07/01/10 - Harbin Ice Festival‏

Well, it was time to get my real chinese experience holiday going after a rough start in the previous two days.

The ever helpful concierge stood out on the road in the snow and cold to hail me a taxi for at least 20 minutes before one finally came in. Before I went he asked me why I was going to the ice festival so early. So early would be about 1pm or so from memory, maybe earlier. I thought it would be best to get a good start at it, but as I later found out, the show really only kicks off once night falls.

Regardless, with the help of the concierge and a map a hawker sold to me at the train station courtyard, I got a taxi to the Harbin Ice Festival, which houses all the ice constructions, as I've since learnt, the Disney themed park and Ice carved sculptures are in Zhaolin Park and the snow sculptures are on Sun Island. Helpful hit if you ever decide to make the trip yourself as the information available isn't that clear.

Regardless! 100 yuan later and with it being very overcast and snowing, I was here, at the entrance to the Ice Festival.

And I will mention this over and over, it was cold. Snowed all day and night, and I was worried sick about the snow buildup on my camera, but since it is so cold, it never seemed to melt and I could just brush it right off. The condensation when you go inside a building on the other hand, is something to be wary of with electronics, as that just draws the water right to it.

Anyways, I should probably talk about the event itself.

It was another 100 yuan to enter and this left me short of cash, but I wasn't worried, as surely there would be an ATM on site, or I could use my credit card.

How silly I was. There was nothing, it's all cash, including the ticketing office for entry. This lack of cash would come into play later in this story.

The entrance itself is massive, this year it was in a temple style wall with the left side being the entrance and the right side where all the cars would park behind.

Anyways! Ticket in hand, eyes wide open (figuratively, did I mention the wind, cold and snow? Yes? Good.) and camera at the ready I trudged in. When I entered, I think there would have been 30 people or so in the park, not including staff. Still, I just pointed in a direction of what I found interesting and started taking photos and reading the descriptions where I could.

Straight up there was a massive chinese styled palace, with a ice sculpted chariot with horses running out of it, and flags from around the world in front of it.

Off to the left there was a maze that was two interconnecting love hearts, so lovers could enter at either end and romantically meet up in the middle. Given the maze was about waist height, if you didn't meet up with your sweet heart halfway through, perhaps indeed it wasn't meant to be. Keeping to the left of the grounds, there was a giant chess board, a massive snow sculpture of chinese styled lions running and even the colosseum with chinese scripture all over it.

Ah, I could describe it all, but better to go over to my flickr webpage and just look at them yourself.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/burnsrado/sets/

There were activities there that were free as far as I knew, such as riding a converted bike on the ice, or sitting on a small sled, either which you propelled yourself along with metal poles with spikes on the ends and either steer with said poles, or some of the sleds had a steering mechanism you would operate with your feet. There was also a large bell you could ring by slamming a decent size log into it and of course there were quite a few outside vendors selling cold food, basic winter wear, photographs of yourself or even the chance to hold a winter fox pup. There was also food places around that were basically glass buildings you could go to to escape the cold. As a dummy with lack of chinese, I really wished they had their menus or food items on display so I could just hopefully point at said item. Not that it really mattered, as after two hot drinks I was just about out of cash.

There were plenty of sights and things to see and photograph, but one that was not officially part of the grounds caught my eye. At the back you could overlook a field that was completely lined with a large red brick wall. It seemed vacant, though off to one corner was a large drill rig. Oh, and off to the other side further into the distance it looked to be an artificial hill so people could ski down it, complete with chairlifts. And across the road is the VERY cool looking Heilongjiang Science and Technology Museum, which consist of a massive glass sphere with an equally large building behind it with a graceful sloping roof. It looked right out of a Bond movie as some sort of satellite control or nuclear control facility. I was most impressed and I want it as a future lair.

Moving along that side of the park with the brick wall, there were two massive snow sculptures of two seated figures of buddhist mythos with a place in front for the faithful to pray.

