Harbin - A Winter Wonderland - Part I

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The week of January 21st, I visited Harbin, the capital of the northeastern province of Heilongjiang. This northern province borders on Russia, and hosts and annual wintertime Ice and Snow Festival. If you like ice and snow, you'll love Harbin. It was wonderful to be in a place with "real winter" as I like to say. There was bitterly cold temps, windchill factor and frostbite danger. Oooh now that's winter!

I went with my new roommate Kathryn, from England. She is new to China and wanted to go with me since I was planning on going already and because she will be leaving in September, so this was her chance. We benefited from the information we received from other teachers who had been earlier in January. We knew the cool places to check out and got info on a cheap hotel near the train station, near the center of the city. So we were off on our journey to the frozen tundra!

On Monday we arrived and after some wandering looking for the cheap hotel and just about giving up and heading out to the youth hostel on the edge of the city, we found the hotel that our friends had stayed at and successfully checked in. It's a real Chinese hotel, with staff that speak no English, so I had to put my best Chinese language foot forward to get ourselves situated. Hooray for knowing just enough Chinese! Then I had the staff call and cancel the reservation at the hostel, and that again was a process but successful in the end.

We put our bags down and walked over to the main tourist street, Zhongyang Dajie (Central Avenue). The street is paved with cobblestones from 100 years ago when it was a Russian settlement. There were ice sculptures all along the avenue, which was fun to see. All along this street there were Russian souvenir shops, hawking goods from Russian dolls to jewelry to every brand of vodka that Russia makes. We wandered the street, stopped off for a glass of vodka at the Ice Bar. We sat on fur - yes fur - which covered the ice benches and set our drinks down on the ice table and if we had smoked we would have put our cigarettes out in the ice ashtray! After sitting in the Ice Bar, it was time for food in a warm restaurant. We walked down to the Russia 1914 restaurant. It was the former house of a Russian family, and the restaurant was basically in what used to be a living room. The restaurant still had the old piano and old furniture and some photos and an old camera collection, etc. It was quite warm and cozy! Russian food is mainly meat and potatoes, so I was limited as to what I could eat. I had some mushroom soup (good!), mashed potatoes (yummy!) and some Russian bread (delicious!). My mom was right, I'll eat anything white! 😊

The next morning we were up and out for our day of snow and ice sculptures. We went first to see St. Sophia's, the Russian Orthodox Cathedral in town, near Zhongyang Dajie. An impressive site, this traditional Orthodox church has been preserved and so has the large open square around it. The church now houses an exhibit of art and photographs from the days when Harbin was a Russian mecca. The inside of the church is in need of repairs and a paint job, but the photos and church artifacts were interesting nonetheless. It was a mix of Russian and Chinese culture in the church and the neighborhood around it.

After checking out St. Sophia's, we headed to the river. We took a turn - and then a second turn - on the giant ice slide they built on the riverbank. It was like being a kid again! We decided to take the horse and carriage across the lake, it was the obvious and easy way to get across the frozen water. Our friends had told us we would be ripped off (they paid 100yuan!), but we paid only 40 yuan (20 each, what a deal!) and we were off across the water. We were dropped off on the edge of Sun Island Park, our first outdoor stop of the day. We wanted to check out the Snow Sculpture Park/Competition. The sculptures were amazing! Such intricate detail carved out of pure snow. Giant faces, tributes to the Year of the Rat, dragons, the Forbidden City, snow houses, and of course the ubiquitous Olympic rings and Beijing 2008 logo. You really can't go anywhere in China without seeing that!

We were still in the park around dusk, then walked over to the side of the park where there was a bridge across a river. We were headed to the Ice Sculpture Park down the road. We knew it was close, but were cold already and had a couple more hours of outdoor viewings ahead of us. So we hopped in a taxi and went to the big exhibition. What a sight! The ice scultures were all lit up and did not disappoint! From the entrance gate looming large over us, to the Forbidden City and the Acropolis, we were in for a treat! We wandered around the Forbidden City, the Olympic mascots, the ice Porsches, the Tower of London and Stonehenge, and Westminster Abbey (a tribute to the London 2012 Olympics) and then decided to rest inside one of the warming houses. There were glass houses around the park where we could sit and warm up for a few minutes. We had a cup of tea and rested our legs before braving back into the frozen wonderland. We walked over to where some ice skaters were performing, and watched while skaters performed a Chinese fan dance and then some other skaters - I think they were Russian or European? - performed to Rock Around the Clock. How bizarre! Then there was a performance with capes and wings of some sort, and it was time to move on. We walked up the ice steps to the giant Acropolis on the hill and got a great view of the whole ice park. We were feeling the bitter cold and ready to wrap up the walkabout and head for a warmer spot. We finished walking around the other side of the park and headed out to catch the bus back to Zhongyang Dajie.

We knew where to catch the bus and waited while the bus that was there was being worked on. In those bitterly cold temperatures, sometimes vehicles just don't start! The bus behind it was working ok, but wasn't taking passengers til the first bus got going. Finally, the first bus left and we boarded the second bus. After the bus was sufficiently full and then some, we took off. We weren't sure where to get off, we just knew we needed to get across the river and back towards the main part of town. We asked the bus driver, in my best Chinese, and he basically kept telling us to stay on the bus. Where were we going? We didn't know! Finally the last stop came, and we were back at the end of Zhongyang Dajie, right where we wanted to be! Hooray! We got off and headed down the street for some food. This time, we went to another Russian restaurant and I, again, had yummy mashed potatoes. Mmmmm! After dinner, we went to a bar called USABucks, an obvious rip-off of Starbucks. What is with the Chinese copying everything? The bar was a sight to see: Americana memorabilia everywhere, and pictures of the owner everywhere, in different clothes and poses. We saw Route 66 signs, a NY Mets sign, Elvis photos, old knick-knacks, and the owner - a Chinese guy - in his Marine uniform and Navy sweatshirt and so on. Lots of randomness at this place! Anyway, we got warmed up, listened to the Eagles on the sound system, played cards and had a drink or two. It was a successful end to our outdoor adventures of the day!

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Comments

[Kristine]

Mets & fur
You sat on fur, really? Gross!! There was a Mets sign, really? Did you take it so I could have it?