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Julie Romanski invited us to join their family on a trip to Harbin. Harbin is in the Northeast of China. To describe it accurately??? It is REAAALLLY cold there. The city is famous for their Ice festival. They build a small city completely of ice. It is an amazing site on the internet. This is one of those places everyone says you have to see while in China.So we flew up on Valentine's Day. Another family joined us, Deanna and her son Andrew Smith. It is a 2 1/2 hour flight from Pudong. We arrived at the airport around 11 am and we were met by our tour guide, Susan. Susan led us out to our van which was actually a tour bus. There must have been 35 seats on that bus for our party of 10.
From the airport, we went straight to lunch at the Dumpling King. Dumplings, or Jiaozi, or as Americans would call Pot stickers are very popular in North China. They brought out about 10 plates of dumplings as well as other special dishes from the area. Harbin also has it's own brand of beer - Harbin Beer. They are famous drinkers in Harbin. Probably due to the influence of Russia which is not far away. Of course, our kids didn't eat much, but the rest of them did.
After lunch, we boarded the bus to our hotel, the Shangri-la. Here we were able to nap for an hour before getting bundled up to spend the evening at the Ice Festival. We all looked like stuffed sausages by the time we had everything on. I think there must have been about 5 layers on.
We started our cold tour at Century Avenue which is Harbin's version of Nanjing Rd, basically a pedestrian shopping street. There was a lot of Russian influence here. We stopped into a store and Kirk tried on a hat. He decided against it.
We got back on the bus and drove to the Ice and Snow World. Okay, this was really amazing. We got there while the sun was just starting to set. You can see the pictures. We all went down the ice slides. The kids had a blast doing this. They just kept wanting to go back for more. We finally drug them away to go see some of the other buildings as the lights were coming on now. Alex wanted to eat the snow. I had to explain that this is not Michigan snow and you can only eat Michigan snow at Bumpa and Gigi's.
We all stayed warm for the most part thanks to Julie's good thinking and bringing heat warmers. Elizabeth needed hand warmers by the end of the night. We were able to take a horse and sleigh ride before we got back on the bus to go to dinner.
Dinner was gross. That's all I have to say about that. Don't go to St. Petersberg Cafe in Harbin. It was just slop in my opinion.
By this time, we were all exhausted and went back to the hotel. The kids and I passed out and Kirk and Romo went to the Ice Bar in the hotel.
The next day we went to Sun Island to see the snow sculptures. I can't say a lot about this. It was very windy and cold and Elizabeth wasn't feeling good so the kids and I turned around while walking and went back to the bus. Kirk got some great pics and I'm sad that we didn't see most of it.
From here we went to lunch and then to the Siberian Tiger park. The kids loved this. We got on a bus and drove around the park and had great close ups of Tigers and Lions. They even saw a Liger. A cross between a Tiger and a Lion....only in China.
It was a quick trip, but we did manage to see a lot. Hope you enjoy the video and pics.
In the pictures you will see an "Ice Swimming Pool". Click on the link below to see a video and article about this activity in Harbin. These people are crazy.
Below are links to a National Geographic Show About Harbin called "Inside Ice Vegas" each one below is about 8 minutes.
1 comment:
Thanks for sharing those great pictures! I"ve seen the show about the ice city and always thought it would be an amazing thing to see. Bet it felt like Minnesota! :-)
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