iDenise.net

25 January, 2004 - Part One

View of the Songhua River (松花江) from my parents' room - given the choice of Rooms 911 (river view) and 914 (street view), they chose 911.

We had breakfast at the hotel - Shangri-La Harbin - and went to see the Monument to the Victory over Flood. Except I didn't understand what the tour guide was talking about, apart from being confused (what flood? where?) and the monument was a whole 5 minute's walk from the bus, and there were lots of distracting ice sculptures around, sooo...
I had no idea that we were there to see it and I have no real pictures of it!!

However the ice sculptures were cool, and I took photos of THOSE!

There were sculptures all along this path.	Penguins.	More penguins.
A whole army of penguins.	A row of penguins (tired of penguins yet?)	A family of deer.
Icicles.	Not even ice castles are exempt from real estate advertisements.	Polar bear with graffiti.
This is ALMOST a photo of the monument - you can see it behind the red lanterns, which I was actually taking a picture of!	A humongous slide made entirely out of blocks of ice. It goes all the way out onto the Songhua River! I was tempted to go on it, myself, but didn't want to have to walk back up again!	These ice lollies are REALLY ice lollies, unlike the ones you get in Hong Kong. We didn't know this, and by the time we'd brought some back to Hong Kong, they'd already melted!
Dog sleds on the frozen river.	There were a few mitten-sellers. Everyone's hands were freezing and they were doing good business.	Some also sold woolly snow-boots.

The streets were all frozen with patches of treacherous black ice. You really have to watch your step in on the pavement - it's like walking in a skating rink!

Afterwards we went to see snow-sculptures at the Harbin Ice and Snow World (yes, that's what it's really called). I really enjoyed the snow sculptures - it seems such a waste that they'll just melt in the spring!
I always thought they'd have 10ºC summers or something, but it turns out that the temperature can get up to 40ºC. Poor Harbin people - freezing one month, boiling the next.

I wasn't kidding about the name of the place.	This is merely a snow-COVERED sculpture, and not very relevant, but I like it.	An ice Shenzhou 5. The sculpture looks small, but it's actually gigantic - that black blob in the bottom left is a snowmobile with several people in it! The mushroom rubbish bin was just in front of me, so it appears huge.
For a few yen you can tour around the park in one of these carts.	If you like unusual things, there are also sheep-sleds.	There were dog sleds too. I've never seen dalmatians pull sleds!
This was really impressive up close - such a big face, made entirely of snow!	A...a...turtle-creature. I'm not sure what these are called - kierun? chimera? ...Maybe it IS a turtle, haha!	I really like the wide tree-lined paths.

This is my favourite!
	This one is simply enormous!
The park was full of sculptures nestled here and there between trees. Even though it was 11 am, the sunlight was slanted like it was sundown.	The snow was all trampled with a winter's worth of boots - but it was still soft, and not trod into slippery black ice like the pavements in the city.	Just under the snow, though, it is all ice. Some of it pokes through. It is clean ice, but slippery all the same.
The condensed breath on my scarf froze into little ice crystals. The 'smoke' that comes out of your nose by simply breathing is much more than what you'd get huffing and puffing on the coldest day of the year in Hong Kong!	This yurt is actually a snack-shop. Mum got a hot tea and I got a hot sausage here. It was VERY warm inside the yurt, much warmer than I'd expected!	I spilled some hot tea on my coat - and it froze before it could soak in.
		Of all the names I've heard for rubbish bin, this one - fruit peel box - has got to be the most inventive.

In the middle of taking pictures in the Ice and Snow World, my camera suddenly gave up and I had to reset the date and time after putting in a fresh battery. I was quite pleased it managed to last as long as that, though!

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All photos, graphics, layout and text on the following pages are © Denise Chan 2004, unless otherwise stated; please ask before using any of them. My email is denise at idenise dot net.
(Feel free to use any photo you like as wallpaper on your desktop, or your own personal use - just don't take them and use them on a website or other publication without appropriate credit.)
The dragon in the title graphic is a scanned ink drawing of my own, and the font used is 'Chinese Takeaway' by Pizzadude.
The decorative pattern used for the top corners was copied from a window frame.
The tree background is from a photograph I took on the train from Harbin to Beijing.