Harbin

Land of Extreme Freeze, Ice Sculptures, Snow Sculptures, and Siberian Tigers

If you have ever looked up winter festivals or ice sculptures, then the images of Harbin are probably the first ones that popped up.  This festival has the world’s biggest ice sculptures as well as snow sculptures.  It is among one of the most well known winter festivals in the world joining the likes of winter festivals in Sapporo, Quebec, and Norway. 

This is one of the biggest winter festivals in the world and temperatures can get down to around -30 degrees.  It is not out of the ordinary to see people like myself, walking around with 4-5 layers of clothes on to keep warm.  It is also worth noting that unless you have your mobile phone next to your body for heat, then it will probably shut off because of the extreme cold. 

Extreme Temperatures

Beard Froze over

Ice and Snow World

This attraction is usually attended by people at night.  2-3 feet blocks of ice are used to make structures which are then lit up.  You can walk through some of the buildings, or slide down some of the ice slides onto a pile of snow, or just simply enjoy the scenery and enjoy them from afar.  As it is very cold out here at night, I would say 2-3 hours is a good time to spend to walk around and see everything.  You can always go into heating tents or restaurants to warm up.  Sculptures are done from people all over the world and there is a contest on different aspects of the sculptures.  The pictures below show just small part of the Ice and Snow World as your imagination can get lost …..

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Sun Island

This is the second major attraction in the winter in Harbin.   Instead seeing different ice structures, you will end up getting lost in the amazing snow sculptures.  Some of sculptures ranged from 10 feet by 10 feet, to a couple hundred feet wide and exhibit an amazing array of craftsmanship.  The sculptors are from all over the world and all of them have a little piece of culture in them from the countries they originated from and are quite beautiful. 

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Siberian Tigers

Seeing as it is always cold here, there is a Siberian Tiger Park which has hundreds of Siberian tigers.  While it is not a zoo, you can drive around in a vehicle to see the tigers moving around in an open environment. 

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Food

Of all the food in China I have tried, I believe Harbin to have the best mixture of varieties of food.  You can have everything from what I have deemed “The Best Dumplings in China” to varieties of spicy hot pot, to Russian food, to German food.  What makes the food here unique is that it is very meat based for every meal which is different than other parts of China.

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Streets

Walking the streets of a town or city is where you can really see the culture.  The Architecture here is unlike anywhere else in China with a massive Russian influence (as seen in the pictures below of St. Sophia Russian Orthodox Church).  It is not uncommon either to see signs in English, Russian, and Chinese as they experience a high number of Russian tourists. 

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Chengdu-  The home of the Pandas, Giant Buddha, and Good Food

Chengdu has been on my bucket list for quite sometime now as I have always wanted to see the Pandas, and sample the food of that area.

Chengdu is a city in the Sichuan Province of China and is a lot more relaxed that tha of the other big cities of China.  It is also world renowned for having one of the bigger populations of Pandas in the world at the Chengdu Research Station.   Just a two hour drive from here, you can also find the largest Buddha statue carved entirely into rock in the world, and lets not forget the wonderful food they have here, namely Sichuan Hot Pot.

Walking the streets is always a fun thing as you never know what you will run into, including fresh dead goat being skewered and the carcass hanging from the hooks to let everyone know it was a fresh kill.  Normally this would not bother me as I have seen it before all over Africa, but this was right in front of a shopping mall with named brand stores!!!!  If you couple that with pork sausages hanging from peoples windows, it made for a very interesting photo walk.

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Lost Plate Food Tours

No trip to Chengdu is complete without sampling many varieties of food they offer.  I heard from some friends about a food tour that is in Shanghai, Xi’an, Bejing, and Chengdu named Lost Plate Food Tours.  Their customer service is spectacular and they give you directions on where to meet for these tours.  Many food tours are known to take you to tourist places, but this one takes you as far off the tourist trek as you can imagine.  As a matter of fact, we did not even see any westerners in any of the places that we went, including a family who open up their house as a restaurant!!!!  I can say I was not disappointed with this tour!!!  We stopped by a total of five places:

1. A roadside stall to have a fried pancake with filling appetizer that was out of this world- Chengdu pancake. (Dan Hong Gao)
2. Families who opened up their house and doubles it as a restaurant that is very well hidden probably the best dumplings I have had while in China as there was different toppings for them.- Chengdu cross-arm dumpling ( Hong You Chao Shou)
3. A noodle restaurant with different style of noodles, some served hot and some served cold.- Cold noodle with bean sprout( Liang Mian), Sweet Water noodle (Tian Shui Mian), Spicy tofu pudding with deep fried noodles (San Zi Dou Hua), Dandan noodle( Dan Dan Mian), Noodle with picks and chili ( Suan Cai Mian)
4. A small restaurant in which we had different pork dishes as well as the famous cucumber salad.- Double cooked Pork( Hui Guo Rou), Water boiled pork (Shui Zhu Rou), Cucumber salad( Liang Ban Huang Gua), Century egg(Pi Dan)
5. A hot pot restaurant which you order the different meats on a stick or vegetables- Pork, Beef, Chicken, Intestines, Broccoli…..you purchase the different sticks, then you give it to the owner to put in the spicy hot pot to cook it and then wait for it to arrive at your table. -Chengdu style skewer hotpot ( Chuan Chuan)

I was so impressed with this tour that I am going to try the ones in the other three cities.  Our guide Ling was magnificent and she explained the history of the food as well as the flavors they used.  In addition, you are driving from place to place in a Tuk Tuk with free beer!!!!!

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The Leshan Buddha

This statue is 233 Feet Tall and is more impressive in person than in pictures.  Its carved out of a cliff face that lies at the confluence of two rivers.  It is the largest and tallest stone  Buddha statue in the world as is by far probably the tallest pre-modern statue in the world.

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Pandas- Black and White and Red

Finally, The Pandas was the reason I went to Chengdu and I was not disappointed.  The research station is very close to town and it will only take you no more than 30 minutes to get there.  It is best to get there right when it opens at 7:30.  Any time after this, then you may have to push and shove to see the Pandas as buses after buses of Chinese tour groups show up and make it very difficult to get in to see the Pandas (unless you are really assertive).  I would spend about 3-4 hours there as after 11 o clock in the morning, there is just too many people. 

You can find the Black and White Pandas all over the place in this research station.  They have different areas they have them in.  You can watch them majestically roll around and play with each other and knock each other off trees, or you can watch them sit and eat as they seem to munch on bamboo forever without stopping.  This makes getting photos very difficult as they are constantly moving their mouth and are covered by bamboo they are eating.  It is fun just to watch them roll around on the ground from one area to another and also to play with one another. 

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I was more fond of the Red Pandas as they were a lot more fun to photograph as they ran around everywhere trying to find food or sitting silently up in the trees waiting to see where they can get their next meal.

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