http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/ Travel adventures in journals and photos from Asia , China , Heilongjiang , Harbin en-us Tue, 21 May 2013 13:09:41 +0000 Tue, 21 May 2013 13:09:41 +0000 Our longest train journey yet started from Irkutsk on the weekly train to Beijing via Harbin. The train was one of the newer ones and this time we had a cabin all to ourselves for two days or so. Settling in we realised there was little to do except check out the scenery or read. I decided to catch up on sleep and let Dave get his fill of scenery. When I woke Dave let me know that there had been http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-774928.html After 36 hours in the train we arrived in Harbin at 4.30 am. And it was cold. Really really cold. 37 degrees plus wind. Thats nice. Maybe Thailand would have been the better option. Anyway we are here and it is going to be awesome. Hopefully.The first task was to find a taxidriver who is willing to use the taximeter. It took almost 20 minutes and gave us a first impression about what such a t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-771746.html A much delayed blogLess than 6 days after I got back from a 5 week long excursion to Vietnam and Philippines with the relatively warm balmy weather I was off again this time to the opposite temperature extreme Harbin or Haer39bin to see the Ice Festival.The train was booked so I headed down to the train station. No english spoken or written anywhere so I was left to my own wits to figure http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-713116.html A common denominator of Japan and China is leadership that denies shameful moments in history.Japanese leaders Ishihara and Nagoya remind me of two museums I visited on my trip to Harbin in 2009. The Germ Warfare Museum and the Harbin Jewish Museum offer two separate accounts of the Second World War within the same city.Harbin China39s Ice Festival town bordering Siberia once had a thriving Je http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/My-house/blog-692565.html Dalian to Haerbin February 24th to 26th 2012Haerbin una ciudad en el Noreste de China muy al norteltspangt y cerca de la frontera con Rusia es la ciudad del frio el hielo y la nieve. La ciudad da mucho de que hablar. Todoltspangt el mundo aca en Dalian habla de ella la ha visitado y ha experimentado el frio extremo y visitado el mundialmente famoso Parque del Hielo con sus grandes monum http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-691935.html A breaking time of my trip to recover my health from malaria my plan was crossing Himalaya from Nepal to Tibet but my health condition didn39t allow me to do that route the weather was getting colder in north hemisphere so I came to south of China to be with family in Chinese new year and waiting for a warmer weather to restart my journey because I will go to Pakistan from Xinjiang and t http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-686313.html Hi AllBrought tears to my eyes today. What can you say Mankinds cruelty knows no bounds. The horrors of what the Japanese did in World War II are on full display here. The museum is very informative and interesting how much do you know about the Japanese invasion of China but it does seem to harbour a little resentment and doesn39t really give out a message of forgiveness. The disgusting wa http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-679843.html I made an impulse decision and made a weekend trip to Harbin right after our weekend trip to Beijing I will only be in China for one year and I know that every holiday I plan for the rest of my life will likely be somewhere HOT so I figured I should check Harbin off my list now. It was a VERY quick turnaround but well worth it Harbin is a city that is in the very very far north of China and is http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-679528.html Hi AllAnother Chinese city and another zoo. It was a bit more of a safari park than a zoo really. Boy are those cats big. One even attacked the minibus we was in. It was good to see these animals but again the ones that were in the cages didn39t seem to have that much room.It was extremely cold again today and I gave up wanting to walk around because I lost the feelings in my feet.Enjoy the ph http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-678887.html Hi All Today we got up a little bit late so we decided to have a look around the city this morning and then in the afternoon we went on to the ice festival. I have never felt cold like it is here. I39m putting on half of my wardrobe to go out and I39m still cold. Daniela is putting on so much that she39s finding it difficult to walk We went to the St Sophia cathedral first well it39 http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-678874.html Hi AllIt39s been a long while. So the holidays have begun. We39ve had a few hiccups train tickets are so hard to come by at the minute so we39re having to fly more than I wanted to but we39ve finally made up to Haerbin. The trip up here was fairly uneventful. We had an afternoon to kill in Beijing so we went and had some Peking duck which we didn39t have the last time we were th http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-678621.html 04012012Today is what ended up as an eating day. With other words we didn39t manage to really do much more exciting things but eat every 2 hours or so. This was mainly due to the fact we were taking a long time to do simple things. It39s excrutiaingly hard to find an internet cafe in Harbin. We were first walking circles trying to find one which was nonexistent but present on the crappy L http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-678113.html 01012012This is our last kind of day in India. Generally we aren39t counting it as a day as such as we have the stress and hassle of getting to the airport lugging our 35 kilos of baggage around and basically have no plans to do anything exciting. We were lucky enough to drop the bags at the tourist centre whilst we plodded about Connaught Place to bide the time we had left. The flight was i http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-678111.html We have had a chilly time over the past day or so but have definitely had a fantastic trip. Last night we set out from the hotel at 5.30pm all warmly kitted out with everything we could possibly wear....we were headed for the Ice and Snow World where the big exhibition of snow and ice sculptures is this is the big one. And we were not disappointed as it was absolutely amazing and everyone ha http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/My-house/blog-675319.html It has been an animalpacked few days As promised yesterday we saw sea lions beluga whales and much much more at Polarland The fun bits came however in the Chineseness of the visitors. We went to watch the sea lion show but it was absolutely packed with Chinese school children The show was clever although a little noisy in true Chinese style. After the show we had a look around the place http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/My-house/blog-675048.html This Christmas holiday we decided we would do a bit of exploring within China as the Chinese don39t have holidays so it is much more comfortable to tour around. Seeing as Ian only has a short Christmas holiday we are away for 5 days we have ventured 3 hours by plane north of Shanghai to Harbin in Heilongjiang Province. Harbin is very near the Russian border and is world famous for the Sno http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/My-house/blog-674712.html Jestem w pociagu z Shenyang do Harbinu. Tania rzecz a nie bardzo cieszy. Jakies 300km za jedyne 39 juanow ale siedzi sie na jednym poldupku i wstaje co chwila zeby kogos przepuscic. Rozmowy z lokalesami wiele pozytku nie przynosza bo o ile costam nawet jestem w stanie powiedziec i zrozumiec o tyle nie ucze sie niczego nowego bo spoza znanej puli niczego nie rozumiem i nie jestem w stanie zap http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-662589.html I39m so glad to find the place. But I39m not used using it now. So here I just give my greetings to the friends in world. http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/My-house/blog-652160.html Harbin was the 2nd to the last stop before my year as a student ended in China. This was one of the places I would highly recommend for people to visit when going to china as long as you can the cold.Harbin is best visited on January since it39s when the ice snow festival is celebrated. From Beijing we traveled overnight via train and it took about 8 hours and we arrived about 5am in the mor http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-622569.html Harbin the capital of Heilongjiang province near to Russia there are a lot of Russian influence there some Russian construction and so many Russian speaking the Mandarin. Harbin is also famous by Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival normally there have the Winter Olympics Games.Harbin39s dialect is very close to Mandarin so you don39t need to worry about and the people from north of China http://www.travelblog.org/Asia/China/Heilongjiang/Harbin/blog-620873.html