Harbin There Done That: The Festival

March 1, 2010 – 10:21 pm

Okay so like the whole reason I went to Harbin was to go to the Snow and Ice Festival. Sounded cool. I saw some pictures on the internet that confirmed my suspicions. Look at this beautiful morning in a hostel… or… don’t look at it cause the windows are pretty much not transparent:

I got all my warm clothes on because I was going to be outside for the rest of the day (I actually didn’t put enough on, I forgot to put on extra socks so by the end of the day my feet were pretty much not responding to stimuli).

On the way to lunch and the snow and ice festival I found someone I had been looking for for a long time. In China just about everyone is the same ethnicity (Whether they actually are the same ethnicity genetically or not doesn’t matter, just about everyone calls themselves Han Chinese). So I’ve always thought that I might go a little crazy if I was always surrounded by people who were my same body shape, same style hair, same clothing, same everything. Like in the US you can find a lot more in the way of cliquey things where people from different groups will wear different things. It’s not as strong here because frankly they haven’t had enough time to get creative and try new things. The chance to actually cause divergent clothing and hair styles within generations hasn’t been taken advantage of much yet. There’s some, but it’s not nearly as strong as in the US.

So I’ve been curious as to why I haven’t seen anyone with dyed hair. They dye their hair here to be brown or dark red sometimes, but I’ve never seen anyone do like streaks of blonde or like bright green or something. Anything to make you stand out a little bit from everyone else.

Found one:

About three days later I was walking around and I saw him again. He’s a hairdresser. Hairdressers are the people I’ve seen with the craziest hair here. I guess that’s what it takes to change your hair color, you have to deal with hair every day and get super super bored with it.

Here’s another house of worship near my hostel:

So everyplace I’ve been they have people who are hired to stand outside of stores and clap. Seriously. This is someone’s job. They just stand outside the store and clap. It’s to get you to look at them and see the store. However in Harbin people have to wear gloves. This makes clapping impossible. Now how do you solve this problem?

Like this:





Actually it worked. Those were the stairs for California Beef Noodle King. Honestly I just didn’t think about buying the California Beef Noodles. My own fault. I was too hungry and not thinking straight. However I did buy this extremely delicious chicken with cucumber. It just shredded chicken, peanut sauce, and shredded cucumber. It was extremely light and healthy feeling. You could probably make this at home (and I would suggest it):





Here’s a better image of that little ice slide for kids that I still can’t go on:






I dunno I guess there’s tigers in the Motorola store. I’ve found there’s a lot more in the way of people dressing up as mascots in China. In the US I’ve only seen it once or twice. Here it’s almost so common that I’ve stopped noticing. It’s a lot of fun though:






… yyyeeeEEESSSS!!





Here’s a daytime look at Monument Square. There’s a uh… a big monument in the middle of it. Honestly sometimes there’s just no point to me narrating:

So what I need to do is cross the river to get to the Snow and Ice Festival. There are several options at my disposal to do accomplish this task.

Option 1:





Option 2:





Option 3 (walk it):

I figured out that people here really really really wanted to take advantage of the white guy. In Shenzhen they’re kind of like “eh, just pay” whereas here there’s a lot more in the way of them jacking up the prices on like everything. So unfortunately I didn’t take the dogs (all German Sheppards for some reason?) because I figured I was going to be amazingly ripped off. Also I don’t think one German Sheppard is enough to pull two people on the ice without injuring the dog. That’s not what they’re bred for. They’re bred to be used as… you know… sheppards.

So here’s the ice skating sort of area on my side of the river. This is what was right next to the massive ice slide from earlier:





I had a couple kilometers to go, so I started walking:





What’d I say about those mascots? Here’s one of the pleasant goats. I’ll link you to the wikipedia entry again:


LINK





Crossing the river:





Option 4:

On the other side of the river is a Russian village. I don’t really understand the purpose of this place. I think it’s some sort of community event holding place with art centers and so on. It’s closed during winter save for one random shop where I bought a snickers bar. It looks exactly like home sometimes:

I tried to find the HanJianMin Oil Painting Collection of China and Russian Toilet, but when I went there I just found a guy sweeping and chipping ice in front of a what appeared to be an employee cafeteria for the area. I asked him where the toilet was and he said “I don’t know.” Seriously? You work there and you don’t know where the toilet is? Rude much? I wasn’t asking anything hard, could’ve just pointed and I would have found it.

