12.02.2018
Arrived in Harbin with approx. 1.5 hrs delay. The small airport was packed with people. More flights seemed to have arrived at the same time. Finding my luggage was a challenge due to all them people pushing and shoving, but I eventuelle did, just shoving and pushing back. Unfortunately, even in first class luggage somebody transported something which was leaking big time! Now one of my bags – and everything in it – is smelling very much… fishy…sorry to everyone around me now!
The airport is some 46 km away from the city and I went straight to the taxi row and showed the first taxi driver the addresse of the hostel in Chinese. Handy feature that is in the booking.com app, let me tell you!
I had booked 3 nights at the Harbin Longmen Capsule Hostel. It was cheap with CNY 118 per night. All other hotels in Harbin had rediculously high prices this time of the year. I arrived way after midnight, but they waited for me, having 24 h reception anyway. The guy spoke no English whatsoever, but he had a translater mobile app. He talked into it in Chinese and it talked back in at least understandable English. Check in was quick and before I could think I was in my capsule and asleep.
The hostel is very comfortable, clean and friendly, located right in the centre of the city. In my female dorm room there were 8 capsules. They look very futuristic, but are perfect. Very spacious with all features you need – lights, AC, fire extinguisher, socket for chargers, safe box, hooks, shelves and the door locks from inside or outside automatically.
The shared bathroom was in the corridor. Only 3 capsules were occupied, though.
13.02.2018
There was no need getting up early in Harbin. The attractions open late anyway and it is very cold in the morning. I put on more layers of clothes than before – now I had 3 on the lower body and 6 on my upper body. I dug out my big special winter boots I had been carrying as well. I was going to spend the day outside and no way was I am going to freeze! The weatherforecast showed -25°C.
I asked the guy at reception what is the best way to get tot he Ice & Snow Festival venues across the river on Sun Island, and he started with his translator app again. But then I was lucky, a girl from my room – I was the only foreigner again – spoke English and walked me to the public bus stop around the corner. Bus #126 went regularly, cost CNY 1 and I had to get off at the 4th stop for the first attraction. It took approx. 25 min and I reached the turn of for the “30th Harbin Sun Island International Snow Sculpture Art Expedition”. The actual entrance was another 2 km or so from the main road, but there were touts and a ticket booth and I bought my entrance ticket for the regular CNY 330 with them and got a free shuttle bus ride to the entrance with it.
It was early at 10:30 and not many people yet around. From the entrance there was another little E-Bus shuttle to the snow sculptures also included in the ticket. Then I was there!
sky, blinding sunshine and huge snow sculptures gleeming in the sunlight! The magnificent entrance piece is this year a flute playing person. It is beautiful. But there are many more. A whole exhibition of smaller pieces and a frozen lake with more huge sculptures. I wandered around and took so many photos.
I found the self service restaurant which has huge panoramic windows overlooking the sculptures. I had coffee and some pastries for lunch and sat there in the warmth looking at all the people taking funny vehicles riding around on the ice lake. The midday heat wave brought a balmy -13°C.
After more wandering around I took the shuttles busses back to the main street. They had told me at the ticket booth, to the next attraction it was only 10 min to walk from there and the bus driver motioned already to go over the fly over foot bridge. From up that bridge I could already see the ice sculptures in the distance.
To the “19th Ice & Snow World Harbin” it is best to arrive in the afternoon. The ticket counters were efficient and I paid another hefty CNY 330 for the entrance. It is a huge area as well with many ice scultures. Mainly structures build out of ice bricks. There was so much to see. But they had also very beautiful, detailed ice sculptures from a sculpting competition, ice rinks and sledge hills. For this exhibtion I was relatively early at 14:00, is starts only really hopping by sundown, but I had plenty time to look at the sulptures with less people around and in the sunshine.
To warm up I went to Pizza Hut in a glass pavillion for a coffee and some chicken wings.
The sun went down just before 17:00, but already before that the sky turned orange and the ambience changed. Slowly all the sculptures and ice structures were lit up in different colours.
More and more visitor streamed into the exhibition and attractions opened. Chinese tourist seem to be fond of strange dog sledge, horse sledge or even rendeer sledge rides.
The different lights seemed to be frozen into the ice structures and the lights even changed all the time. It was beautiful. So much to see and I walked around the whole area probably 5 times. It was possible to climb up some of the structures for a view over as well.
At about 19:00 all my camera batteries had depleted and succumbed to the cold. So I slowly made my way to the bus stop and took #126 for CYN 1 back to the hostel and retired to my capsule to reflect on the day.
14.02.2015
Because of the mishap with the train and me flying to Harbin I had basically saved a whole day and now had an extra day in the city. After a late start again around 10:00 I walked towards Central and looked for a bus to go to the Siberian Tiger Park. My LP guidebook was somewhat out giving the wrong position for shuttle busses to go there. I did a lot of walking in circles, asking around, showing the Chinese description, got several different bus numbers, but ended up eventually at a sort of Central Bus Stop and asked inside at the ticket counter. Lucky there was one girl that spoke some English and she even walked me out to double-decker bus #29 which would get me to see the tigers. The bus cost CYN 10 and I got the best seat up in front. It took about 1 hr and I got somewhat of a city tour.
It stopped at all snow and ice exhibits and went past the futuristic Opera House of Harbin before it ended at the Siberian Tiger Park.
I bought a ticket for CYN 90 entrance plus CYN 20 for the bus tour. Those are midi busses with caged up windows, the seats are facing the windows to the side. As soon as it is full it goes on a tour through the Safari Park.
