harbin parthenonI initially wanted to stay in Harbin for about five days so we can see the Ice Festival, Snow World, Tiger Park etc etc and just take our own sweet time with the place. But because it was so troublesome to get our hands on the train tickets, we figured the length of our stay will depend on the availability on our train ticket back to Beijing.

In the end we decided not to stay so long because the cold was really getting to us, plus there was a bit of tension during our whole trip since it didn’t exactly start off on the right foot. So the next day we planned to go to the Tiger Park in the morning and then see the Harbin Ice Festival in the late afternoon and evening. Our friends who visited Harbin the week before advised us that it was best to go during that time so that we can see the ice sculptures during daylight as well as lit up at night.

They also warned us with stories about frozen eye lashes and how the vapours of our breath would freeze once it left our body! And so I was thankful that the temperature in Harbin when we were there was ‘warmer’ going as low as -25C. I was really worried that I wouldn’t be able to wear my contacts - no one wants to have their contacts frozen onto their eyeball!! At -20C I found that although my breath did freeze a little on my scarf, it didn’t freeze on my eyelashes which in turn meant my contacts were safely moist on my eyes =)

Tiger ParkI was actually quite excited to go to Tiger Park to see the endangered species and just to get a chance to be up close to them. We caught our breaths as we stumbled out of the taxi – we still weren’t used to Harbin taxi drivers speeding on ice slick roads!

The Tiger Park was quite depressing and uneventful after the first few tiger sightings, instead I couldn’t help but think of how bored out of their minds these tigers were… The enclosure isn’t tiny but I can’t say that it’s that big either. I was a bit disappointed that the only white tigers I saw were a couple of cubs in a tiny enclosure…

Although going to the Tiger Park was quite easy, coming back however is a bit trickier because it’s pretty far from the city – which is understandable in case one escapes or something… This means that the taxi drivers are not so easily found to get a lift back. We ended up hitching a ride with some other Chinese local to get us dropped off at the Harbin Ice Festival!

Harbin-Ice-Festival

The Harbin Ice Festival is definitely right up there with Zhongyang Jie of places you just have to visit when you’re in Harbin. I would have liked to stay there a bit longer, I don’t think I had the chance to look at everything or even had enough time to appreciate everything. Had I been wearing the appropriate clothes for freezing climates, I might have even gone down on their ice slide, gone curling or one of their other activities they had.

Harbin Defrost Break
Nonetheless, the two coffee/milo/hot chocolate/soup breaks did nothing to keep our fingers, toes and ears from going painfully numb. Speaking of breaks, in the center of the biggest tent was a tiny enclosure with a couple of tigers in it…. Talk about mood killer!

Anyway, I’ll let the Video and photos speak for themselves… The photos are on my Facebook album =)