Massive snow sculpture of Napoleon on Sun Island in Harbin, China

Last Friday after work, Andy and I took a taxi to the airport along with our large suitcases that were much bigger than would normally be needed for a weekend getaway.  The reason for the large bags was that we were going up north to Harbin, China where it is required to wear many layers of warm clothes due to the -20 to – 30 degree C (-10 F) temperature.  Harbin, in north-east China, is the capital of Heilongjiang Province and is only 480 kilometers from Vladivostok, Russia.  The name Harbin is originally a Manchu word meaning “a place for drying fish nets” as the modern city started out in 1898 as a fishing village at the time of the construction of the Chinese Eastern Railway, an extension of the Trans-Siberian Railroad.  Harbin is the tenth largest city in China.

Our flight wasn’t until after 8pm so we found a restaurant in the airport where we ate dinner and enjoyed a couple of drinks before the flight.  After waiting for ground clearance on the runway for far too long, we took off and landed three sleepy hours after later in Harbin.  After landing, I went to use the restroom and noticed many women changing into multiple layers of clothing.  I decided not to change since we were only driving to the hotel from the airport.

Last week was a really busy week for both Andy and I and so we exited the airport very unprepared for Harbin.  We bought the proper clothing but forgot to make sure that we had the phone number and Chinese name of the Holiday Inn.  All of the foreign companies in China have Chinese names  such as “Wamida” for Ramada, “Mai Den Lao” for McDonalds, “Xin Ba Ke” for Starbucks, and if you do not know the Chinese name of the establishment there is about a 0.5% chance that the taxi driver is going to know what you are talking about.  We quickly realized that we had not adequately prepared.

The next thing we knew, we found ourselves talking to a taxi driver in the below freezing cold at 1am negotiating (I should really say accepting) the price of a cab ride to an unknown hotel.  Long story short, we paid 300 RMB (about $38 which is very pricey for China) for a ride that cost 150 during normal hours and called the taxi drivers friend, who spoke very broken English, to try and figure out where the Holiday Inn was.  Half way to the hotel, we started to wonder if the driver was either drunk or had a problem with his car because he relentlessly straddled the center line of the highway for miles.  We did know one part of his car was not working, the heater.  Welcome to Harbin!

After calling my mom in Boise to try and get the phone number to the hotel, and before successfully dialing the number, we arrived at the Holiday Inn.  I guess the drivers barely-English-speaking friend knew more than we thought.  We checked in and immediately crawled into bed.

The next morning, we slept in but woke up in time for the last few minutes of the breakfast buffet.  After breakfast, we went back up to our hotel room and started the process of getting dressed.  I had decided to wear four layers on both the top and bottom halves of my body.  On bottom, I put on long underwear, then running tights, then jeans followed by ski pants.  On top, I started with a running/wicking shirt, followed with a fleece, then a sweater and finally my long, black China jacket.  Completing the ensemble was a hat, thin glove liners followed by thick mittens and a scarf.  On my feat I had two pairs of socks and my new winter boots from the Decathlon.  I immediately began to sweat.

We quickly scurried downstairs and I even waited outside while Andy procured a map and some directions to the places we wanted to go for the day.  After stepping outside, I recognized that all of the clothes were not overkill and that I would probably need to purchase something to cover my face better.  Andy was in the same boat and was warm, but needed something to cover his face.

The Holiday Inn is directly across the street from Central Street which is the main business district and a mostly pedestrian-only zone.  We walked down the street and immediately appreciated the blue skies and seemingly fresh air.  It was already such a nice break from Shanghai.  We spotted some of the famous candy-coated fruit on a stick that Harbin is famous for as well as Russian dolls and fur hats and I started snapping pictures left and right.

Picture taking was a bit of a challenge though with all of the layers and gloves.  I finally resorted to keeping my camera in my mitten with my hand as it solved both the problem of access to the camera and mitigated the effect of the cold draining the battery of the camera quickly.  We noticed some buildings that appeared to be in a Russian-style of architecture but not as many as I was expecting.  All and all, it was a very enjoyable street and we were happy as clams on such a nice, yet cold day.

The street ended with the intersection of the Songhua River.  As we were approaching the river, Andy asked, “do you think the river will be frozen?”  Boy was it ever.  As you can see from the pictures on the Harbin page, the river was hustling and bustling.  There were vendors selling warm accessories and candied-fruit; others were renting a new form of chair ice skating and still others were racing cars and yes, there were even horse-drawn carriages.  All of this was taking place ON the frozen river.  It was amazing.

While at first riding in a horse-drawn carriage on a frozen river sounded like a crazy thought, we quickly warmed up to the idea after enough cajoling from a nice vendor.  After taking a few pictures with the horse, we somehow got talked into the “full area tour” mostly because the coaxing had become annoying and we just wanted to get rid of the vendor and start our ride.  The horse pulled us over to a bridge and then to some sort of dog-sled track.  I rode the sled thinking it was part of our “package deal” but turns out it wasn’t and both the horse carriage driver and the dog-sled driver wanted an additional 20 RMB.  I regretted taking the dog-sled ride because not only was I out 40 RMB but I had felt horrible the whole time I was on the sled and repeatedly said a common Spanish phrase “pobrecito” (poor thing) to the nice dog.  Luckily he was big and strong and had a warm coat, but I still felt bad for him.