I peed on his building.

Alright, I didn’t pee on his building but I really wanted to.

Here’s evil Santa Claus:

I wandered over to a park in the Russian village to find a bunch of people that failed to attack Medusa:






All of the sculptures are made of out hollow plastic meant to emulate stone. It’s not actually stone. I was pretty impressed until I found this out.

Han Solo: Hero of the Communist Revolution:





Across this really dangerous ditch…

Was this massive wall with a story about the Chinese and the Russians. It features a woman that I’ve seen before on the school’s walls I think. I don’t know who she is, but she was sculpted the same way on the busts at my school so I assume it’s the same person. I only recognize her because I every time I saw a sculpt of her I thought she was a white woman (“Of course not!” I’m told):

Once upon a time there were a bunch of very important Chinese people that were talking and gesturing about very important things:

Then they went out and wandered across the wilderness only to find that they were accidently going into Russia and it was freakin’ cold. Soon they started taking the Russian’s vodka so they could keep nice and warm:

Then the Russians were like “Whoa whoa whoa, we don’t like the Chinese because we don’t like the idea of Emporers. Long live the hammer and sickle. Also quit stealing our vodka you jerks, we’re gonna go all Braveheart on you now.”

Then a really brave Chinese girl stood up on a rock really dramatically and the Russians were like “Whoa, you’ve got pretty girls in China.” And China was like “Chyeah we know.” And Russia said: “Okay, you turn communist and stop stealing our vodka and we’ll stop fighting” and China was like “That’s coo’; brb revolting”

Then the Russians and the Chinese were BFFs and China was like “Bros before Ho’s forever dude?” and Russia was like “Hell yeah man.” Except then eventually Russia succumbed to temptation and stopped being communist because Reagan was just too hot to handle.

And that’s the story of how China became a communist country.

Here’s a phone booth:

So I guess part of the Russian Village is still working because this is a hotel that appeared to have guests coming in and out of it:

Once again I find someone doing something by hand that would have been done by machine at home (One person with a snow blower is cheaper than five people clearing the snow back home, not the case here).

Along with Physicist, Soldier, and Senator, that is probably one of the top jobs I would hate to have. Not because of the physical labor, I’ll do that, but more because of the tediousness of taking tiny bits of snow to sculpt every path in the town to look like this:





Matryoshka doll topiaries:





Now where’s that entrance to snow world…? Oh there it is!

Snow world is pretty cool (rimshot!). Everything is made out of snow and is much bigger than your typical snow man:






Also you can actually go inside these snow houses and get extremely expensive tea. It was like 30 RMB for a single glass of milk tea (something that shouldn’t cost more than like 6 or so).






Pretty confident the ice and snow festival would be the coolest place to be a kid ever:






The perk to climbing up to the top of the big snow bowl thing (besides being able to take the snow slide down) is these hotties. I’m surprised the whole snow bowl didn’t melt from the hotness:






Chinese kid slides on his bottom:





White kid slides on his awesome:






Seriously these snow buildings are huge. Look at the size of that man at the end of the wall:





Wow check out that tiger! What is he supposed to be?





Oh:






Yes, this is flocked snow, I touched it:






Aw I must have missed a parade. A parade with more Pleasant Sheep and Big Big Wolf:





…. yyyeeeeeeeesssss:





So there was some kind of snow sculpture competition between people from different countries. I’m sure the US will have something creative and cool.





