Today it was off off to Zhaolin Park, home of the proper ice sculptures and the Disney 'theme' ice park. I left early for the park so I could see what sights and shops were in the surrounding area before it got dark.
On the taxi ride over, we went past the very russian looking building that I've seen in advertising all around town, mostly on the banners for the subway which I believe is under construction. Luckily, said building was only 3 blocks away from the park when the taxi dropped me off, so I back tracked to it.
The building that caught my question once was know as the Church of St Sophia, a Russian Orthodox church that now houses the Haerbin Architecture Arts Centre, a museum of sorts that houses photos of the early life and buildings of Harbin.
The museum shares Harbin Architecture Art Square with Brick Porch (might have been an ex bus station) and Tower Porch (imagine if you will a typical gothic church, but just have the outline of it and make it out of steel) and surrounded by buildings from a similar era, but not style. Built in 1907 the museum seemed to be holding together well, worn as it is, and the added inclusion of snow caps in place just added to the attractiveness of it.
You need a ticket to get into the Museum, so I made my way over and right next to the ticketing booth was a vendor selling bird food for the pigeons that had gathered on that side of the building. They were very tame and happily clambered up onto the children's arms as they offered the seed up.
The museum itself wasn't to bad, but I kept finding myself drawn to the architecture of the building, whether it be the non-restored interior, with flaking mortar on the roof and walls, murals half worn away surrounding chandlers and the odd worn cross. Old light fittings that were embedded into the mortar had crumbled out in place, and there might have even been bullet holes in another place, though that's just a fanciful guess.
Exiting the ex-church, I wandered around the square some more, before I noticed a department store that looked like it had food counters from the outside. Those food counters turned out to be jewellery, and the place as pretty big, not Singapore shopping big and certainly not as densely packed as that Indian shopping centre near Wade's place in Singapore. That place was nuts.
But this was my first chinese inner city retail experience, so I explored for a while just looking at the typical city wares, annoyed that there was no 'big bastard' stores, but to be honest, most of the shops were very small and as such was their range. I got many a curious look from the store staff and customers and when I got out of there, it was getting dark and I was hungry, as I didn't find any food at all inside either. The only food place I could see outside was KFC, so in I went, pointed at a very handy menu on the counter and had the food, which, is very much like what we get back home, except the chips were more like the McDonald's variety.
From there I walked a block or two to the cobblestone street of Zhongyang Dajie after viewing a very old looking and majestic building from a distance.
Said building was new looking and was just a shopping front.
But, it did allow me to find the main shopping district of Harbin, which is closed off to traffic and has most of the older buildings of the city in it. I will explore this more later. I went up a few blocks in this shopping district then went right to get back to the park and to find the entrance for the ice sculptures.
The huge ferris wheel with neon signage on it assured me that I was heading in the right direction and eventually I came to one of the entries to the park. The section I entered into was all Disney, which a standard castle to the right of me that housed slides, to a large version of the castle from the movie Aladdin to my left, which also featured slides. Moving further along was snow sculptures of various disney princesses.
I finally saw some proper ice sculptures for the competition they have each year, though they were closed off and had guys individually lighting each one for a gaggle of photographers. I'd assume it's for the media, or the judges, so I tried to get a few photos of the more impressive ice sculptures before just being shooed on by a minder.
Mickey Park contained a ice area that had motorised dodgem cars that used ice blades for steering that people could just ram into each other. Hell long line on that one. At the end of the 'park' there was another castle with ice slides, no theme, just general disney character's images on posters on it.
Winnie-the-poh had his own village sculpted out of snow, but the characters were just painted fibreglass.
I believe I was getting close to what would be regarded as the front of the park now, as the paths where all lined with ice sculptures that I am fairly sure they craft from the same sized block of ice for the competition. There were some pretty good ones on display along the paths, and I even later found some kangaroo ones. These ice carvings were intricate, but still solid with no easy to break bits, a plus when they're this close to the main path.
