Harbin

After one day delayed due to heavy snow storm at Beijing, finally we arrived at Harbin airport, on January 4th.

it's the right time to come to harbin on this day.....Harbin Ice and Snow Festival is normally open on a trial basis from December 24 through 31 though it officially opens on January 05 each year. Basically Harbin Ice and Snow Festival lasts till the end of February.

We stayed at Gfour Hotel which situated very near to Zhong Yang Street, and walking distance to Stalin Park, one of the Ice festival (Disney Ice World) and 15 minutes walk to Saint Sophia Cathedral.

Hotel was very good and warm which we really need the most in under 26 degrees Celsius temperature.

Harbin is a sub-provincial city and the capital of the Heliongjiang Province in Northeast China. It lies on the southern bank of the Songhua River. Harbin is the tenth largest city in China (pop. 9.87 million), serving as a key political, economic, scientific, cultural and communications hub in Northeastern China.

The Stalin Park was built in 1953 named after Russian dictator Joseph Stalin. The park is characterized by Russian style flowers and series of statues places along the park.

Harbin is originally a Manchu word meaning "a place for drying fishing nets". Harbin has very cold winters and is often called "Ice City".

Zhongyang Street is a unique European-style pedestrian street, 1450m long with lines of edifices, masses of entertainment areas, and colorful cultural life. All of these buildings are in various styles including renaissance style, baroque style, eclectic style, as well as modern style, the profound history of architecture, a real “Architecture Art Gallery” in China.

As the major refugee center for the East European Jewish, the architecture style of Harbin shows a unique combination of oriental and European architecture styles. Called the Oriental St. Petersburg, Harbin is considered one of China's most beautiful cities. The city is well-known for its unique, Russian and European-influenced architecture.

Zhong Yang Street (Central Street, also known, using the Russian word for Chinese, as Kitaiskaya Street), one of the main business streets in Harbin, is a perfect remnant of the bustling international business activities at the turn of the 20th century. The 1.4-km long street is a veritable museum of European architectural styles: Baroque and Byzantine facades, little Russian bakeries, French fashion houses, American eateries, and Japanese restaurant.
The Russian Orthodox church, Saint Sophia Cathedral, is also located in this central district of Daoli. St. Sophia took nine years to build and was completed in 1932. It has now been made into a museum as a showcase of the multi-cultural architecture of Harbin.

WORLD ICE FESTIVAL

January 4th afternoon, we could not waste time waiting at the cold street by taking bus or struggle to negotiate taxi fare, we just booked a city tour from our hotel to go to the Ice festival for RMB 250/person. They picked us from the hotel at 18:30pm by van with full people inside then we went directly to the place of World Ice festival which just opened that day.
After spending 2 hours there, then we returned to our Hotel.
Officially, the festival starts January 5th and lasts one month. However the exhibits often open earlier and stay longer, weather permitting. Ice sculpture decoration technology ranges from the modern (using lasers) to traditional (with ice lanterns). There are ice lantern park touring activities held in many parks in the city. Winter activities in the festival include Yabuli alpine skiing, winter-swimming in the Songhua River, and the ice-lantern exhibition in Zhaolin Garden.

Ticket : RMB 190/person (I think..can not remember)

DISNEY ICE WORD

This place was just only walking distance from our hotel. It's not big but not bad if you are the first time to go to Harbin. On that day, still there were many sculptures not finished yet, may be it was too early for us to visit.

Ticket : RMB 50/person

HARBIN POLARLAND

Polar Bear! Penguin family of South Polar! In Harbin, you are able to experience the real life of the polar region. Harbin Polarland is the first theme park of polar land scenes in China.Inside the sea-blue elegent building of Pole Aquarium, you will find pure penguin family of South Polar, the most active polar bear brothers in China. There are also the wild arctic wolves introduced for the first time in Asia and the arctic fox brothers who can run on the running machine. The most thrill is the exciting polar land animal show - the performance presented by sea lions. The Polarland Harbin is located just opposite the Sun Island.

Entrance Ticket : RMB 120/person (Include watching shows)

SUN ISLAND

Situated just opposite of Harbin Polar land with in walking distance. It was a Snow Sculptures land, all in white which one of a must see place in Harbin.

 

Entrance Fee : RMB 150/person

SIBERIAN TIGER PARK

  

The Siberian Tiger Park was built in 1996.
The park is located on the north bank of the Songhua River to the northwest of Harbin, occupying an area of 1,440,000 square meters (355.8 acres). It is the largest natural park for wild Siberian tigers in the world at present. The park enjoys a favorable foundation for ecotourism and splendid scenery and it is an ideal place for holiday and leisure. There are over 500 purebred Siberian tigers here, with 100 visible to visitors. In addition, visitors can also see white tigers, lions, lynx, leopards, and black pumas as well as Bengali tigers. It is a large park divided into ten areas, including the young tiger area, the mature tiger area, the king tiger area, a walking area and a platform for viewing the tigers. Unlike common zoos, the Siberian Tiger Park exchanges the roles of visitors and animals. Except in the walking area and the platform for viewing the tigers, tourists must take a bus encircled by wire mesh to all the other scenic spots while the tigers roam freely in the fields.

 

The mature tiger area has an area of 360,000 square meters (89 acres) with 30 unruly Siberian tigers wandering there. The tigers in this area are all about 7 or 8 years old. And in the young tiger area, there are over 40 young lovely, active tigers about 2 years old. Visitors can see them playing and fighting with each other in a pool nearby. Some even younger tigers are kept in the walking area, snuggling together. The park also houses some lions which coexist peacefully with the tigers.
Entrance Ticket : RMB 65/person (Adult)

        

 

Snow Storm in Beijing

January 3rd, 2010

We planed to go to Harbin departure time at 08:05am with Air China.

But has been delayed until 11:00am due to bad weather, it was heavy snow at the airport at that time.

After boarding at 11:00am, we still waiting in the plane for more than 2 hours and even the plane was trying to take off.

Then, we came back to airport as the flight had been cancelled due to snow storm very bad.

We came back to airport at 15:00pm, and we saw so many people in the Beijing International Airport, because all flight were cancelled.

Long line at every airlines counters, many people struggle to get a new tickets for tomorrow flight. Same with us we felt very desperate that we could not continue our trip to Harbin , we called CTRIP asking whether we could change our flight, and luckily we can get a new flight schedule for tomorrow morning while still many people in the airport had been lined up for so long and might not get their ticket changed.

so next step, where we had to stay overnight? actually we just planned to stay overnight at the airport because we could not go anywhere or even to the city.

But someone offered us a hotel with only RMB 210 for a night which near the airport, we took the offer.

It was a nightmare for us, in that cold weather, the heater in that hotel was broken and no hot water either. Me and my wife slept together in one bed with double blanket and wearing our down jacket, and still felt very cold.

At 5:00am, we quickly check out from the hotel and wait for the shuttle to the airport from the hotel.

Arrived at the airport, we saw so many people lying on the floor, still line up at every the check in counters. But for us, we just asked our tickets then can go to waiting hall.

At 08:00am we were heading to Harbin by China Southern Airlines