Harbin #3: Siberian Tiger Park and Sun Island International Snow Sculpture Art Fair

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It was an early start this morning as I had a lot planned. I was up by half seven, showered and dressed, I headed downstairs to see if the hostel did breakfast. I was in luck, they did. I ordered one of the sets. It was canny nice, coffee, toast, jam, and a ham omelette. I must of been hungry, I even ate the jam! There seems to be a restaurant area, but it was filled with people sleeping, so I sat more in the main reception area, which has a few tables and chairs. I went outside to check how cold it is. The hostel is always nice and warm, so when you go down to the reception area in a few layers, you end up sweating.

I finalised my plans for the day at reception, asking about taxi prices, so that (hopefully) I wouldn't get ripped off. I also bought my ticket for the festival today, as it is cheaper to buy them through the reception. Two quid off! At least I didn't have to walk far to get a taxi, as there is a crossroads about five paces from the hostel. I got a taxi straight away, and pointed out the place I wanted to go on my list that the lovely lady in the hostel wrote in Chinese characters for me.

The taxi driver annoyed me, he was ringing someone and getting them to speak to me in English. They asked me if I wanted him to wait for me at the Tiger Park, as there would be no taxis about (such a lie, Wikitravel tells you), I politely declined and we drove on. Abojut two minutes later we stopped again, outside some random office and he was chuntering on at me. I just kept saying Tiger Park, not like he would understand, so he got on the phone again. The same wife as before was asking me if I wanted tickets (who knows for what), I was feeling canny pissed off, I've told you my destination, so just take me there, grr. Stop wasting my time with the meter running. Anyway, I politely but firmly declined, and I was finally on my way to the Tiger Park. It was a quite a good drive, maybe about twenty minutes.

I was dropped off at the car park and went and bought a ticket. I thought it was 90 yuan, so handed over a 100 note, I was waiting for my change and they person behind the counter pointed at a sign that the 10 yuan conveniently paid for the bus ride around the park. I entered the building to the left of the ticket booth. There wasn't much going on, a few stalls selling souvenirs. Everyone was standing waiting to be let through to the buses. After about a five minute wait we were let outside and ushered on to a bus. I got a widow seat and being the only foreigner, had no one sit next to me. It pays to be blonde at times!

We drove into the park. We spent about half an hour maybe driving around the different parts of the park. there were quite a few gates and we had to stop at each one and wait for it to be opened before we could move on. We saw quite a few tigers, most of them didn't really pay us much attention. They were just wandering around, going about their business and chilling. It was cool to see them, but they weren't really doing much and we didn't get to close to them. When I was trying to zoom in to get some close ups on my camera, it wasn't working. The photos were just coming out white. I guess the extreme temperatures of the Snow and ice World had buggered it. Not that I was surprised, I had expected something bad to happen to it.

After the drive round we were dropped off at this covered walkway thing above the tigers. This bit was a bit sad as there were loads of tigers in a smaller space. At least in the park bit, although it looked grim, they could run around with plenty of space. We set off on the walking tour looking down on the tigers. They are such beautiful animals. There were a couple of people selling food that you could feed to the animals. People were buying great chunks of meat and poking them through the barb wire with tongs. The tigers were jumping up and snatching the meat. You could see the power that these creatures have. There was also something a bit more sadistic you could buy too, live chickens! People were buying them to feed to the tigers, I know that tigers hunt live prey, but they are not living in the wild (I've since read online that all the tigers in the parks were bred in captivity), so it's not like they are stalking their prey and then capturing them. So anyway, people were buying the chickens and then putting them down a chute and a tiger would grab it, kill it, and eat it.

After watching that for a bit I wandered around. The walkway has a set course to follow. I headed out to the viewing platform and could see some tigers that were more free than the ones we were closer to. There was a vile stench in the air. I think it was because the viewing platform was above some cages, they were empty, but maybe they lock up the tigers after all the paying customers have left. I watched them having a bit of a wander around. I headed back to where the bus dropped us off as there were some loos and I needed a pee. I timed it perfectly because when I came out, there was no one about and a couple of workers arrived with a trolley full of meat. I got to watch them feed the tigers with not another soul around!

