Welcome to Harbin! The coldest place I have been ... EVER! Temperatures were in the negatives the entire time we were there but nothing too drastic (only 10 below)! It was a winter wonderland but only tolerable thanks to 3 layers of pants, 2 shirts, 2 jackets, 2 pairs of mittens, 2 pairs of socks, and handwarmers all over my body. Craziness. But, hey, you've got to do it. The Harbin ice festival is like nothing else in the world. Between the snow sculptures that can be seen by day and the ice sculptures that are lit up at night, there was always something exciting to see.
We started off our first day with a walk down the pedestrian street sampling street food (our favorites: hot coca-cola and cream popsicles, go figure), then walking across the frozen songhua river to reach the snow sculpture park. These are serious sculptures, too. Competitors come from around the world to carve their frozen masterpieces and past winners/famous sculptors create the park centerpieces. The largest display was easily the size of a football field! After regaining feeling in our toes and playing a couple hands of shanghai poker at a local cafe we ventured over to the main event of the festival: da bing jie (大冰界) literally translated as "big ice world." It was freezing at night but that is the best time to see it all lit up :) SO worth the entrance fee. We ran around like kids and did all of the touristy things: ice slides, lookout towers, corny pictures, holding an arctic fox, taking shots at the ice bar... it was a blast.
The next morning we woke up bright and early to go see the Siberian tiger park. We first held a baby tiger, then took a bus tour of their segregated "parks" which hold free-roaming tigers, and then walked around the young lion enclosure where we proceeded to see a few unique things... 1. A real-live liger (half tiger/half lion) 2. A pheasant clinging to dear life in a tree while being taunted by lurking tigers below and 3. We saw who's live chicken would last the longest out of the 4 we threw into the den. I would like to argue that mine lasted longer.... however, it never made it to the ground. It was quite the experience but I am happy to be back in Shanghai and not spending 30 minutes piling on layers every morning.
Here are pics from the trip! Talk to you all soon!
love,
kpk
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