Here we go! Part 2! More snow and ice!
We stayed in the snow expo for 1 or 2 hours, before heading to the ice and snow festival. That’s the entrance.
This place looks much nicer with the lights, hence the timing arrangement. Getting in was a bit of a mess. I have no idea how their arrangement works. When we bought the tickets, we get a series of ticket numbers, which our cab driver has in his phone (i’m not sure if they sent an sms or something, I wasn’t there when the tix were bought). Then at the place, there’s a big hall with loads of people, tourist… staff… guides… just really messy. The cab driver gives our tix numbers to one of the guys, who gathers more people going into the exhibit, then once he has enough people, we enter the place as a group (and we scatter right after entering). Strange… but anyway, this photo was taken inside.
Ice, and more ice.
A metal fish in the distance. Apparently it’s a giant slide.
We just walked around at random… that part was still under contraction, you can see the crane beside the beer bottle.
So in case you are wondering, those translucent stuff are blocks of ice, where those white stuff are made of compacted powdered snow. You can only put the lights in the ice because snow is opaque. Most of the stuff here are made with ice, though there are a few snow sculptures too, like the sheep above. Again, sheep because the year of the sheep is coming.
I know I know, that stupid lightning the blocking the view!
Igloo. No idea if there’s anything inside.
Ice castles.
That place is pretty big, so although there were quite a lot of people, the crowd was all spaced out.
Horses prancing around a vase. Or a pillar. Whatever that thing in the middle is supposed to be.
Apparently that thing on top is sponsored by Guang Zhou.
That ice ball thing is cute, but it would have been nicer if there was better lighting.
A tree of ice. I think that’s the best Christmas tree I’ve seen last year XD
Ice lion.
They had this house thing made entirely of well, ice. Yes, even the darn floors! We were really careful walking around because it was so slippery!
Yes. It’s ice!
There were horse drawn carts there, the guy tried and tried to get our business, cutting the prize on his own… but we weren’t interested. Well dad was at first, he was worried for me, if I could walk so much. But my ankle was perfectly fine. My soles hurt from walking of course, but that’s normal.
A cute girl + boy sculpture… no idea what it’s supposed to mean though.
They had this Buddha sculpture right up at the top of a hill of snow. No steps, not nothing, just a slope that you have to climb up.
Like that… Well because of the lightning either the slope is shrouded in darkness, or the statue is over exposed… We didn’t go up to take a closer look.
Around this time I guess? We went into one of the numerous eating places around the exhibit and had some dinner. Yoshinoya’s. (You can see the stall in one of the photo earlier, the background of the photo with the bell, together with KFC.) We ordered two rice sets and shared. Nothing really special about the fast food meal, so no photos. Of course, I took the break time to recharge my phone, in case the battery dies. It was cold out after all.
Perhaps I should elaborate on the weather now… We were quite lucky. Or unlucky you could say… instead of the usual freezing -20 to -30 °C in Harbin usual, that particular week when we went was hot. -6 to -19 °C? On the day we flew off the coldest was below 20, but we were flying off already. Right after we left the weather turned colder and got below -20 °C. So even here in the ice/snow exhibits (it’s in the suburbs and colder there) it wasn’t too particularly cold (of course, we were properly geared up). I don’t know… I’m ambivalent about it because… sure I’m glad we got to enjoy ourselves at the exhibits without having to run to somewhere to hide from the wind/cold every few minutes… but after all the trouble, money, and time we’d taken to fly all the way to Harbin… and we didn’t get to experience that bitter -30 °C cold winter? That’s kinda sad isn’t it? Of course my mum’s glad, she’s really scared of the cold, and she’s the one who was most excited to view the ice sculptures (it was her suggestion to go there actually). Like every year when she sees it on the news, she’d lament about how we can’t go because the timings just isn’t quite right. The ice/snow exhibits actually only properly starts in Jan, when sch would have started… This year they opened it earlier though, but it’s not an official opening, that’s why not all the construction has been completed yet. Still. That attitude in me that wants to get challenged no matter what is sad that I did not get to experience -30 °C weather. After all, it’s not like we go on holiday every year… nor do we go to such cold places all the time. Who knows if I’d ever get to go to such cold places again? Ok maybe not never, since I’m still young. But it probably won’t be for quite a while to come.
A carp snow sculpture.
Well, that thing on top is made of ice though. It’s supposed to be a jade… jade… something. I don’t know the name ><
The year of the goat. Or sheep if you prefer the female term. Carvings on ice.