I passed the time by getting onto the various ice constructions that had slides and coating myself in snow and ice as I screamed on down them. Towards the back there was a large 'snowfield' you could get a tube ride down that was proving popular with the few that was in the park. While most sat in the tubes and went down, I went head first laid down, and besides a face full of snow, I got a few cheers from the crowd up top. Next to this slope was a flying fox setup that was not operational until the night, but when it was going it was fun to watch the people scream on down it and slam into the padding on the wall at the end.

There was also a tie in to the Soccer World Cup later this year, with an ice sculpture of the trophy as well as a huge soccer ball inflatable building with the local sponsor of the World Cup, Harbin Beer's logos all over it. Inside there was a large block of ice with said beer bottles sticking out of it, a stage that would later feature a girl dancing act and a projector that would project a screen onto the globe itself from the inside. Close to the dome was another ice construction which as a huge beer bottle with the label for Harbin Beer wrapped around it. In front of this was a guy who must have been a famous sports person (I'd guess soccer) in China, as he had a crowd of on lookers and a lot of photographers taking photos as he tried to keep a can of Harbin Beer aloft by kicking it repeatedly.

I've read in past years there was been themes for this event, but I could not detect any at this years, which had a range of buildings such as the Great Wall, the sphinx, the colosseum, various temples from around asia and the above mentioned world cup stuff.

By the time darkness came, I had well and truly explored the grounds and visitors were starting to come in, outdoor vendors were starting to really show off their wares and the horse drawn sleds were out in force all over the park. The lights, both internal and externally slowly came on, one after the other and it slowly got to be more colourful after the white wash of most of the day. It started to get dark around 4pm and really got to night at about 4.30pm or so.

Now that it was dark, it meant one thing, I had to go over everything again and take more photos!

And colourful it was.

There were fake trees plastic leaves and the 'flowers' were LED lights that lit up, to great effect. The snow sculptures all had external lights, mostly just plain white lights to highlight the snow I'd assume. The ice buildings mostly had internal lights, whether it by the typically fluorescent lights you'd see at home, to the smaller LED lights to the lighting system I could not quite make out that could change colour at will. It was all to excellent effect regardless and since it was snowing the air itself glowed with the surrounding lights.

The park was really thick with visitors by then with many taking snapshots (Be it camera phone all the way up to the very high end cameras that cost more than my trip to date), many posing, and most amusingly, the news reporters and the camera operators, which would heard a group at random to walk in front of a camera, or to look interested at a block of ice. There might have even been a local politician in the mix with one of the crowds.

The many slides were very popular, though a few of the longer ones had places were you'd screech to a halt mid way, if you didn't have the foresight to get some cardboard to sit on, or in some more keen people, other blocks of ice.

I'm not sure what time I got out of there, but it was late, even when you take into account what time night began. I made my way to the taxi ranks and realised I didn't have any money to pay the Taxi for the ride home. I could have sworn I saw an ATM machine or a credit card reader in an earlier taxi, so I tried to communicate with the drivers that I could pay via card. That didn't work and I was saved by two young ladies explaining that I can get money out to pay the driver. We all piled into a cab as their place was on the way to mine, and when the driver pulled up outside a bank I rushed in and got money out and rushed back out.

Eventually I got back to the hotel, paid the taxi driver who was quite understanding about the whole affair (at least I hope so) and got inside to the foyer.

Then it hit me, where was my waist bag that my cards, room card and passport was in. Oh Sh*t. I just about collapsed in the foyer ripping apart my bags and clothes looking for it, but it was no longer on me. I thought it was a brilliant and safe move to keep my cards in said waist bag so they would not get stolen or go missing. And in my rush to get a card and use the atm everything else had dropped away.

The front desk guys did an excellent job in calming me the hell down and after a hour or two, my passport and cards were located by a security guard inside the bank I got the money out of. So it was into a taxi for me and the on duty concierge as we went late at night to get it back.

Moral of the story, have plenty of god damn cash on you in China. (well here at least) I now keep quite a bit on me, and at least 200 yuan just stuffed into my outside pockets for easy reach so I don't have to go digging ever again. Oh, other moral, don't get flustered and don't loose your god damn passport.

Other than that, it was a great day. Again, check out the photos at http://www.flickr.com/photos/burnsrado/sets/ or I can always make these posts about 5 times as long trying to do justice to what I saw.