Trip to Harbin

I hope everyone had a great holiday season! I'm looking forward to this year; I think it'll be a good one! I wanted my first post of the 2009 to be about my recent Harbin trip, so I'm going to hold off on my post about Chinese cuisine for now. Harbin (哈尔滨) is an amazing place! If any of you are planning a trip to China, Harbin should be on your list of destinations to see. It is beautiful, especially in the winter.

We left the overnight train from Beijing to Harbin at just past 7 in the morning and quickly looked for a taxi to escape the harsh Siberian winds. Harbin is very close to Russia, so parts of the city have a very Eastern European feel to them. We stayed at the Harbin Friendship Youth Hostel on Xuefu Lu. It wasn't too bad, the staff was relatively friendly and it only cost 35 (about $5 USD) RMB per person for one night.
After checking in we headed off to Zhongyang Dajie (Center Street) to check out the commercial center of Harbin. It is a really interesting place to visit. The street is still cobblestone (cars aren't allowed to drive on it), and all of the buildings look European. There are plenty of Restaurants and Russian souvenir shops. We visited the beautiful St. Sofia chapel, located just a few blocks east of Zhongyang Dajie. We didn't mind paying the entrance fee to get into the chapel, as it gave us a chance to get a break from the freezing weather. With temperatures at around -20 Celsius and strong winds, we needed to take breaks every now and then and thaw out in a restaurant or souvenir shop. The inside of the chapel was filled with medieval style art and decorations. After leaving the chapel we headed back to Zhongyang Dajie to look at the many beautifully detailed ice sculptures that line the center and sides of the street and grab some lunch. We ate at a nice Russian restaurant, and then headed out for Sun Island Park to see the famous snow sculptures.
After lunch we asked someone on the street for directions to the park, and they told us which direction it was in and then offered to take us to a place to get a carriage ride to the park. We declined, but that didn't matter to them. They followed us all the way to the frozen lake which we needed to cross to get to the park. Quick side note: If you ever need to ask directions, make sure you ask a police officer or security guard. If you ask other people that are standing around, chances are they are trying to sell a service of some sort. They will follow you FOREVER and tell you anything they can until you finally cave in and purchase the service they are trying to offer. After they told us that the park was literally miles away and that we wouldn't be able to walk we agreed to take a carriage across the frozen lake for 50 RMB (a little over $7). We were pretty upset when the ride was over after he crossed the lake (which would have only taken maybe 5 minutes to cross on foot).
Walking around Sun Island Park was like something out of a Silent Hill game. It looks like an old abandoned Russian town. All of the buildings were vacant, covered in snow, and run-down. It was a pretty cool experience. We made our way over to the park with the snow sculptures. I can't even begin to describe how awesome this place was! All of the sculptures were incredibly detailed!! There was even this massively huge sculpture at the north eastern side of the park. Click here to see photos of Zhongyang Dajie and other snow sculptures from Sun Island Park. We also saw a television game show kind of like NBC's Wipeout being filmed there. We asked if we could participate, and they asked us to come back the following morning. We agreed.


After leaving the park, we headed west towards the Ice and Snow World. This is an annual event held every winter (and supposedly gets bigger and better every year). This was one of my favorite attractions in Harbin. Pictures just can't do this place justice. All of the buildings are made entirely of ice and sculpted to look like the famous buildings they represent. There were ice representations of the Forbidden City and Pagoda Forest, as well as many others. There were also some fun ice slides to go down. The entrance ticket was quite pricey, 150 RMB, but it is totally worth the cost. It is amazing to see what people can do with ice. To see the pictures I took at the Snow and Ice world, click here. We finished our first day with a nice dinner and a quick trip to a bath house to thaw out from our day of subzero temperatures.
We had an early start the next morning so that we could compete on that game show. It felt quite a bit colder than the previous day, which made it pretty hard to compete in the game. It was such an amazing experience! They took all 5 of us on the stage and interviewed us in Chinese and asked us to say a coupe of New Year's greetings and then one-by-one we attempted the obstacle course. It is a lot harder than it looks! 2 of us made it to the 3rd obstacle, and the rest of us failed on the first one. I got the impression that not many foreigners compete on that game show, as a lot of the staff asked to take pictures with us. It was almost as if we were celebrities!
Our next stop was the Siberian Tiger Park. This is a preservation that is seeking to build up the Siberian Tiger population in a massively huge wildlife reserve. They also have some lions, and other big cats. You can even see real Ligers. Bet you didn't think those really existed, did you? After you purchase an entrance ticket you board a small bus and head out into the reserve. This gives you an opportunity to get up close and personal with the tigers. It was another amazing experience. You also have a chance to purchase livestock which they feed to the tigers right in front of you (if you don't like watching animals eat other animals, you may want to look away when this happens). You can purchase something as small as a chicken or duck, up to larger livestock such as goats and cattle. If you would like to see more pictures from the Siberian Tiger Park, click here.

We then went back into town for some more high quality Russian food and to check out the Ice Disneyland in Zhaoli Park. The ice Disneyland is interesting, and would most likely be a huge hit with the youngsters, but the Snow and Ice World was far more impressive. After this it was time to head back to the train station to catch our train back to Beijing. It was such an awesome trip and I really wish I could have spent a few more days there!