Walking in a Winter Wonderland

I've not been getting much time to write these, so I have a bit to catch up on with this one. The last post left off at my last night in Singapore - before waking up at 5 to make sure I caught my plane to Beijing.


An A380 at Singapore - one of three I saw that morning. Not for me, I got a 777-300ER.

Not much to report about the flight - I was seated in a pseudo-exit row at the front of a section. Good leg room but no power in the seats, so I couldn't write anything. This flight is shorter than ADL-SIN (somewhere between 5 and 6 hours) so a Straits Times and a nap were sufficient entertainment.

For readers who have been to Changi Airport, Beijing Capital T3 is a lot like it in terms of scale, except the huge voids are full of people and desks (Changi has an enormous empty room just before immigration, perhaps inspired by the enormous empty squares of grass near MRT stations). Another major difference is that it's in Beijing, which this time of year means the view out the windows is cold and bleak. Because of the haze, you can't see beyond concrete in any direction (but on the other hand, there is a lot of concrete - landing there is usually followed by half an hour meandering around on it). After going through immigration, which was straightforward, I had about four hours until my flight on to Harbin. The flight on was with Air China, which appears to be the only airline flying domestic out of T3. This was good, because T2 is a less interesting place to be and a longish bus ride away. Found a decent place to eat, but couldn't find a wireless network I was able to use for internet access. Also found that my phone credit from my last trip had expired.


My Air China B737 in a bleak Beijing winter.

The Air China flight was good. I think I've flown with enough Chinese airlines now to say they are all up to the standard of modern Western airlines, at least from what a passenger can see - except here, you almost always get a proper meal on a domestic flight, even the hour and a half hop to Harbin. The airport in Harbin is small and, at the time, was quite dirty, probably from people traipsing dirty snow inside. There was a bit of a miscommunication with one of my friends - I thought he would be waiting for me there. Fortunately I was able to get in touch with him (the police here are friendly and usually happy to help in a situation like that - they let me use their phone), and found he wanted me to take the airport bus. It took some time to get into the city, on the icy road, but when I did Edison was waiting for me. Along the journey there were was snow everywhere - it was dark, but I could see it when there were lit-up ice sculptures, of which there were a few.

Edison helped me check in, and then we went to get something to warm ourselves up (my second-biggest jacket wasn't big enough). We went to KFC, the only thing open at close to midnight, and he ordered us each a bowl of vegetable soup. KFC here has a much better range of products, and does the standard things better, than in Australia or the US. After that, we went off to bed (me to the hotel, him to his university dormitory).


The next day - the Flood Control Monument at the Songhua river bank.

I got up in the morning to meet with another Harbin friend, Crystal, who had the morning free and offered to show me around. This was the first time I'd ever walked around a city, in the morning, in snow, and Harbin is definitely the place to do it. In summer, Harbin was a nice place, but in winter it's stunning. Walking along Central Street, from the Flood Control Monument by the frozen Songhua river, down to Saint Sophia Church, there was snow and activity everywhere. When you read about Harbin, these are the pictures you see - ice sculptures, candied haws on sticks, old Russian-style buildings covered in snow - and I finally had a chance to see it in person. It is a wonderful place in winter and I would reccommend it to anyone, just as much as I would the Great Wall, Nanjing or West Lake in Hangzhou.


An ice maze in the middle of Central Street

After our walk, Crystal (an architecture student at HIT) wanted to show me the building she studys in, one of the big, well-known HIT buildings based on the University of Moscow (and, in the snow, it looks exactly like what I would expect the University of Moscow to look like). Inside it was being renovated, but she took me through to her office, and was kind enough to let me use her computer to get in touch with people back home. She also showed me some of her work, and I showed her some of my photos from home. After a while, Peter and Edison arrived, and I had to leave Crystal to get some work done.

The three of us went back to Central Street, and had a look in some shops. Harbin souvenirs mostly draw on the Russian influence there - Russian dolls, Soviet memerobilia, and the like. Unfortunately we hurried on to dinner and I didn't get a chance to buy anything - I really should have spent another day. Dinner was at a Russian-style restaurant, with "red soup" (tomato-based, with other veggies), served with bread and very creamy butter, lamb and beef hotpot dishes, fish, chicken, potato salad, and of course, huge bottles of Harbin beer (another thing Harbin is well-known for in China). This warmed us up well for the Ice and Snow World.

Edison, unfortunately, had to leave us (he couldn't cope with the cold), but Peter and I headed off in a taxi. The Ice and Snow World is the main repository for ice sculptures here during winter, and appears to be entirely on the Songhua river, including temporary roads and carparks, which are all set up by early January and remain until the ice thins. It's not cheap as Chinese attractions go (200 RMB, and Peter said people usually only spend up to an hour and a half there at a time because of the cold), but it's definitely worth it. The main gate is made of ice, and upon entering you are greeted with a menagerie of ice sculptures filled with coloured flourescent lights, of things from the Coloseum, the Merlion (carved by Singaporeans), to a giant bottle of Harbin beer. You can slide down ice, ride bikes on ice (with a steerable ski instead of a front wheel), drive quad bikes on snow, ride a horse-drawn carriage through the park, and after all that, go into a heated tent to recover with a hot drink. Because of the wind on the flat river, and all the surrounding ice, it is noticably colder than in the city, according to Peter it was probably well below -30C by the time we left. I was about as well dressed as I possibly could have been - though my hands still suffered through gloves. My camera (the batteries specifically) didn't cope with the cold so I don't have photos (Peter took a lot and will send them to me soon), but here is one from in the warm tent (notice the condensation):



So, I finally had a chance to experience winter in Harbin. I hope I can go back, earlier in the winter, to experience it again. Most of the ice buildings were roped off for safety reasons - the day before had been quite hot (almost 0!) and some of them had melted slightly. Which is the way they all go in the end - the whole thing is allowed to melt in spring, and the lights are recovered from the riverbed.