The Ice and Snow Festival - Day 1

A while back (actually virtually as soon as I arrived in China and discovered its existence) I’d been super duper keen to visit the city of Harbin for it’s annual Ice and Snow Festival. As you may have guessed by the title of this post, I WENT! I decided to split this trip into two posts because of the amount of photos I took, and the fact that I want to share all of them with you! So, enjoy.

First, before getting to the nitty-gritty and the oh-so-many photos from the two-day trip, I want to say the whole experience was unforgettable. Partly because of how amazing both the ice and snow sculptures were, but mainly because it was the coldest I’ve ever been in my whole life. 

So, let’s get to it! It began with an overnight train - which arrived into Harbin at around 8am Monday morning, and after eating a fast-food breakfast near the station we headed to our hotel to check-in/shower/drop our stuff off before exploring the city. Now not to blow my own trumpet, but I organized the details of this whole trip and the hotel I chose, Nanyuan Inn, was very nice indeed! Not as cheap as a hostel obviously (there aren't actually any entries on the usual hostel websites so we didn't have a choice), but between five of us we each paid around 200 kuai each (including deposit). Post-shower, we headed to Saint Sophia Cathedral. According to guides, this cathedral is a former Russian Orthodox church, turned museum in the late 90s. It was a very pretty building to be sure, but I was kind of expecting something bigger.  

Our room!

St. Sophia

Those pigeons went mad - just kept circling the cathedral

 

 

 

The interior

After the cathedral, we went wandering and ended up taking in a travelling art exhibition before ending up on Central Street – the pedestrianized tourist centre of the city. We arrived on the first day of the festival, so walking along this street we could see some preparations being made, though we were able to see some small ice sculptures along the path! Harbin, similarly to Dalian, was under Russian control in the past so this street (being very touristy) preserved a lot of the old European architecture. Lovely stroll it was. After making it to the end, we were just strolling along when we ended up at the river. Obviously at temperatures between -10 and -15 degrees, it was completely iced over so it had become this massive play area with ice/snow slides, sleds, snow mobile things, and much more. I did start to get a little panicky about frost bite after I lost feeling in my toes though, so decided to get out of there and wait in a nice cosy bank until the others were ready to leave. We then headed back to the hotel to get ready for what we’d all been waiting for: the Ice Festival! Some snaps from our day time stroll:

Cheeky chappy

One of my favourite pictures from the art exhibition

Entrance to Central Street

Central Street!

A woman playing the violin - hope you can see it!

Not sure what this one is...

Under construction!

Mother swinging her child

Spotted my first snow sculpture!

Mini ice skating rink

Great advertising Coca Cola

Entrance to the river ice park place

The river ice park!

I’m pretty sure I have poor circulation or something because I get cold VERY easily, and I did not want to risk it on that night. So on departing the hotel, I was wearing eight layers on my torso, four on my legs and 3 on my feet. I also had the heat pad things placed strategically in my boots, on my back and in my pockets for my hands. It was intense – moving my arms was a nightmare. But I was definitely not over-prepared! The Ice and Snow Festival is divided into three parks: Ice and Snow World (for the large-scale ice sculptures), Sun Island Scenic Area (for the snow sculptures) and another park for the small-scale ice sculptures (but honestly, we weren’t interested in visiting that one). Catching a taxi to the Ice Festival in the evening wasn’t too bad, and only took about 20 minutes. After purchasing a ticket (no real queue – but maybe because it was the first day of the festival) at 300 kuai a pop (expensive, but definitely worth it) we headed in, and I was just blown away. Though you can visit this park during the day, night-time is definitely more worthwhile with all of the sculptures lit up. It was beautiful! So cool how anyone can make those things! But my words are failing me, so here are the photos. (I was worried all evening that my camera battery wouldn’t last that long in the cold, but luckily it did!)  

READYYYYYYYY

The entrance!

A giant Harbin beer bottle made of ice!

Igloo bar!

Giant snow goat sculpture for the Year of the Goat

One of my fave sculptures - I LOVE RAINBOWS

Mini ice slide - which I had no intention of going on

Giant Buddha snow sculpture

SO BRIGHT

Sprite!

GIANT snow slide - DEFINITELY wasn't going to go on

Damn woman in ma shot!

The Rat - one of twelve zodiac-themed thrones

Father Christmas and bunnies? Of course China, of course

PENGUINS!

Magical! One of a few castle looking sculptures you could enter

Some very slippy, icy stairs!

OH HEYYYY

The view from the top

Ice train!

AMAZING fish sculpture!

Another castle/fort-esque sculpture to climb!

Ice and Snow World

Surprisingly despite the low temperatures, we stayed a good few hours – bobbing in and out of sheltered/heated areas of course – and then grabbed a ride back to Central Street for dindins. We went to a charming Russian restaurant and I thought the food was pretty good, if a little strange. We also tried real Harbin beer (it’s popular in China, and apparently not as good anywhere else as it is in Harbin) which wasn’t bad! We were pretty cold/tired after this so just went back to the hotel to chill out before Day 2!

Stay tuned for the rest readers

xoxo