Harbin Pt. II: Big Ice & Snow World

It was snowing when David (my fellow PiAer), Jaki (his girlfriend) and I pulled into Harbin. We spent the first day wandering around the downtown area, which is famous for its Russian and Russian-influenced architecture. (Perhaps more of the latter - It's hard to tell what's real and what's fake in China...) Harbin's history has been intimately tied to its neighbor Russia, which occupied northeastern China, including my "hometown" of Dalian, on and off during the first half of the 20th century (here my knowledge of history turns fuzzy.)

We went to see the one of the main tourist attractions: the St. Sophia church.



In true Chinese style, the inside of the church had been gutted and turned into an exhibition of historical photos of Harbin. I found a picture of myself in a past life when I was bearded Russian man with a toy accordion. (Caption: Picnic to the Suburb, Hahrpin) I'm guessing 1920s? So apparently Harbin does enjoy picnic-friendly weather at some point in the year.



Little Russia was nice, the big thing in Harbin is the annual ice festival, which had various locations throughout the city. We went to the big one, or rather, 冰雪大世界 (the title of this post.) Words are insufficient to describe the spectacle.



Yes, behind me that is a castle made of ice and filled with color-changing LED lights. They say that the blocks of ice are cut out of the river that runs through the city. I like locally sourced building materials, but I'm a bit suspicious. The ice looked a little too clean to have come from a Chinese river.

All around the city there were also random ice sculptures.



I wonder what it's like in Harbin when things start thawing out. I imagine it could be a bit of a safety hazard. A multi-story castle made of ice can't just quietly shrink into a puddle. There's got to be some dramatic crashing and splintering (think polar ice shelf + climate change).

Stay tuned for: Harbin Pt. III: Siberian Tigers! Meanwhile, I'm living it up in Seoul! More on that later.