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Published: January 26th 2011
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ICE FESTIVAL!!!
Amazing amounts of awesome ice carvings... In Guangzhou we found a hostel, and ended up changing the next day due to extortionate prices...went to a mahoosive shoe Market where Clare got some quite decent fake Ugg boots, and a ridiculous amount of fake designer bits and bobs. We met up with the Germans...and I bought a decent camera...to better document my travels.
For some reason we decided that cold barbecued squid was a good idea, and so I suppose it was only our own fault that Clare ended up with pretty horrible food poisoning, which was a pity. Luckily she had recovered by the time it was time for her to head back to the UK (damned exams!). I was sad to see her go, but in march I'm going back home for a bit, which will be lovely.
After Clares flight, I just had 8 hours to wait until it was time for me to go up to Haerbin, and by now the dodgy squid had started to kick in. In short I made some horrible smells in some of the toilets, and managed to throw up all over one of the toilets aswell...but hey, it was kinda funny at the time, hearing all
Angry tiger
this guy jumped up at us and seemed to be rather peeved. of the Chinese talking about how foreigners couldn't handle their food...
It was finally time to fly, and i can easily say that it was one of the worst flights I have ever had...I felt terrible, and couldn't sleep at all, even though we'd only had a few hours sleep the night before (again...my packing...). Eventually, we arrived into Haerbin, and when we got off the plane, everything was frozen...the tunnel that attached to the plane actually had a decent centimetre of ice on the inside of the windows in places, crazy!
I caught the airport bus, and when I finally got off it in Haerbin city, I nearly slipped over on the ice covering the roads. It is unbelievable, but all of the roads here seem to have quite large parts covered in ice, and the drivers just drive straight over them like there's nothing wrong.. Anyway, I got to the hostel, was shown to a room which i shared with a Malaysian guy and an american, and proceeded to fall asleep very, very quickly.
The next morning, I left the hostel, only to realise quite how cold it is here... In 2 pairs of socks,
Guangzhou!
and meeting up with the germans! 5 layers on top, and 3 on the bottom, i still rapidly froze, and resorted to buying a woollen thingymadood to cover my mouth and nose, and went everywhere trying to be as small as possible and conserve all of my heat. I wandered the streets until someone told me how to get the bus to the main part of the city, and then proceeded to wander around the snow park, which was really quite impressive. I helped some Chinese workers sculpt a little bit of a huge building, and saw some of the amazing snow sculpture competition entries being made, and completed. Every so often I was forced into a little cafe to reheat and thaw my toes, but it was great fun, and felt a lot more Christmasy than sunny Hainan! I also saw where they carved some of the ice sculptures, a big warehouse quite a way off the beaten tourist track, which was cool to wander around, and chat to some of the workers. That evening I came back quite early to recover from the cold, and ended up having quite a lovely early night!
The next day I was much more ready for the
How not to dry clothes in Haerbin
It is very, very cold there...some wuuld say too cold... cold, and left prepared to do plenty more than the previous day. As it was, I managed to get completely lost on the city bus system (Lonely Planet lies!!!), and had to catch a taxi to the Siberian tiger park, which was amazing. There are only about 500 of these animals left on earth, and a good number of them must be here, I got on a tour bus with a load of Chinese tourists, and we proceeded to drive through the tigers enclosures, with them coming right up to the bus, needless to say, I got plenty of photos on my new camera!!! I had been hoping that one of the other punters would have paid to have an animal thrown to the tigers (this can range from a chicken, to a cow), but it wasn't to happen. As it was we got to see a liger (the curious, but massive offspring of a lion and a tiger) and got some pretty cool pictures of these extremely endangered animals!
After that I went on to Haerbins most famous attraction, the winter ice festival. Here, thousands of people spend hundreds of hours building colossal ice buildings and sculptures in
Snow Sculpters
My pals...really good fun, i helped these guys for a while to warm up... a big park, which are then lit up at night by coloured lights to create some truly amazing sights (see the pics!). It was rather chilly by now (-27 degrees) and after checking out most of the park, I made for my hostel, which was a good hour and a bit of bus rides and changes. Luckily I made friends with a lovely woman, who told me to call her Auntie Bai, and she told me how to get back!
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G and G
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fantastic!
Unbelievable Ben. .what a wonderful trip, sorry Clare missed the ice city. We loved the tigers but not the other little animal! Must have been very difficult coping with such extremes of temperatures Excellent photos too G&G