Here’s Team 1 of Korea’s entry:






Team 1 of Japan had a slightly anime feeling snow sculpture. Seems very Japanese somehow:





Wow, team 10 of Korea, stepping it up a notch:





That’s pretty cool Team of UK:





Team 3 of China, that’s way sweet. I didn’t expect it of you (and because of this I get the feeling that it might be copy of something I’m not aware of). Of course I love it; I can’t help but love robots made of snow:





Speaking of robots, a little derivative, but I’ll still accept it because you happened to choose the hardest Michael Bay style transformer to copy into snow:






Speaking of derivative, I wonder if there is a single artist in China that hasn’t made a portrait of Mao in some form? I don’t think I have ever drawn or known anyone who has drawn George Washington:






Aladdin would be proud. FYI there’s another tiger inside the mouth of the tiger, how badass is that?





This one is called “Argus Treasures”:





Okay, let’s finally see what the awesome sculpture the US team chose to make:

Janus?? You chose Janus? That is possibly the most boring thing to sculpt they could have chosen. Talk about phoning it in. Why Janus? Is there some sort of symbolism to it that I’m missing? I mean I’m sure the contest took place in January, but what could it mean beyond “this contest is taking place in January”? Does it have something to do with the 60th anniversary of the PRC? Please? Anything? I’ll take anything beyond what was clearly the most boring sculpture in the park. Why didn’t you choose an actual awesome god that does cool stuff? Why not like Tezcatlipoca or Quetzalcoatl? They’re scary as hell. Why not Zalmoxis? Why not Loki? He’s a shape shifter. You could have made one being with many faces instead of Janus who only has two faces (and they’re both the same face, lame).

Choosing Janus is like choosing to buy a shot glass half full of milk instead of a chocolate malt with whipped cream, a cherry, and the tin it was all mixed in for the same price. Weird and lame…*thumbs down*

Lets move on to something more awesome instead of dwelling on failure:





Who is this bright snowman you ask?





Minnie Mouse, Pleasant Sheep, Tigger, and a Moomintroll. I didn’t get a very good video, but watch what adults do to them:

LICK HERE TO LEARN HOW TO TREAT YOUR FELLOW WORKING MAN

None of that “make sure the kids don’t know you’re a person” garbage:






This is the back of a big snow slide. Kind of cool to see how it was made. I’m glad they used machinery instead of making a bunch of people slave over piling snow with individual shovels:





Omigosh I didn’t miss the parade!! Yes!!





Uh oh…





LOOK OUT KID!!










Aright everyone, showtime is over. The Moomins are done with this BS:





Except America is still partying!!






At least… I think it’s America… They look British. I guess blue might make them American instead of British? I’m not sure. Civil War had people wearing blue, but colonial times Americans just wore their regular clothes. Buycostumes.com is telling me that a blue outfit makes it officially colonial American. Either way I know they were American because they were playing Yankee Doodle. Also because general Custer appears to be heading to Little Bighorn in the very front… with a spear:






I doubt that’s supposed to be Birdo, but I like to think it is:






I’ve spent 6 months in China and this is the closest I’ve come to seeing a real dragon puppet. Disappointing:






It’s not often I actually get to see art with a message here, but I’m happy when I do (unlike at home oddly enough where I desire the exact opposite). No matter how subtle or unsubtle it is I’m still happy to see the effort put in. It’s called “Longjiang New Era”:






What the- what is that animal? I thought it was taxidermied until I walked past and it blinked:





Fixing up the sculptures near the entrance:





This is on the way out of the park:





“Say that’s a nice boat.”
“Thanks.”
“You name her yet?”
“You bet.”
“What’s she called?”
“The AAAAA!!!”






This is one of the little restaurants inside of the snow. I got the milk tea. I like milk tea more than regular tea. Kind of reminds me of hot chocolate (it’s more reliably good than the Chinese equivalents of hot chocolate that I’ve had):





After warming up I had to walk another few kilometers to get to the ice festival:





Seriously, one guy with a snowplow, 4 minutes for the whole street. Not only that but he could make a killing by working more people in more areas in a shorter amount of time. Inefficiency means more jobs though, so this is what happens (notice you also need a guy or two to not actually chip ice but just to direct where other people should chip):





Oh neato, an aquarium. I doubt I want to see what’s inside for fear of going “Awwww… no… your living conditions are so poor… :-(”






Welcome to Sun Island Again:





Here it is: The Harbin Ice Festival. This is the whole reason I traveled here:





… yeeeesssssssss:






Here’s a map I tried to care about, but I was too excited to just walk around and look at everything:





yeeeeeessssss





Coolest maze:





All the ice is taken from the river that I walked across. I don’t know what it is about that particular ice that makes it so perfect and clear (with not much in the way of cracks or air bubbles screwing up your view through it) but it’s pretty awesome:





Horse sculptures:





There was a big tunnel thing (that you weren’t allowed to go in for some reason) had a bunch of rainbow lights that would change colors all over the place. It was neat.