Zhaolin Park must be quite nice during the warmer times of the year, as it's pretty well forested and has moats and lakes that now serve as place to place most of the large slides, be it ice or snow with a tube to go down on. There are chinese pergolas that currently house spotlights and even a bird 'sanctuary' with the cages for the birds styles as over large bird cages you would see in cartoons, some even had a bird or two in them, which can't be fantastic for them, but oh well. Also in force was the fake trees with the LED lights as leaves, again very visually striking.
The Pixar section is what I came across next, with various fibreglass characters from Toy Story you could pose with, or characters from 'Cars' sculpted in snow. Bit bummed I could not get a decent picture of me with the Toy Story gang, either too close or my breath fogged the camera.
Camera tip, when you go inside and it gets condensation all over it, don't immediately go outside with it not in its bag, or you are going to end up with a camera that is coated in solid ice. I learnt that one going in and out of the Disney store, which didn't actually have many people in it.
Minnie Mouse had her own snow built cottage, Chip and Dale had a snow sculpted tree house and Donald Duck has his own steamboat, though for all intents it looked like the steamboat from 'Steamboat Willie', the first appearance of Mickey Mouse. I was now at the official 'front' of the park I thought, as that entrance was giant ice mickey ears that you would pass through into a courtyard with high ice walls an posters of various disney characters on.
Circling around, there were more ice sculptures and a large area that featured various fixed rides, such as the mini roller coaster.
By now I'd looped back to my original starting entrance, so I made way to where they had the photographers at the roped off area featuring the more detailed ice sculptures. The area was still roped off, but the main lights were on and I had a good view of what was to see now, even if I had to juggle thing changing to my long range lens.
The detail, the fragility and the beauty of these sculptures really shone through. They were all excellent with different styles and settings and they were a cut above what I had seen already. With the flood lights on, I could much easily see them now, though they lacked the coloured lighting that possibly makes them more appealing.
Watchful of the minders, I got as close as I could and got some good pictures. It was only 7pm but the cold was starting to bite so I made my way out via another entry point to the park, this time at the 'top', hailed a taxi and got back to the Hotel for the night.
Oh! In case I didn't mention it earlier, the business cards of the place you are staying are REALLY handy to have a stash of to give to taxi drivers if you don't know the language.
This was a good day where nothing really went wrong. Hurray!
On the taxi ride over, we went past the very russian looking building that I've seen in advertising all around town, mostly on the banners for the subway which I believe is under construction. Luckily, said building was only 3 blocks away from the park when the taxi dropped me off, so I back tracked to it.
The building that caught my question once was know as the Church of St Sophia, a Russian Orthodox church that now houses the Haerbin Architecture Arts Centre, a museum of sorts that houses photos of the early life and buildings of Harbin.
The museum shares Harbin Architecture Art Square with Brick Porch (might have been an ex bus station) and Tower Porch (imagine if you will a typical gothic church, but just have the outline of it and make it out of steel) and surrounded by buildings from a similar era, but not style. Built in 1907 the museum seemed to be holding together well, worn as it is, and the added inclusion of snow caps in place just added to the attractiveness of it.
You need a ticket to get into the Museum, so I made my way over and right next to the ticketing booth was a vendor selling bird food for the pigeons that had gathered on that side of the building. They were very tame and happily clambered up onto the children's arms as they offered the seed up.
The museum itself wasn't to bad, but I kept finding myself drawn to the architecture of the building, whether it be the non-restored interior, with flaking mortar on the roof and walls, murals half worn away surrounding chandlers and the odd worn cross. Old light fittings that were embedded into the mortar had crumbled out in place, and there might have even been bullet holes in another place, though that's just a fanciful guess.
Exiting the ex-church, I wandered around the square some more, before I noticed a department store that looked like it had food counters from the outside. Those food counters turned out to be jewellery, and the place as pretty big, not Singapore shopping big and certainly not as densely packed as that Indian shopping centre near Wade's place in Singapore. That place was nuts.
But this was my first chinese inner city retail experience, so I explored for a while just looking at the typical city wares, annoyed that there was no 'big bastard' stores, but to be honest, most of the shops were very small and as such was their range. I got many a curious look from the store staff and customers and when I got out of there, it was getting dark and I was hungry, as I didn't find any food at all inside either. The only food place I could see outside was KFC, so in I went, pointed at a very handy menu on the counter and had the food, which, is very much like what we get back home, except the chips were more like the McDonald's variety.
