It is one of our coldest evenings. We had our wonderful taxi man pick us up at 4:30 at the hotel - you can see that it is full on night by that time. He arrived with his Mei Mei, little sister. She squeezed into the back seat with us. When we arrived we discovered that he brought her along to get us into the park for 10 RMB less per person. She is a tour guide, and was able to get us in with another group. She ended up sitting in the car with the driver while we were in the park just for the 5 minutes it took to get us in for a total of 40 RMB less = $5.88.
This is the Ice World. It was like walking into a city.
The almost full moon hovering over an ice castle.
A snow carved sled around which people were "ice skating". Again, it mystifies me how they can spend one moment of extra time outdoors doing this. We walked around the park pretty quickly to avoid total frost. Although we did manage a few slides down one of the ice castles. 
This particular building changed colors constantly. Red, blue, green, purple.
The girls on a giant chess board.
It was a little difficult to move the pieces to play!
A snow version on the Olympic Bird's Nest.
The ever elusive Ridley showed his face for a moment.
A most incredible snow Buddha. There were cushions for prayers and incense in front of this lovely - all being used.
The ice temples and incense around the Buddha.
Storey with the real deal. Probably the only truly warm person in the place.
Big Ben.
The exit. I think we did this monstrous park in about an hour. It was great to see, and with Storey having made the excursion in her padded crocs (we didn't notice this before leaving) we decided to leave while she professed her toes to still be warm.
Our taxi driver took us a BBQ place for dinner. While waiting in line to get in, I had my nails filed! A free service for those who chose to indulge.
This was a huge restaurant, a wild west kind of experience. These "cowboys" would come with huge skewers of various meats to your table and carve off a bit onto each plate. They marked off what they brought on a sheet. I think over 16 kinds of meat in all. There were salad, drink, hot dish and dessert buffets stationed around the restaurant. It was non-stop eating for 38 RMB each = $5.50. There were a lot of Russians there and one boy kept coming up to Paige and saying, "Hi, I am from Russia."
A great ending to our time in Harbin. We were back to our hotel to pack for our early morning flight out. Back to balmy Shanghai!
1 comment:
tell paige, if i saw her, i'd come up to her and say..."Hi, I am from Russia too!"
that ice extravaganza was brilliant. thank you for posting all your photos so we can glimpse the magnitude - whaaaaaat????it is crazy wild to me! love again, kj
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