A Trip to the City of Ice-Harbin

Never in a million years did I think I would purposely visit a place where temperatures could plunge to -400¡æ! However, when we moved to China, we were told we HAD to visit Harbin (Haerbin), which is located in China's northernmost province and we had to visit in January! What, we asked, was the attraction?

We went to Harbin over a long weekend with a large group of our intrepid friends. Not even the foggy highway stopped us (although it did delay some of us...Keep that in mind when going anywhere around Beijing/Tianjin in the winter!)
Overhead bin space was at a premium in the aircraft with all our bulky winter jackets. Our suitcases were full of "layers" - long underwear, sweats, shirts, socks (and more socks!), boots, gloves and so on. We were ready for whatever cold there was! What we weren't ready for was the taxi ride from the airport. It'll cost about 120RMB (insist on the meter); we thought for sure it was also going to cost us our lives. We were in the typical Santana-type cab racing down the highway at 150-160 km/hour. Fortunately, the road was fairly new, relatively flat and pretty straight. Upon comparing stories later, some of the taxis were airborne at some point during the trip and all of us basically held our breaths for the 20+ minutes of the ride.

Fortunately, we made it to the hotel, checked in, and got our first glimpse of the Ice Lantern Festival (Bing Deng Jie). It was across the Songhua River out in the middle of a desolate plain. We all "quickly"Ó got dressed Ð well, as quickly as we could with the four or more layers we had to put on! We had to get outside quickly after dressing, - it was too hot to stay in the hotel. We took taxis over to the grounds Ð a 5-minute, safe and sane ride.

The festival grounds were amazing Ð the wall surrounding it was constructed from blocks of ice (we saw workers harvesting the ice from the Songhua as we drove over it). Once inside the park, we were in awe of the sizes and shapes of all the ice sculptures. There was a huge 4-masted ship, a train, a mini-version of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, a giant Buddha, bridges, temples, fanciful figures and characters, even a climbing wall (very dangerous Ð we wouldn't recommend them) and a luge track designed like the Great Wall. There were lots of activities for kids Ð from mini tanks on ice that fired snowballs to carnival games, dune buggy driving, snow mobile driving and even a mechanical bull.

When nightfall arrived, the festival came alive. The sculptures are lit up with colorful neon lights and this is when many people began to arrive. (By the way, sunset was at 4:30 PM!) The colorful sculptures, the music and the people Ð all combined to make a fantastic evening. One thing we all instantly noticed when nightfall came was that the temperature went down significantly. More than one time, my face felt as if it were freezing and I couldn't talk normally. The biggest problem however was our feet! We decided it was time to leave when they became numb!

Our search for dinner that night revolved around the number of lanterns in front of the restaurant. According to the Lonely Planet book, Harbin uses lanterns as a rating system Ð the more lanterns, the higher the standard and price of the restaurant. Also, red lanterns mean Chinese food is served; blue lanterns indicated a pork-free menu (usually run by the Muslim Hui people). It was fun looking for the lanternsÓ and the kids really enjoyed helping pick the restaurant.

The following day, a few families rented a van and headed to the Manchurian Tiger Park. The park reminded us of Jurassic Park when we saw cage-covered trucks driving in and out of electronic gates. We managed to secure our own tour bus so we could all get window seats. (Note: You purchase the tickets at the ticket booth and then arrange for the bus inside a nearby building that has some souvenir stands and tiger displays)

We entered the park by passing through electronic gates that opened to an intermediary area. Once inside, the gate closed behind us and the next gate opened. Again, according to Lonely Planet, there are about 70 tigers at this reserve and it was very apparent that the breeding program was very successful. The tigers looked healthy and most were wandering in a fairly large, open area. A couple of us had purchased coupons for "food"Ó for the tigers Ð steak and live chickens. We wondered how the tigers would be fed we didn't have to wonder long. The cage-covered truck arrived (much to the excitement of the tigers). The steak was thrown on top of the vehicle and was promptly eaten. The two live chickens were placed on top of the truck and before they knew it, the tiger had them in its mouth. Later, we watched a tiger chase down a pheasant. We decided to forgo the larger animals (cows for example). Supposedly, these tigers are being bred for eventual re-introduction to the wild. One would wonder how these animals will survive in the wild when they're being trained to jump on trucks for meals consisting of domesticated animalsÉ