We finally made it to the other side of the river to “Sunshine Island” on the north shore of the Songhua River.  We walked past a replica of a Russian village and then paid to enter the snow carving park.  Once inside, we were amazed by an array of statues that were either/both large or/and ornate.  The entrance walkway had snow carvings of famous people including Einstein, Plato, Marie Curie, etc.  To our left was a snow replica of the Forbidden City that you could toboggan down.  Further into the park were dozens of other sculptures ranging in theme and size.  We saw large tributes to Napoleon, German beer, French Wine, Chinese Tea, cowboys, rats (year of the rat), the ever-popular naked ladies and much much more.  Finally, there was a very large sculpture (part of it is shown in the picture above) of a fairy tale scene with a woman, a castle and many other ornate images of flora and fauna.  The incredible part of this sculpture was its shear size.  It must have been at least three blocks long and easily four to five stories high.  The entire park was amazing!

We still had two other parks with ice carvings to hit, so we decided to walk back across the river and find a place for lunch.  The best part about our walk back was that we could really stop and inspect the ice covering the river including all its cracks and bubbles.  We were in awe of its thickness.

Once back on the other side of the river, we began to get desperate for lunch and were disappointed to see only KFC and Pizza Hut.  Luckily before we crossed an intersection, I turned to my left and saw a sign for a Russian restaurant.  We ducked into it and were swept away but the quaint charm and lovely smells of the place.  All of the tables were full so we patiently waited for the next available one.  About ten minutes later, a table cleared out and we staked our claim with some of the many layers of clothing we were beginning to shed.  We invited another guy who was waiting to sit at our table since it was a table for four.  Over the course of the next hour and a half, we got to know our new friend Caleb who was from a mixture of England and Canada.  He had eaten at the restaurant before so he introduced us to the Russian staple? borsh which is like a tomato/vegetable soup, but really tasty.  I experimented by ordering some other Russian things that I did not know what they were which also turned out to be good.  So far, we liked Russian food.  Our conversation with Caleb was all over the board with topics ranging from migration patterns in China to the U.S. Presidential candidates.  Caleb is the second foreigner I have met recently who knows more about the U.S. Presidential candidates than I do and I was again inspired to study up on Obama and McKain and other candidates who have sense dropped out.  We came up with a few predictions for the election and felt satisfied that we had solved the problems of the world over Russian food and tea.

That afternoon, Andy and I went back to our hotel and took a nap.  The cold really takes it out of you.  After the nap, we got ready to go out again with our abundant clothing and for round two, I even added heating pads to the mix.  At the suggestion of my friend who had visited Harbin the week before, I had purchased the heating pads that women can use for menstrual cramps and that night I affixed them to my feat, calves, stomach, chest and arms.  It was a strange feeling.

We took a taxi to the Harbin Ice and Snow World, which was a fair-like set up with ice sculptures glowing with neon lights.  This park had replicas of Angkor Watt, a church, the Forbidden City, the Parthenon, a Thai-looking Buddha and more.  Andy and I walked around for awhile taking in the sites and I leaned on him extensively not to fall as the ground was very slick.  Afterwards, we went to Zhaolin Park which was much closer to our hotel.  This park was a lot more intimate and had much smaller ice sculptures than the other two parks, but many more sculptures.  Also the sculptures were a lot more intricate and it appeared that there had been some kind of contest that ice carving artists from around the world had entered in this park.

After we had seen enough sculptures and had enough of the cold, we went in search for another hearty Russian restaurant for dinner.  Again, we stumbled upon one that is apparently over 100 years old.  This time around I ordered more things that I did not recognize and am pretty sure I ended up with goat intestines, but the rest of the stuff we ordered turned out good.  We walked home and called it a night.

The next day, the only “must see” thing on the agenda was Sophia Church, which was only a short walk from the hotel.  It is a good thing, because I woke up with a sore throat and Andy wasn’t feeling 100% either.  We repeated our routine of breakfast, bundling up and then heading out and arrived at the church before noon.  Saint Sophia Church was the largest Eastern Orthodox church in the Far East.  Today it serves as an architectural museum that was not very interesting to us since all of the captions to the pictures were in Chinese.  Nevertheless, we enjoyed the trip to the church.  Although it was run-down, we found it to be quite beautiful and unique.

Because we were not feeling well, we did not venture out too much more that day before we went to the airport.  The flight back was uneventful and we were happy to be back in significantly warmer (although still cold) temperatures in Shanghai.  It was sure nice to have been away from the <big> city for a weekend and to take in all of the awe-inspiring sites that Harbin has to offer during their annual ice festival.

We timed our trip to Harbin perfectly because shortly after we returned, the winter storms around the rest of China started to make travel very difficult.  Currently millions of Chinese are stranded trying to get to their home towns to celebrate the Chinese New Year next week.  We know of one coworker who is still on his way home after two days in a bus on the highway, for a trip that normally takes six hours. The picture in the Shanghai Daily today showed the train station in Guangzhou looking like Woodstock under some train tracks.

Monday and Tuesday I stayed home from work with my sore throat.  It was a doozy and without Tylenol I could not eat or sleep.  I finally went to the doctor (my first time in China) and picked up some Amoxicillin which quickly worked to clear up the infection.  Thank goodness for modern medicine!

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