Harbin

Last year, during the most un-summery summer of my life (in London of course), I vowed that I would go home to Australia, and that by December/January I would be sitting on the beach and moseying around in no more than thongs and a flimsy dress.

As you know, life unfolds in different ways than we planned, and I have found myself in Shanghai. Quite cold, almost colder than in London actually, as it has snowed a few times in the last week.

however, unsatisfied with temperatures of the low single digit variety, I thought I would try and go negative, negative double figures, down to minus 29 in the city of Harbin.

In January and February of each year, Harbin holds a snow and ice festival. During this festival huge, artistic, beautiful sculptures are made out of snow and ice. The pictures on the internet were awe inspiring, and I booked a trip for Aidan and I to go up there.

Since moving to China, I have been scammed in many different ways. The most frequent is to be charged a higher 'westerners' price for things. Another way is for people to pretend to be freindly with you, and then scam you in some uniquely horrible way. I thought I had become quite jaded by now, but you will be surprised then to find out how I booked my airfares to Harbin.

While looking on travel sites for advice on Harbin (using Tripadvisor, Virtualtourist, and Lonely Planet Thorn Tree), I came frequently across a poster called Ellyse. She is a young woman who makes multiple posts on all different destinations in China, with lots of useful advice. After private messaging her on VT, we then began emailing each other.

Ellyse is a Singaporean student studying in Shanghai and who spends a lot of her free time giving free advice to travellers. She also buys tickets for them, books hotels, and even acts as tour guide. At first I was very suspect but after a myriad of emails, she booked some airfares to Harbin for me, we met up for dinner and I handed over the cash to pay for them, with nothing to be given in return, except the hope that on the 18th of January, Spring Airlines would let me on their flight to Harbin.

You might wonder why I didn't use an online travel agent like I did for Huangshan. Well, these tickets through Ellyse were a lot cheaper, because they are on a cheapo carrier, Ryan Air equivalent, which you can't just book on the internet unless you read mandarin. It is called Spring Airlines - we obviously didn't crash and die. However, we did have to sit through hours of a flight attendant yabbering on in mandarin trying to sell all these bits of crap, e.g. plastic plane and god knows what else. Obviously they try to make up for their low ticket prices in this way.

The point is not that I had a great flight, or that Ellyse's service was overly useful. The point is, I handed cash over to a stranger I met on the internet, with nothing guaranteeing I would get anything in return for it. But it was true. This girl is helping people out of the kindness of her heart. And if there is a scam attached, I am as yet unaware of it. (prices on the internet were the same as the prices she was charging I later found out, so she isn't even skimming off the top). In the future I will use Ctrip or Elong (like expedia), however, this girl has pulled me back from my distrust of all helpful chinese people. (ok, she is not strictly chinese, but anyway).

So, after the 2.5 hour advertisement filled flight from Shanghai to Harbin, we arrive in Harbin airport, and walk into the freezer outside. Seriously, I coughed so much at first, as it was very hard to breathe.

I was wearing: two pairs of thermal pants, one pair of normal socks, one pair of wool socks that go right to the top of your leg, one pair of hiking socks, boots, singlet, two t-shirts, thermal shirt, two jumpers, coat, scarf, two beanies, and super crap ineffective gloves. Admittedly my body wasn't too cold, but my face, hands and feet were freezing. Even with all those socks and boots! My face got warmer when I wrapped my scarf around it, but the disgusting thing is that you breath hot air out your mouth, it hits the cold air, condenses, and the scarf around your mouth gets so wet and disgustingly gross. But if you don't have it there, your face hurts a lot.

Our first night, we walked up and down Zhong Yang Dajie, which is the main street. Since Harbin is so far north, it has a massive russian influence, and the main street is all cute and cobble stoned, and the architecture is all russian and dome-like (in the main street anyway). In the middle of the road are ice statues.

We were starving when we got there, so quickly had some KFC chips to tide us over while we walked arund and decided what we woudl really eat (and no, the KFC chips were not the good ones you get in Oz). After half an hour of walking in the freezing cold and being not able to find any restaurant menus, I am sad to say that our KFC entree was followed by a Mei Don Lou (McDonalds) main course....I know that is so terrible!!! but we were freeeeezing!!!

That night, against all childhood advice from my mother, I ripped off my million layers and put my freezing hands and feet directly onto the oil heater in my hotel room. Luckily I have no chill blains. (sp?).

The next morning we wanted to head off to the ice and snow festival. So, rather than risk being scammed by a taxi driver (as we already had been in Harbin, but I refuse to talk of this), I thought it looked easy enough on the map to walk to the place. It was on the other side of the river, but I could see there was a bridge over it according to the map.

so we left our hotel and went down to the riverside - Stalin Park - and walked up towards the bridge. However, this was a rail bridge, and we couldn't walk across it. But, we looked down, and there were many people crossing the river. It was frozen over. when I say many people, I mean like, a dozen, but they weren't drowning, so I thought that was ok. And obviously it was, by the fact that I am here to write about it. But there were some big cracks which scared me, and sheer bits where it wasn't white, but clear, and you could see down into the water. hmmmmm scary. But we walked across it, and then got lost in the slum like area on the other side for a little while (I cannot believe that people don't just die in this weather when they live in poor conditions like this), and finally made it to snow and Ice world.

However, by this time we were obviously frozen to the core (remember it was a maximum of minus15, and a minimum of minus 29). The statues were amazingly impressive. However, my hadns were too cold to take pictures, and the batteries died if you left the camera out of your pocket too long. So we didn't spend more than an hour there I think. we then got a ride back to our hotel for a couple of pounds, from a man with a van. A dodgy van, with tape holding the door on, but still. It was better than walking across that frozen river.

I feel like I should describe the statues more. So much work goes into them, and they are the most amazing things, but I cannot describe them well enough, as I am no poet, and you can tell even from this sentence that my English isn't up to much. One of them was this massive scaled sculpture of some kind of goddess lying down, and then mountains and buildigns and temples around her, and she was just the size of some huge Jumbo Jet!! (admittedly my judgement of size and distance is no good though. I often see photos of myself and others, and am shocked that I am so short). Anyway, this thing was huge. I can't post any more photos on this blog for some stupid reason, so if you want to see photo's, email me. and I will send them to you.

So anyway, those statues during the day were all white, and made out of snow. During the evening, there is another thing to look at, the ice lantern festival. these are statues made of clear ice and which are lit up with neon lights inside them (the chinese love that neon). This luckily was just across the road from our hotel in Zhaolin Park. It cost 60RMB each for us to enter, and then you get to walk around these cool temples made of ice, over bridges made of ice, there is a sculpture competition with competitors from all over the world (USA won first place), and even some ice slides (No thank you crack my head open).

For my trip in Harbin, I bought lots of thermal type clothes to keep me warm, which I worried was a waste of money, but I have found out it isn't, as it is snowing at least a bit every day in Shanghai now, and I am freezing! much colder than London, I think because of the humidity, which makes you damp and cold to your bones. Unfortunately this humidity is also what makes the heat crap in summer.

(on a side note, in Shanghai, people are constantly spitting on the ground, it makes me want to vomit. In Harbin, it is about a zillion times worse, it is constantly going on, and there are frozen little globules of spit all over the ground. Oh, I feel so ill even thinking about it).