All is well in chilly Beijing. 

I finished teaching on Saturday of last week to begin six (yes, six) weeks of vacation.  I’ve never had this much time off when it wasn’t summer.  I’m looking forward to the rest and relaxation that a vacation should bring.  My vacation started with a massage after school that night.  It was awesome!  Then it was a movie with a few ladies before hitting the sack.  Sunday was the usual stuff with the group and some time getting ready for my trip to Haerbin. 

The next morning began fairly early with a subway ride to the Beijing Railway Station.  A friend from Yinchuan was going to be traveling with us.  Our train ride was at 7:15 and we wanted to meet a little before that so we wouldn’t miss the train.  We took the fast train (dubbed the “D” train by some FOCers because the number starts with D).  This method of transportation landed us in Haerbin, China at 3:30 pm the same day. Much better than a 19-hour overnight train ride. 

When we arrived, we decided to find our hotel by walking.  We knew it was fairly close to the train station so we just kept walking and asking people where the street was and finally stumbled upon it.  It was fairly nice and reasonably priced.  After checking in and getting situated, we found a restaurant that serves jiaozi.  This is basically a dumpling-like food that has a variety of things inside of it. I had jiaozi with pork and leeks! Yum…

We went back to the hotel and got into our minibus that would eventually drop us off at the snow and ice world.  The lady who was organizing this whole thing was very concerned about us and if we would find her when we were done.  It was all quite hilarious. The ride to the ice/snow world was pretty cool.  The city is dotted with ice sculptures as if to advertize for the large scale festival.  The funniest thing that I saw around the city (and they were everywhere!) were the little ice sculptures of PacMan.  I half expected there to be ghosts nearby but was disappointed when I saw none.  My goal was to capture a pacman in a photo but we were always in a car when we saw them.  So I will only have a mental photo of them…sorry.

We finally arrived at the ice and snow world and was in awe.  It was so large.  I did my best to capture the magnanimity of it all but I do not think the photos do it justice. You will have to take a look for yourself.  Pay attention to the silhouettes in the photos.  This will give you some idea as to how large the ice buildings are.  It was sort of like being in a fantasy world, and in a way, it feels like it was a dream.  I imagine that is how my memories of my year in China will be to me when I come back to the states.  I hope it remains very real but I have heard from others that it feels like a dream.  Below are pictures from the Haerbin Ice and Snow World.  If a picture is worth a thousand words, this is my longest entry. 🙂

I tried not to think about what it would be like when the spring hits and all of this ice melts.  What do they do with it?  Where does the water go?  And along those lines…where do they get all of the ice to make the sculptures?  I also thought to myself that this sort of activity probably wouldn’t fly in the states.  There would probably be some issue with walking up and down stairs that were made of ice and the thoughts of impending lawsuits because of it.  Some of the staircases had red carpets on them but they were all covered in snow and just as slippery as the ice beneath them.  Thankfully I had my awesome made-in-China boots that had decent traction on the bottoms. That is one thing that astounds me about some Chinese women is that they are not willing to sacrifice fashion for safety or comfort.  Many, many women were wearing boots with heels.  Seriously?!?

Along the side of the Sphinx were slides that anyone could slide down.  I chose to refrain from this activity for a couple of reasons.  If I would have had snowpants I might have thought differently about it. 🙂  The Sphinx was one of the smaller structures.  You can see it in a later picture.   

Harbin beer, the local brew (actually, I’m pretty sure it isn’t locally brewed at all) tastes just like Qingdao beer.  This is one thing China does not do as well as America…and America doesn’t even do it that well.  Sad… 

In addition to the ice madness, every single tree in the park was covered with lights.  There were these willow-looking trees that had lights on them and it reminded me of the movie Avatar.  If only the ground beneath my feet would light up when I took steps. 🙂

Even now, when I look back at pictures, I am in awe of how large the ice structures are.  This one from Macau was especially exciting for a member of our traveling group who will be going there at the end of February.  Macau is the location of the highest bungee jumping in the world.  I think he’s crazy.

I like this shot a lot because you can kind of see the general splendor of the park and compare the building heights.  On the left side of the picture you can see the beer bottle.  Near it is the Sphinx.  At first, it was annoying for me to have the little silhouetts of people in the pictures but I am glad I have a reference point for the size of things. 

It was neat to see other parts of the world represented in ice.  Most of it was from around China but there were a few other ‘notable’ structures scattered throughout.  One of my least favorite ones was Hollywood.  It was basically a pile of snow with the Hollywood sign on top of it.  There were ice busts of some ‘famous’ American actors in front of this pile of snow but only one name was recognizable to me.  All-in-all, a disappointing representation of America.  I mean, The Statue of Liberty, Mt. Rushmore, The Arch, The Golden Gate Bridge…  Come on, Haerbin!  I would have loved to see those things created in ice.  I kept telling myself that maybe they were featured at previous ice/snow world events.  Let’s hope… It would be sad to think that this is the view of America.  

