The Wonderful World of Ice

 Last week I ventured up to northern China to take part in a wintery wonderland in Harbin, China. Every year they hold an Ice and Snow World. Its known all over the world, there are only 5 other ice parks in the world. Harbin is a 12 hour train ride north of Beijing or an hour and half plane ride away. (I choose the plane!). The temperatures in the winter gets below 0 and is quite frigid. I was fortunate when I went that the high was 9 degrees and the low was -20. (without factoring in the windshield!).

Harbin offers many winter attractions to visitors. I took part in several of these activities. The first was the Snow Exposition. Here they create sculptures out of snow!


This is a snow cathedral!

The year of the horse!










These snow sculptures were larger than life! Truly amazing! However it was very cold walking around the snow park. We were there for about two hours. After two hours I started to lose feeling in my feet. We also got lost wandering in the park. Then we walked a mile back to the beginning.

Next on the agenda (after warming up!) was heading to the Ice Lantern festival. The Ice lantern festival is a smaller version of Ice and Snow World. However instead of focusing on the world (like Ice and Snow World does), it focuses on China.

Apparently all the ice blocks are taken from the frozen river in Harbin. All the ice is hard wired with beautiful lights that light up the night!

 Titan men Square

 Not sure what this is suppose to represent!

Typical Chinese garden style wall.







We spent about an hour and half at the Ice Lantern Festival. The Festival was cool because it was interactive. They had games you could play, ice slides, and you could walk on any of the sculptures. However it was very slippery! At night temperature drops without the sun. My feet were starting to get very numb despite all the warmers I had on!

The next day we went to the Siberian Tiger Park. The first part of our tour included a bus ride through the tiger cages. It allowed us to get close to the tigers while in a safe vechile. (ok maybe not that safe...but I didn't get eaten!)

This tiger was literally laying right next to the road we were driving down!

 All that separated me from the tigers was this cage! At this park you could feed the tigers live chickens. You basically put the chicken down a shoot and then the chicken pops out into the tiger cage. There the tigers fight over the chicken. This cost you about 25 dollars. I really had no desire to touch a chicken or feed it to a tiger..

Of course this is China so people were feeding the tigers things like sausage through the grates. They put the sausage through the hole and then the tiger jumped out and grabbed it. Obviously these people didn't care about their fingers...

After the tiger park we warmed back up and then went to Ice and Snow World. We arrived just in time to see the sunset. The second day was a lot colder than the first day. I was bundled up to the max.

 At Ice and Snow World you can walk around on all the sculptures. They are all created out of ice! There were two ways to get off this.. walk down or slide down. I choose the slide. (not the best way, the slide was full of people and then my butt got stuck halfway done...not enough traction. So I had to scoot down the rest of the way..which was not easy!)

 Standing on top looking down!

 Disney had a castle built! Typical Disney pose..except I am wearing a hundred layers!

Temple made of Ice! Walking around on ice is very cold. I never knew how cold it was until I did it. My feet lasted about an hour. Then they started to get numb. Feet warmers and hand warmers did absolutely nothing to help the cold. The air was so cold that the battery in my phone died and my camera battery started going on the fritz. While the Ice and Snow World was breathtaking I got too cold to appreciate it anymore. I also was too cold to take a lot of pictures. I took about 30-40 pictures then I was so cold I started losing interest. Even with gloves on my hands were cold. My fingers were hurting from the cold inside my gloves. I had hand warmers on inside my gloves.  I have never been that cold before.

I would highly recommend going to Harbin if you happen to be in China next January and February. It is a once in a lifetime experience.