The Park is more like a zoo. It is in the middle of the city, it seems. It has huge fenced of areas and there seem to be tigers everywhere.
They do have a lot of space. The bus follows a special route. It passes special gates between enclosures. At some point a caged up jeep arrived and threw a life chicken out the window and a tiger came running to catch and eat it.
There were many huge enclosures and many tigers. They even had a family of Asian lions in a separate enclosure. As we reached the last enclosure a Chinese guide in the bus – I had tuned out of the narrative speech along the way – went around collecting money to feed more to the tigers. I pretended to not understand and anyway I did think the tigers needed more food, because they are all very well fed, if not fat. At least that can be said about this Siberian Tiger Park, it seems the tigers have a lot of space and get a lot of food. I had seen a sign by the entrance stating how much it costs to buy life food to the tigers. Luck me, in my bus all the Chinese went only for chicken and guinea fowls, not a cow! Sure enough a caged jeep came speeding into the enclosure. The tigers seem to know the procedure, because at the sight of the jeep they came running from all corners towards it. They threw 2 live guinea fowls out the jeep and a hunting frenzy started with up to 10 tigers fighting for those. Funny enough the guinea fowls are good flyers and the tigers are very fat, so one bird just flew on top of the fence and then off it went from there. Let’s hope it made it through the other enclosures into freedom safely. The other bird went into a small tree and the tigers almost tore the tree down to get to it, they were to fat to climb into that bush. But eventually one of them got the bird with a paw and that was it. The jeep also released 2 common chickens, but funnily enough the guinea fowls were much for interesting to the tigers, maybe they are considered a delicacy to them. Because the chickens they really only played with for a while and let it run away and then maybe though, oh well, let’s get it for the sake of the tourists.
No wonder those tigers are all so fat, if every other of those tourist busses stops there to watch a feeding….
After the bus tour there was a walking tour as well, more possibilities for the tourists to feed meat to tigers here.
There were very small enclosures for tiger cubs of all ages and pregnant females and such. They even had a puma, a leopard and a liger (mix of tiger and lion) – unfortunately, this one did not show itself to me. Soon enough I had enough of sad tigers in cages and went back to the city on bus #29.
The Central Zhongyang Street is a pedestrian shopping street and much was happening there in the afternoon. I found a small snack market and had octopus on a skewer. They had all kinds of skewers and all were frozen at the display. The prepared the skewer then fresh on the grill and it was very yummy.
I walked around in the center, found the Russian-orthodox St. Sophia Cathedral, more ice sculptures and the post office to send my postcards later.
But I was looking for some food and eventually walked into a restaurant with a huge photo of a hot pot outside. Again, nobody spoke English, but we had a lot of fun with the translator app and pointing at other people’s food to determine what kind I wanted. The tables have a gas burner in them and quickly arrived my hot pot with tomato based broth and frog – yes, I did order the frog! The base was very spicy – for me – they laughed at me, because I had ordered and gotten non-spicy. Glancing over at the next table they had about 10 big chilies floating in their hot pot, while I had only one ….
had also ordered some beef and some vegetables. They had taken me to the display to point out what I want and I had also taken some quail eggs. There was also a station with different sauces, which I almost all tried and then ended up with different soya mixtures. The food was absolutely delicious and I ate every little bit of it! The frog was already floating in the hot pot when it arrived, I guess it has to cook longer or so. But everything else has to be put in the pot as wished. Very nice food and the Harbin Beer washed away some of the spiciness. They certainly hat fun watching the foreigner eat and kept pointing out more things to try as well. But I was definitely stuffed!
It had gotten dark by now and I was luckily 10 min before closing time at the post office to mail my post cards.
Then I saw more colorful ice and remembered there was another sculpture exhibition in Zhaolin Park right in the center. I had to go there as well! Entrance fee was CYN 150 and the ambience was totally different from the other exhibitions. Here the setting was in a city park. The structures made of ice bricks were smaller and the color scheme more yellow/green/red, while in the Ice World it was heavy on the pick/turquois/blues.
were less people here and there was some music as well. They also had some ice sculptures, however they were not a detailed as in the Ice World. It was beautiful and a great end of my visit in Harbin!
Back to the hostel I took the bus #126 again and spent the last night in my capsule.
15.02.2018
I ordered a taxi for the morning to the airport. I had to fly again, because there is no through train anymore from Harbin to Vladivostok, what a shame. I could have done it in pieces, but nobody was sure if I can connect and if the border is open for foreigners or if it is even open at all because of Chinese New Year. All this was too much trouble for me and I decided early on to fly.
The tiny international terminal of Harbin Airport saw all of 4 international flights that day spread over the day! I was way too early, but so were others. The waiting hall was warm and they had coffee and ice cream. Eventually they opened for check in, but first to x-ray all luggages. Check in was fast, then passport control took longer because again they had to consult 3 supervisors about that funny visa paper I have with my double surname on it. The best part was security check, however! They wanted to take my big power bank away! Nobody spoke more English other than “No! Not allowed!”, but I being me made a big fuss and would not give up my power bank! After all I had only signed for it in Chengdu and Beijing, so what was different in Harbin? So I kept telling them I would sign and after a long time and more supervisors being called, there was a female officer who understood more than 3 words and obviously had heard about being able to sign for the power bank. She made me sit in the waiting area and after about half an hour she returned, gave me my power bank, noted my passport details in a form and let me sign and finished! Just never give up too easily!
While waiting I chatted with a Russian lady who was living in Harbin teaching Russian and was going to Vladivostok for a visa run over the holidays. There were a few foreigners on the small plain, but mainly Chinese tourist groups.
Russia – here I come!