This one could very well be any type of building like this in China.  I just called it Tian’anmen and the Forbidden City because I live in Beijing.  There are many buildings throughout the country that have this appearance.  This one was cool because of its size also, but not its height.  It was very spread out.   

I loved the white pagodas.  I don’t really know why this one was my favorite but it was just simply beautiful.  Notice the horse-drawn carriage in the foreground of the picture.  We didn’t even ask how much that cost.  There were many other things you could do throughout the park.  One of our group members held a very much sedated white arctic fox.  The fox was pretty cute.  I kind of wanted to drape him around my neck.  Pretty sure that also wouldn’t fly in the states.  PETA would find you.  You could also sit on a yak.  I took a picture of one as the guy was telling me not to take a picture. 🙂 

So, I got to see the ice representation of the terracotta warriors before seeing the actual warriors.  I recently found out that there will be chocolate sculptures of famous sites throughout China right here in Beijing next week!  I will have to get a picture of those to add to my collection.

This was pretty cool…except that it was very easy.  The reason it was so easy was that you could see over the walls.  I don’t think they thought this one out fully. Oh well.  In the background of the photo is the main entrance to the ice world.  WOW!  My camera battery died before the night was over.  I don’t think that it likes to be cold.  So, I missed parts of the park.  One structure worth noting was the giant chessboard.  A traveling companion took a picture of me with a few of the chess pieces.  I will share them with you when I get them from him. 

At the appointed time, actually about 15 minutes early (we were very cold), we found our minibus driver and we waited for a while for the Chinese members of our group to get to the vehicle.  The did not show up and off we were!  Hmm…  We made it back to the hotel and met a student of mine for a snack before bed.

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The next morning we grabbed some noodles for breakfast.  (Never thought I would say that…) After breakfast we decided we wanted to visit St. Sophia Church, and as it was a bit of a hike, we wanted to grab a cab to get there.  Traveling with five people is sort of an inconvenience.  You always have to take two cabs.  So I said, “why don’t we just flag down the guy in the van.”  I didn’t actually think it would work or be possible but he pulled over and offered to take us for Y15.  This was a great price because it would have been that much or more for us to take two taxis.  We climbed into his van and immediately there were cops everywhere!  WHAT?!?  They got the guy out of his van and took him aside to question him.  In the meantime, another one came and talked to the person in our group whose Chinese is the best.  He asked her if we had given him any money.  Her answer was that we had not given him any money.  It was truthful for the moment.  A few minutes later, they let him back into his van and we were on our way.  Apparently the cops watch the illegal cab activity near that hotel.  I imagine that as soon as he dropped us off he went to find a place to throw up.  He informed us on the ride to the church that the fine for this sort of thing is Y20,000.  Needless to say, we gave him a little extra for his trouble. 

After that little episode, we were at St. Sophia Church.  There was a big square with many people doing exactly what we were doing…taking pictures.  We heard multiple times that the inside of a church didn’t look like the inside of a church at all.  So, we didn’t go inside the church but stayed outside around the church and in the square next to the church.  A couple of things that I witnessed as I was hanging out by the church:  many, many pigeons that would fly around the church at a whistle command, a group of four women who were obviously traveling together (I knew this because of their matching red boots.  Why one would wear matching red boots is beyond me.  This, however, happens very often in China. Not necessarily matching boots, but matching in general.), and another group of women traveling together. (They were wearing white boots. Where are our brains people?!?)

This is one view of the church.  We didn’t spend too much time there and afterward we were off to meet my student for lunch.  He was in Haerbin on business and asked us to meet him at his ‘company.’  Well, we were unaware that his ‘company’ rents an apartment because there are only four people there and it also provides housing for them.  We met him there and after a cup of coffee we were off to lunch.  What business lunch would be complete without baijiu? Not ours!  Baijiu is literally ‘white alcohol’.  Some Chinese people call it white wine.  It is not wine, it is pretty potent, and it is not at all good tasting.  I could not even finish my half-a-miniature-Chinese-glass of baijiu.  Yuck!  It would have been impolite to not finish it so while they weren’t looking, one of the others drank the rest of it for me. 🙂

After lunch my student was able to hang out with us the rest of the day.  We went to a pedestrian street near the center of town.  Many ice sculptures adorned the streets.  We tried the famous Haerbin ice cream and enjoyed Russian tea at a nearby tea house.  After it got dark, we went to Stalin Park which is the location of the Flood Monument.  In 1957 there was a devastating flood and the monument was built in 1958 to commemorate the people who helped.  Below is a picture at night.

We had a relaxing evening in the hotel and a walk around the city the next morning before heading out of Haerbin.  During our walk around the city we found three churches right next to each other.  This was kind of cool.  On one of them was this sign:

Other sights that were fun to see in the city were these:

We got on the train back to Beijing and got back to my apartment at a little after midnight.  All-in-all, a good trip.  It is nice to be relaxing at home though! 🙂  HIS Blessings to you all!