Brace yourself for the big freeze: Harbin Ice and Snow Festival in China
Every year, photo
galleries of illuminated ice sculptures in China are emblazoned
across news websites. Harbin's International Ice and Snow Festival
inspires travellers around the world to marvel and think: “Next
year, I'm going there.”
Flashy doorways and inexplicable ice lions at Harbin's Zhaolin Park. Image by Anita Isalska |
#1 – For an
international festival, Harbin's ice-travaganza can be mystifying
to foreign visitors.
#2 – There are so
many interesting things about Harbin that it would easily
fill a visit outside festival season. And you'd spend a lot less cash.
Pose with a tiny deer in front of this enormous snow girl - on Sun Island in Harbin. Image by Anita Isalska |
Hotels are keen to
bundle non-Chinese speakers onto overpriced tourist taxis to the
venues. Being intent on paying a local fare involved a lot of misses
when it came to negotiating with taxi drivers, who know they have a
captive market and try to charge flat rates of Y1000 to festival
venues; on the meter it should be more like Y300 by distance. The
cable car over the Songhua River takes you part-way to Sun Island and
to the main venue for Ice and Snow World, but it's pricey (Y500
one-way) and only gets you so far. And walking over the Songhua isn't
tough by distance, but wind whipping over the ice makes for a
thoroughly face-freezing amble – nay, penguin-like stagger –
across the river. As if the ice-streaked pavements weren't tough
enough to walk on without slipping.
Any contraption that slides does the job. Fun times on the frozen Songhua River. Image by Anita Isalska |
But on to the
non-festival highlights. Compared to Beijing, Harbin is so laidback
it's on a futon sipping green tea. Much less bustle, cafes crafted to
please the idle-at-heart, and utterly devoid of the intensity of
cut-throat Beijing. Russian flavours and architecture give an
interesting lift to the city. Magnificent St Sophia Cathedral jostles
alongside neon signs for tea houses, synagogues snooze serenely along
major roads, and the pedestrianised streets are crammed with great
eateries and shops.
Crick your neck at these splendid domes... St Sophia Church in Harbin. Image by Anita Isalska |
For more on Harbin,
check out my Lonely Planet article, 10 fascinating facts aboutHarbin, China's ice festival city.
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