Following the tiger park, we all went to the snow park (Sun Island) where we were again astounded at the craftsmanship of the sculptures. The sheer size and detail of some of them was awe-inspiring. In addition to the sculptures, there was a long slide that the kids (and adults) really enjoyed. We finished our snow park excursion with family photos by a huge (10M x 20 M) sculpture of a multitude of sheep Ð obviously carved for Chinese New Year.
By now we were all famished and agreed that the last thing we wanted to do was look for lanternsÓ so we went to the Harbin McDonalds. No complaints from the kids, that's for sure! After eating, we went looking for an apparently mythical 1 km long slide. Our quest took us back to the McDonalds because it was right down the street from a flood monument and park area. It was quite the carnival-like atmosphere here with vendors selling food and souvenirs. Also, there were some big ice slides, sleigh rides (you could take a sleigh ride to the snow park), windsailing on ice, and dune buggy driving. There were also real SUV trucks (Jeeps) that the kids could drive through a challenge course. We were a little concerned until we found out the trucksÕ transmissions were so bad that the kids couldn't go beyond first gear! This was definitely a highlight for the older kids!
Next we went in search of a Russian Orthodox Church called St.Sofia. It was built in the early 1900's, was heavily damaged in the 1960's-1970 but has since been mostly restored on the outside and converted to a museum on the inside. It has that classic Russian "onion-domeÓ architecture that stands out in stark contrast to its surroundings. It sits magnificently in a large square in downtown Harbin. When we entered the square, we heard recordings of Russian classical music from the church. It was beautiful and a must-see on any Harbin itinerary.

For dinner, we all decided to "go Russian" We made arrangements at a place called Huamei, which is known for its Russian food. Our menu consisted of bread, caviar, chicken Kiev, borscht, beef stew, fish, fried prawns, and other dishes. I suppose you could characterize it as "hearty" food! Our waitress you could have characterized as...hmmm...unhappy. Oh well, we had fun anyway!

After dinner, we walked down the shopping street, which was beautifully decorated with white lights and red lanterns strung overhead. There were fireworks being set off everywhere in preparation for the New Year the following week. There were people selling dragon balloons (incredible Ð I wish we could have kept them!). The kids bought them and did dragon dances on the street. (Word of warning Ð one of the vendors tried to pass a fake 10RMB bill as change for the balloons!)

We all finally got too cold so we loaded into four taxis to go back to the hotel. We thought our ride from the airport was scary...somehow, the drivers got the idea we all wanted to race. I know personally in our car, no one was telling the driver to speed up. We were telling him to slow down but I suspect that just spurred him on. We were passing our friends in the second lane of oncoming traffic and yes, there were cars there! We managed to arrive at the hotel first only because the other drivers were going so fast that they missed the turn. Actually, our driver should have missed the turn too but instead, he slammed on his brakes, whipped over to the right into the hotel's driveway and, in the process, cut off another taxi that in turn had to slam on his brakes to avoid slamming into us. Angry words and gestures followed but our driver just looked the other way and dropped us off at the hotel. I remember when I first moved to China and how hard it was for me to get used to the driving Ð Harbin taxi drivers are in a class of their own and for those of you who are familiar with the video game "Crazy" Taxi I think the inspiration for that game came from a Harbin taxi ride!

After all the sightseeing, the one thing we still needed to do was to shop! Some of the group had already been out shopping (instead of going to the tigers, snow park and church) so they knew where to go the morning of our departure. We only had a couple of hours and all of us had something very specific we wanted...the ladies wanted Russian nesting dolls and the men were interested in night vision goggles (and Russian nesting dolls for their wives since two wives couldn't make the trip!) In the last hour of our shopping, we happened upon a market similar to Pearl Market Ð actually, there were a couple of them in a row on this one street. So much stuff Ð so little time! It was a bit overwhelming (as is Pearl Market) with stall after stall of dolls and other souvenirs. I think we all wanted more time to look. I know I personally never made it off the first floor!

I think overall, we were happy with what we did purchase and reluctantly headed back to the hotel to check out. We were a bit nervous about the upcoming taxi ride to the airport but were pleasantly surprised when our drivers drove the speed limit and stayed in their lanes!

The airport check-in was smooth so we settled in to the gate area waiting for our flight. Our flight was delayed because of mechanical problems, which actually was a good thing because we discovered there was Russian bread and sausage for sale at one of the airport shops. One loaf of the bread weighed 2 kilos and it was absolutely delicious. All of us bought at least one loaf (they came in these really interesting burlap bags) and we also bought some of the sausage (which I highly recommend). There was a video game area for the kids so they didn't mind the delay either. Eventually our flight departed and we arrived 1/2 hours later in Beijing.

Harbin had a lot to offer and now I see why people said we HAD to go! There was plenty to do for adults as well as for kids. Experiencing the Russian influence was very interesting and seeing those ice sculptures was amazing. It's a perfect long weekend trip.

Note: Although we did not go, we understand there is a nice ski resort called Yabuli approximately 200 km east of Harbin.