The tigers were swarming round to get the meat. I wish my camera wasn't knackered as I could of got some great photos. I walked around again, there were a few points were the tigers were getting fed. I think it was mainly chicken that they were being fed. There were so many tigers in this part. The end part was quite sad as there were tigers, lions, leopards, and ligers were in small cages. I think there were some bears too. They were all walking around restlessly and their compounds were pretty small. After exiting the park I took some photos of the cute tiger statues around the park. There was a nice outdoor park, if it wasn't so cold I would of spent some time looking around it.

I found a taxi driver and got him to talk me to take me to my next generation. He seemed to know where it was when I pointed to it on my sheet of directions, but as soon as we left the park, he stopped and asked for the piece of paper again. I even showed him my ticket to show him where I wanted to go. Still he was chuntering away. I was trying to be nice and smiling, but inside I was thinking shut up and drive. He started asking me about where I was staying and I jut acted dumb. Eventually he took the hint and left me in peace. We drove to Sun Island and we drove past the Snow and Ice World, that I had visited the previous evening. It didn't look as magnificent during the day time.

I was dropped off at the Sun Island International Snow Sculpture Art Fair. I entered the park over a small bridge, you could look down the river and see Harbin proper in the distance. I entered the park, I was expecting it to be a lot busier, but it was fairly quiet. There were people there, but not so many that it was difficult to see the exhibits and you could photograph them without a million people in the way.

At the entrance, there was a big sculpture of a queen as you walked in, then a huge one on the left, it was a winter animal scene, and there were some horse sculptures on the right. I suppose its to celebrate the new lunar year, the Year of the Horse. I walked down the street in the park, and I took photos of the sculptures on display, there were also some floral arrangements. There were also quite a few foreigners about. I think they were German or from some other European nation. There were also some red lanterns, so it looked nice and festive.

I headed down to the part where there were loads of sculptures. At first, I thought you weren't allowed on to the grass, to be near to them, but I saw other people were, so it was okay as long as you didn't touch them or go past the safety rope. There were loads of statues. I decided to stick to one side and I think I took photos of most of them. Some were better than the others. Some were much more intricate. I headed off to the right and there was the castle type thing that was pretty big, and people were sledging down it. I kept walking and there was a pretty mural board with gorgeous red flowers drawn on it. There was also the huge snow mural type thing, with a woman's face, was she a queen or heavenly body? The huge mural is beautiful. It's mad to think of all the work that went into making it.

There were some ice bathrooms where you could relive yourself, however I didn't go in. There were some ice building, I think that they were restaurants or stores. I bought a sausage on a stick from a bloke selling food, I was a bit gutted as it looked like it would be nice and hot as it was on a grill thing, but no, I took a bite and it was freezing. It tasted okay. The building had dead animals, birds and rabbits strung up outside of them. Bit random.

I headed back to the other side of the park, where there were more statues to look at that. There was a huge horse one, I think that this was the centre piece, but because this winter has been mild, it wasn't looking it's best. There were, what felt like a million more ice carving to look at, some of them were great, others didn't really impress me. I spent about thirty to forty minutes looking around those. It was cold, but nice and sunny too. The course I was walking took me back to near the start and I headed out of the park. It was a really ballache trying to get a taxi. The first ones were quoting stupid prices, some others just refused to take me, they got sworn at. I finally found one that would take me and not rip me off too badly. He filled the back up with other passengers, so he made the money he wanted to, 50RMB, the fare he had quoted me at the start.

Back at the hostel I took a bit of a nap and sorted out my backpack. Then I headed out to get some dinner. I headed to the Europa Shopping Plaza, I think that was it's name. I had a look around some of the shops, nothing of interest to buy, and then headed to Yoshinoya, for some dinner. I had a lovely set. I was sitting eating my dinner and looked up and saw that the juice or tea stall in front of the shopping mall had closed. I didn't think much of it. I looked up again a couple of minutes later and saw that the entire shopping centre was in darkness. You've got to be kidding me, the entire shopping centre shuts at 7 pm on a Saturday! I hurried to rush down my meal, as the other patrons in the restaurant were doing.

As I left I headed over to the lifts, I don't know what the problem was, if they had stopped working now the shopping centre was closed, or the guard just didn't want us to use, but we were ushered around in the dark and taken to some random side door, up a few flights of staff staircases and then dumped outside on a random side street. I headed back to the hostel to chill with my book and a beer.

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