to do Americanos, so I ended up with a latte or cappuccino, not sure which. They had some gorgeous little cakes on display in the counter by the till and I had a moment of weakness and had to buy one, as I knew that the sandwich alone, just wouldn't cut it. I decided to eat in the cafe upstairs in the bakery and I took my sandwich upstairs, while my coffee and cake were being prepared. What a shithole! The tables were covered with leftovers and there were random stuffed monkey toys on the tables and random games. There was also random boxes and the staff's clothing hanging about. It felt more like I'd intruded in the staff room, rather than visiting a cafe. I cleared some crap off one table and sat down, the chair was broken! So I had to perch carefully on that. I took a bit of my sandwich, it was solid as a rock! The bread must of been toasted when it was made, but that must of been a while ago, as it was rock hard. I got myself covered in crumbs eating it. My coffee and cake were delivered to my table. The coffee was nice. The cake looked really pretty and chocolatey, but when I took a bite, it didn't taste as good as it looked, too bland. Some other customers came upstairs to sit on the cafe and they looked around in dismay, too, at the state of the place. The bakery definitely didn't live up to it's name of 'Most Delicious'.

I popped back to the hostel, quickly and then headed back out. I walked up Zhongyang Dajie, the way I had walked, at first, the night before. The shops were all open and there were a lot more people about. The buildings looked just as pretty during the day. The architecture doesn't look Chinese at all. I walked up the street to where the maze, sponsored by Harbin Beer of course, was. There was a bloke begging there and he had no shirt on. He was bare chested in the minus 20 degree temperature! It must of been a tactic to get more money out of people, the shock factor. I headed down through the underpass to the Flood Control Monument and the river.

I could actually see the frozen river today. There was a lot of activity going on, on the river. There were kids driving mini army tanks, hilarious, sledging, and other activities. I took a walk along the river bank, through Stalin Park. The walk way is really pretty with ice sculptures and other flower arrangements. It was cold but nice and sunny. I walked along taking a million photos of the different statues and the fun that was being had on the river. There were some small little wooden Russian style buildings that had fallen into disrepair and were looking a bit tired. There were a few big floating restaurants and other building that looked well shut up for the winter. It must be nice to come in summer and spend some time on the river. I got to a point and then turned around and walked along the other side of the river. There were a lot of smaller boats on this side and they were all frozen in place. There was also construction work going on and a half built bridge that jut stopped before it had reached this side of the river.

I was freezing by this point so I headed to Costa for a warm up and to read my book for a bit. There were a tonne of other foreigners in there, but also a lot of Chinese. I got nice and warm in there. They had the heat blasting and I had to remove a couple of layers. I headed back to the hostel to bundle up for my trip that evening. We were meant to depart at 4:30 and that came and went, and our driver hadn't shown up. He arrived after a while, and then farted about for a good fifteen minutes and finally we were on our way. Annoying, I hate time wasting like that. At least the driver let me sit in the front, so I had loads of room to myself.

The drive to the festival took about 15 minutes. I was headed to the main festival, Ice and Snow World. It was magical to see as we drove up. All these huge brightly coloured ice sculptures. Magnificent! We parked up and headed to the festival. The tour guide was chuntering away in Chinese, and was giving out her cellphone number. She seemed shocked that I didn't have a cell phone. Anyway, this lovely Chinese guy, Chenan, and his girlfriend adopted me for the duration of the festival. After much fannying on and lining up, we were finally through the gates and into the festival area.

Wow! It was simply amazing! We walked around these giant sculptures and I took about a million photos. It was like a small city made entirely of ice. They were all lit up and some changed colour over time. It was magical. We spent some time wandering around and then we decided to go on one of the ice slides. The queue was quite big and as we weren't moving much I was getting colder. We finally made it too the top, there wasn't much pushing in going on, which surprised me, and we were off. There were two slides and I got the very slow one, I didn't slide at all, I had to push myself down the slope. I must of looked like a right divvy. I was freezing now after all that standing around. My toes were gone, couldn't feel them at all.

We walked past the giant Buddha (?) statue, you could see a bit of snow damage on her. I guess the winter has been milder here, like it has been in Korea. We headed over to this stage area, that was hidden at the back. I had to swap my gloves for my thicker ski ones and put on the big thick mask thing that I'd bought. It was baltic. The show thing was canny, but I was too cold standing tstill and didn't have a great view. There were people dressed up, if I remember correctly, in old fashioned stuff and they were maybe warriors. They were climbing trees, skiing up and down the mountain, dancing and waving huge Chinese flags. I was glad when it was over and I could start moving again.

When we were walking about, there was a bloke mcing and a group of girls dancing on a small stage. They were teaching the people the dance to PSY's 'Gentlemen'. Hilarious! We joined in, it was good fun and more importantly, it got the blood rushing back into my toes. We had a bot more of a walk around. We joined a queue to go on a bigger slide, but we soon gave up as the queue was massive. We walked around some more and then we headed to the vantage point on one of the sculptures. It was pretty slippery when we were walking up. They had laid carpet down to stop people slipping, but it had big holes in it. The views from the top were amazing! You could see out over the whole of Snow and Ice World. It was magnificent! After getting to the front and taking a few photos, it was time to leave the festival and head back to the bus.

We found the bus (well, mini van) pretty easily. Chen had phoned them for instructions in how to get to it. We all got in and then they told us to move to a bigger bus. That was better as there was more space and it was more comfortable to sit in. Another mini van of people got on and we were off, on our way back to the city. The drive didn't take long and we were the second drop off. Back in the city, I decided to go for some dinner. I headed to Dumpling King, but it was 8:55 and it shut at 9, so I had to nix that idea.

I decided to head back to St. Sophia Cathedral, as I wanted to get some pictures of it in the dark. It was really pretty, and it was quieter than during the day. After getting some pictures, I headed off for some food. I stopped by KFC and got a Dragon Twister. I wanted the set but obviously, the woman thought I was fat enough and would only let me had the actual twister, rather than the twister with a drink and chips. The wench! The food was canny, a Dragon Twister is kind of like a duck pancake. It was a tortilla filled with crispy chicken, cucumber and hoisin sauce. I headed back to the hostel and had a beer and read my book. Harbin beer is canny nice, not the greatest but drinkable and it's only 65 RMB, about 70p a bottle in the hostel. Then it was time for bed, ear plugs in and eye mask on.

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Photos

Feeding The Pigeons
St Sophia Cathedral

Looks Good...
...Shame it didn't taste it.