From there I walked a block or two to the cobblestone street of Zhongyang Dajie after viewing a very old looking and majestic building from a distance.
Said building was new looking and was just a shopping front.
But, it did allow me to find the main shopping district of Harbin, which is closed off to traffic and has most of the older buildings of the city in it. I will explore this more later. I went up a few blocks in this shopping district then went right to get back to the park and to find the entrance for the ice sculptures.
The huge ferris wheel with neon signage on it assured me that I was heading in the right direction and eventually I came to one of the entries to the park. The section I entered into was all Disney, which a standard castle to the right of me that housed slides, to a large version of the castle from the movie Aladdin to my left, which also featured slides. Moving further along was snow sculptures of various disney princesses.
I finally saw some proper ice sculptures for the competition they have each year, though they were closed off and had guys individually lighting each one for a gaggle of photographers. I'd assume it's for the media, or the judges, so I tried to get a few photos of the more impressive ice sculptures before just being shooed on by a minder.Mickey Park contained a ice area that had motorised dodgem cars that used ice blades for steering that people could just ram into each other. Hell long line on that one. At the end of the 'park' there was another castle with ice slides, no theme, just general disney character's images on posters on it.
Winnie-the-poh had his own village sculpted out of snow, but the characters were just painted fibreglass.
I believe I was getting close to what would be regarded as the front of the park now, as the paths where all lined with ice sculptures that I am fairly sure they craft from the same sized block of ice for the competition. There were some pretty good ones on display along the paths, and I even later found some kangaroo ones. These ice carvings were intricate, but still solid with no easy to break bits, a plus when they're this close to the main path.
Zhaolin Park must be quite nice during the warmer times of the year, as it's pretty well forested and has moats and lakes that now serve as place to place most of the large slides, be it ice or snow with a tube to go down on. There are chinese pergolas that currently house spotlights and even a bird 'sanctuary' with the cages for the birds styles as over large bird cages you would see in cartoons, some even had a bird or two in them, which can't be fantastic for them, but oh well. Also in force was the fake trees with the LED lights as leaves, again very visually striking.
The Pixar section is what I came across next, with various fibreglass characters from Toy Story you could pose with, or characters from 'Cars' sculpted in snow. Bit bummed I could not get a decent picture of me with the Toy Story gang, either too close or my breath fogged the camera.
Camera tip, when you go inside and it gets condensation all over it, don't immediately go outside with it not in its bag, or you are going to end up with a camera that is coated in solid ice. I learnt that one going in and out of the Disney store, which didn't actually have many people in it.
Minnie Mouse had her own snow built cottage, Chip and Dale had a snow sculpted tree house and Donald Duck has his own steamboat, though for all intents it looked like the steamboat from 'Steamboat Willie', the first appearance of Mickey Mouse. I was now at the official 'front' of the park I thought, as that entrance was giant ice mickey ears that you would pass through into a courtyard with high ice walls an posters of various disney characters on.
Circling around, there were more ice sculptures and a large area that featured various fixed rides, such as the mini roller coaster.
By now I'd looped back to my original starting entrance, so I made way to where they had the photographers at the roped off area featuring the more detailed ice sculptures. The area was still roped off, but the main lights were on and I had a good view of what was to see now, even if I had to juggle thing changing to my long range lens.
The detail, the fragility and the beauty of these sculptures really shone through. They were all excellent with different styles and settings and they were a cut above what I had seen already. With the flood lights on, I could much easily see them now, though they lacked the coloured lighting that possibly makes them more appealing.
Watchful of the minders, I got as close as I could and got some good pictures. It was only 7pm but the cold was starting to bite so I made my way out via another entry point to the park, this time at the 'top', hailed a taxi and got back to the Hotel for the night.
Oh! In case I didn't mention it earlier, the business cards of the place you are staying are REALLY handy to have a stash of to give to taxi drivers if you don't know the language.
This was a good day where nothing really went wrong. Hurray!
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