HARBIN - a Lady-Boy, Russian gogo's and a love-song-singing Chinese rocker

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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 temperature really feels like. After we arrived at the hostel at around 6am (of course the room is not ready at this time), and a 1 hour nap on the couch, we are brave enough to go outside and find some breakfast.

The cheapest way to go from A to B is apperently the bus, so we took it most of the time, even though there was (of course) no heating in the bus. On the first day, we just strolled around town and bought some more clothes (and with "some" I mean "a lot"). We thought two pair of socks and two trousers might be enough but it is definitely not. So we upgraded on 4 to 5 layers instead of 2 or 3.

After spending comfortable night in one of the best beds I have slept in so far in China, the Siberean Tiger Park was on our schedule. Although I imagined the Tiger Park to be slightly different to what it is in reality, it wass stunning to see such a huge amount of these beautiful animals. I really like them, even though one of them thought, it might be a really good idea to mark his territory ... on my trousers (which made in turn some dogs in the hostel beeing extremely attracted to me, or my pants, or whatever). After we almost lost some toes because of waiting for the bus to go back to town, and a pretty good dinner, we were looking for some kind of bar or club.

And we were lucky. Behind an inconspicuous door, a kind of scary "I-could-easily-beat-the-shit-out-of-you" chinese-mongolian security guy was welcoming us. The bar was located on the first floor, and of course, completely empty. The reason might have been, that it was around 7pm. So we didn't expect to much from this evening.We just wanted to have a beer or two before going back for the hostel. We were so wrong. As if we gave some kind of signal, the bar started to fill with people and within another 30 mins. it was really crowded. And then the show started. People who have been to chinese clubs know, that chinese guys really like to get entertained, instead of dancing themselves. So a chinese She-Male-Singer was the one to open up a weird parade of different entertaining acts. There was a chinese version of the Gangnam-Style-Guy, some russian gogo dancers and a type of Hells-Angel-Chinese-Rocker. He did not only a great peformance in drinking beer in a really inventive way, but also completed the show by singing a famous chinese love song, together with another die-hard-guy, who was apperently his best friend. After the entertainment part of the evening was beaten down, the stage was open to the public. Of course this offered a great opportunity to all the, by now, drunken chinese guys to display their incredible dancing skills. Unfortunatelly this didn't last too long and even though we had made a lot of new friends on the dancefloor, around 2pm we were the only guys in this club, sharing the stage just with the russian gogos and the beer-artist who captured the stage with a towel as his weapon. That's what he used during the next 30 mins. for his solo-poledance performance. During this spectacle all the employees were begging us with theire eyes to go home. Around 3pm we felt to sorry for them and finally left this hidden wonderland of chinese-entertainment-oddities.

During the next days we spent our time by strolling around the city, visiting the Ice-Festival (which was exhausting because of the security guys who didn't want to accept our student ID card which led to 20 minutes of motivated discussion before they finally agreed, and also because of the temperature). To reach the area where the Snow Sculpture Festival takes place, it is possible to cross the frozen Songhua River, which was a really nice walk. It felt like beeing in some post appocalyptic snow desert. We arrived at the Ice Festival around 4.30 pm and I would definitely recommend to go there around this time. So you can see the sculptures during daylight, that soon turns into some weird, surreal twilight, and finally when it's getting dark and the sculptures are illuminated. I was really worried about my camera but should have been even more worried about my fingers. I had to take of my two pair of gloves once, and just for maybe one minute, to change the battery and it was enough to give me a pain like someone is putting needles in my hands.

Another great thing to see in Harbin is the St. Sophia Church. It is beautifull from the outside (especially when it's illuminated during the night) as well as from the inside. But of course it is not enough to have a nice and old church. So what can be done to make it even more awesome??? Yeah that's it. Let's plaster all the walls inside with some fotos. So you don't have to look at those boring, old walls. And can there be anything better than a nice big shop directly at the entrance, selling all the stupid stuff you don't need, like blinky, small, barking plastic dogs? I don't think so. So all in all the church is not only a really nice place to visit but also another good lesson in "How to deal with Chinese Tourist Industry" 😊.

After four days, we left Harbin and the only thing I regret is, that despite our desperate attempt, we were not able to find this mysterious icebar, that must be somewhere out there. So on the one hand, we missed the chance, to have a good russian vodka out of a glass made of ice, but on the other hand, it's allways good to have an evident reason to come back.

Next stop: the cozy and beautiful car-manufacturing-city of CHANGCHUN, the city which is proud to produce some of the biggest traffic jams in China...

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Photos

Ice desert
frozen Songhua River

freezin Harbin
1cm of ice covering all windows in the bus, from the inside