Harbin & The Russians

The Russians got a contract to build a railroad to Harbin back in the late 1800’s so there was a very large Russian population that had a lot of influence here until the Japanese took over prior to WWII. But the Russians are back! Most of the tourist shops in Harbin sold Russian souvenirs and Russian sausage and most of the tourists were Russian. During the Cultural Revolution most of the Russian Churches were destroyed but this one remained. Inside were more Russian souvenirs and the walls were covered with many old photographs that showed how it was during the early 1900’s.

Harbin Mode of Travel

Mostly for me it was slipping, sliding and falling a lot. But Cynthia and I took their cable car across the frozen river and their horse drawn carriage back across the ice. There were many ice sculptures that included free ice slides but the majority of them were too narrow for my big laowei butt. So I couldn’t travel that way. As the students say here “It’s a Pity”.

Harbin Food

Food was good. The people in the north part of China eat a lot of dumplings while the people in the south of China eat a lot of rice. So we ate a lot of different types of dumplings. The things pictured above are called “haw” They are frozen (in the winter) fruit on a stick dipped in a hard sugar coating. I tried the grape, pineapple and banana ones. The grape one was my favorite. (And I like Hangzhou’s food better)

Temples, Palaces, A Chess Set, A Harbin Beer Bottle, and Churches

There didn’t seem to be any real theme here except to impress you with their life-like size and ever changing lights. This was the biggest ice sculpture park with tons of ice (they cut the ice blocks from the river. We saw many truckloads of the huge blocks of ice still being taken to other parts of the city to make more objects.

Snow Sculptures

The pictures of the snow sculptures were the hardest to take because it was just white on white on a gray sky. So I had to fiddle around a little with them using my iPhoto effects and therefore you aren’t seeing the blinding, dazzling white snow that was the real artist’s medium. The tools they used to sculpt with were very interesting too. They looked like giant pieces of sandpaper with different size and spaced nails used for the different grades of the "sandpaper".

Harbin Snow & Ice Festival

Yes that is all made of Ice!

I guess when you have that many months of winter you just gotta figure out how to make money from using the cold stuff that goes with it. So for the last 10 years Harbin, China has had a Ice and Snow Festival. It doesn’t officially start till the 5th of January, but they usually have the majority of the sculptures done before Christmas. Anyway it is really neat to see them still working on their remaining pieces. There are a couple of parks where the majority of sculptures are located (so they can charge you a fee to get into it) but there are also many sculptures just lining the walking/shopping streets.

No Soup Nazi Here.....

My new favorite place to eat is the soup place (Wenzhou Small Food) on the second floor in the student dorm area. You grab a plastic basket and pick from a variety of foods on sticks. They have everything from meat, squid, seafood balls, small eggs, regular eggs, mushrooms, tofu, Chinese style tortellini, and vegetables. Then you go to another counter and pick the type of noodle you want: thick of thin, rice, sticky rice, wheat, sweet potato, and/or other ones I can’t describe. The lady counts up the items puts a numbered clip on your basket and slides it to the two guys hanging over a huge steaming pot of soup where they attach the clip and put your ingredients into one of six net containers till perfect. They yell out your number and then slide it back to another lady who asks you if you want it spicy (la) or not (bu la) – I say “yi-dian la” which means a little spicy. YUM - it is so good on a cold day and less than a dollar. And it’s also right across the street from the bakery that has a great sunflower seed cookie that I love. I will definitely miss the food.