Another carving, but this one the ice is left smooth so it’s not whitish, and as a result can’t be seen clearly… ><
Oh this one is nice though! Merry Christmas!
Some temperature tower thing… that was still under construction.
The lightning changes colour...
Blue green
Red
Blue/purple.
Orange… tried to get all the Arashi colours, but couldn’t quite make it :(
Some tower in the middle. No idea what’s that.
They scrap/shave off the ice with tools… leaving lines like that. It makes for a pretty nice pattern as the light filters through. Of course, you can only see it if you’re close enough.
A closer look at those lines.
It’s a festival of ice, snow and lights.
Zodiac chairs. We found our own zodiac and took photos sitting on the respective chairs.
That…. that… what’s that thing from Egypt called again? The sphinx yes!
Penguins!
There was some wheel of fortune thing…
There you go. Made of ice of course.
Heineken house! Hahaha!
Heineken has a nice Chinese name. Well practically all of the big brands do… if you want success in China, you have to give yourself a nice Chinese name, it’s a basic right? And naturally big MNCs have no problem hiring the right people to do that. The Chinese name for Heineken literally means ‘happy strength’.
A block of ice and loads of ice chips on the flour. If you just look at the bottom of the photo, you might thing it was sand or something. But nope, it’s snow.
The carp. We went there for a closer look after we realised we had gone one round around the exhibits already. It was quite out of the way. So much so that I was wondering just where the border of the exhibit was….
A look behind us, where all the ice stuff are. There’s an ice maze below. We didn’t try it though.
Best picture I could take of the signboard. Yes it’s crowded everywhere. Even at the signboard. Loads of people trying to take photos of the signboard, with or without them in the picture.
It says…:
’The Dream Fish’ is the world’s largest steel carp sculpture (40 meters long, 12 meters high), which is forged with more than 4,000 components manually. It is made by steel boxes with ice slide inside, lying in Songhua River, blessing Harbin city.
The English sounds decent… till the second sentence. Either way, there’s a giant ice slide instead, and the fish is obviously on and not in the river… and there’s a huge queue of people waiting to go on the slide. We didn’t bother queuing up… dad doesn’t like queues, and I’m still a little worried about my stupid ankle. Which was ok there (maybe because of the cold?), but recently it’s been giving me problems. Like if I run/jog. Like when I tried to run of the public bus the other day, but still failed to catch it in the end… or when I run down the steps to catch the shuttle bus… else it’s a long wait of rate next one…
Anyway… nothing much after that. We headed for the exit.
That’s from outside the exhibition area now.
We were in quite a rush going in, so after we came out we went to take a good photo of the front entrance. Can only make out a ‘booth’ in the English words below… the Chinese words says it’s a ticketing hall though.
Ah right. Ticket Booth & Reception. That’s what the English words says.
A wall of snow by the side. I just had to put my hand in and grab a handful.
And this was the result :P
Ah right. Finally a photo with the proper name of the place. It’s the Harbin Ice-Snow World. Well when we went there we only used the Chinese name so… ><
A random sculpture outside.
It’s pretty though!
That was all the sight seeing adventures for the day. We took the cab back. On the way though we almost got into a car crash. Some probably drunk driver just sped through at the cross junction, and our driver quickly swerved to avoid a crash. Scary!
Oh they have this ‘Ge Wa Si’ drink that’s apparently really famous there. It was really interesting, cos it tastes like French toast. And indeed, it was made from ingredients used to make bread. Bread soda!
We went to a restaurant hidden in a food court at the top of some mall for dinner. It was really late then, and the restaurant was actually closing… we were the last guests lol. But the food was good. This one on top is beef, with dough cubes.
That looks like this.
And then there’s beef tongue! With loads of garlic on top. Beef tongue! Yum!
Duck blood in chilli oil soup…
Bun. Northern style, so it’s the hard and tough type, not your soft white bread.
Lamb, stirred fried in a bunch of veggies.
Beef tongue!!! YUMMY~
That’s the shopping mall.
Photos taken from the escalator hahahaha! It’s quite pretty isn’t it?
Another look at the sophia church hahaha.
There’s this fast food restaurant called VR. It’s supposed to serve international food… Singapore flag! Hahahaha! We wanted to dine inside the next morning, but it was still too early and they weren’t open yet, only had two items ready.
Right beside out hotel.
Meh. Such a blur photo. Some museum right beside our hotel.
And that’s all for day 7!!!
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