Harbin Ice Festival

Continuing the trend of new year travels, another weekend, another trip. This time to Harbin. Ever since hearing about the Ice Festival at Harbin, it's something that I wanted to see. Being comfortable in tropical climates, snow, ice and cold in general still fascinates me. So I wanted to head to somewhere cold... colder than Beijing cold. Harbin was supposed to be the answer. In this respect I was a little disappointed. Sure it was cold, but it wasn't thaaat cold. I think it went down to about -15, but with copious layers of clothing, it wasn't too much trouble to handle - I was expecting much worse (apparently I missed a big snow storm by a day!). It was kind of like eating a KFC Zinger after seeing the ad on TV - sure it's a little hot, but there's no flames coming out of my mouth.

Anyway, you shouldn't write off Harbin as a warm place based on my detailed one weekend study of the meteorological conditions of the area, it's been a warm winter this year. Harbin itself is an interesting place worth a visit. The city has a reasonably strong Russian influence which is apparent. The city also seemed friendly enough and was easy enough to get around. I wasn't there for long, and I was there for one reason really, to see this Ice Festival - so that's what I did. Before going I was given a tip to go the the Snow Fesitval during the day time and head to the Ice Festival (basically next door) in the evening (because it's more spectacular at night with lights on). This is what I did, and it turned out to be a very good tip. The Snow Festival was pretty good, albeit quite expensive. Basically you walk through a park which has many giant sculptures made of snow. Kind of a nice way to spend an afternoon. There are also some (expensive) activities you can do in the park like taking a dog sled (on dogs that have no idea what they are supposed to be doing), driving a go kart, sliding around in a tube etc, which can be done - but honestly they looked pretty lame for the most part. So after a couple of hours walking around and snowball fights in the park we headed off to the Ice Festival - what I was really looking forward to. There was nice lady out the front of the Snow Festival who offered to drive us for free to the Ice Festival so long as we bought the tickets off her. We did. She delivered as promised. Everyone was happy. Although, somthing dodgy was definately up. We were escorted through the entrance, not in the same way that the regular people were. But anyway, it worked out well for us, and cost the same price (and we got a free lift included!). So, now that I have gotten past explaining the details of entry, I can now explain the Ice Festival itself. Imagine this: a large, cold outdoor area full of giant stuff made out of ice. Well, that's basically it. There are castles, and temples and slides and fish and wind mills and towers and all sorts of things made out of ice. Some of the ice buildings you can enter and even climb. It's damn slippery though climbing ice staircases. As with all Chinese tourist attractions, it's also quite crowded. So basically, if the guy at the top was to slip and fall over, then he would take the 200 people below him out too. Which would be quite comical. Nevertheless, during my brief stay (un)fortunately, I didn't see this happen. The Harbin hosptial must be kept very busy dealing with ice fall related injuries.
I arrived at the ice festival a little before sundown and walked around a bit. Then the sun went down. The temperature dropped a few more degrees. The lights came on. That was nice. The ice sculptures are lit up in various coloured lights, which gives a nice effect at night. So overall, yeah, the place is better at night. Aside from one thing - you need to watch out for the horses that runaround with tourists following in carts behind them. The horses go pretty fast and don't seem to care if there are people in their way. These horses become a little more difficult to dodge when it gets darker. Another facet of Harbin life that keeps the local hospital busy I'm sure. So the Ice Festival was certainly worth the visit, but I couldn't help feeling the same as how I felt when I visited Legoland: "This is awesome, but it would be so much more awesome if I was 10 years old!" So that's pretty much my experience of Harbin. The following day I had two choices 1) visit the tiger park, 2)laze around the city. I chose 2. I sort of regret not going to see the famed Harbin tiger park, but at this point I'd had my maximum dose of Chinese tourism for the weekend so I decide to relax instead and see what the new city had to offer. I also discovered what the city doesn't offer - tissues. In the room I stayed in there were no tissue (not even toilet related) and also in every single restaurant I went to, none pro

vided tissues. You had to buy some (they were on the menu), and when you did you get a whole box of them. I guess every city has its weird quirks. Overall, Harbin is a good place to visit if you enjoy ice related amusements the way ten year olds enjoy Lego.