COLOR CHANGING WALL





Chess. I was too cold to see if it was checkmate or not. I assume it was:






I got an American Chinese woman to take this picture for me. It was rather disconcerting to listen to the voice of a Midwestern American come out of an Asian person’s face. This is so strange because I would expect no different if I were in the US, but because I’ve been in China for so long I expect every Asian faced person I come across to have roughly the same accent. I kept hearing her speak and I would do double takes constantly. Makes me feel ridiculous because it’s totally normal, it’s just not normal here:





Ice coliseum:





“Heylo my nam iss Chen. I design te svynx. We upgrad te svynx to haffuh foouh nose like she’s- uh! Shumuh shumuh! He’s originary s’posed to. Arso we at slyte fo’ cheodren.”





So this was someone important wandering around. I don’t know who and I didn’t see many people stopping him to go “Oh man! You’re here! That’s so cool! Could I have your autograph?” I assume he was some local official. He seemed to be out with his friends and some women that I’m assuming were his wife and daughter. Could be have been different. The men here always look much older than the women they’re with (which I’m told is actually true and/or desired most of the time).





Get your picture taken with a yak! Yay! Yet another animal I thought was a big taxidermy piece until I saw it move a little bit:






Official sponsor of the Harbin Ice Festival:






This is a stairway up to a massive ice slide:





Check out that nose, I should start working as a stop sign eh? Nyuk nyuk nyuk:





Big huge zipline. I stood in line for 45 minutes to get on to that thing. I gave up, they were too slow. Couldn’t take it anymore.





So I went down an ice slide instead. Sorry, no picture of me going down the ice slide, people would have pushed me down. What I did do however was hold up the line so people would go farther down the slide. Then I took a running jump, dived onto my back, and slide down the slide. Unfortunately everyone was like “oh ha ha this is too scary, I’m gonna go slow!” so I ran into them.






It was way fun, so I went up the stairs nearby and did it again. Then a guy budged in front of me in line, right at the front. I tapped him on the shoulder and pointed out the line behind me. Then he looked at me angrily, yelled something in Chinese, and dived down the slide. Then (After making sure there were no kids around) I got to yell “Fuck you!!” at him in Chinese. Thank you Chinese class! I think I even texted my teacher because I was so excited to have cussed in a real world situation:






Awkward dance party. There was a lot of some DJ lady yelling “Come on! Come on!” and a couple of girls on stage dancing. Except it was cold so they were wearing coats. I could tell they were really trying, but it just fell flat. The crowd just stood there staring at them, not dancing at all. Just standing and staring. It was super awkward:






Here we have a cool stairway up to the moon…





And here we have a-… what the fff…?






Welcome to Hollywood!






Hollywood, home of famous faces such as…





and…





and lest we forget…






Not an activity I’ve ever thought about doing during winter, but whatever you’re into:





Another awesome ice slide:





Is it just me or am I starting to get repeats here? If Windows of the World (As seen in this LINK) is any indication, it’s like there are maybe 100 or so well known buildings outside of China. After that they just kind repeat and you see the same ones over and over again:






Some kind of broadway show featuring a white guy singing and dancing. Looked really mediocre. Also no nudity so I don’t care:





This recreation of some set of ruins was also seen at Windows of the World:






The only non-ice part of the Ice Festival (minus the rocket):






People were paying to put these very large candle/incense-like sticks in front of the idols. Also people would go down on their knees on the prayer rug platform kind of things. I didn’t have anyone to ask what was going on, so I just watched:






Take a picture with a snow fox!





……











……………….











… yyyeeeeeeeessssss:





After that I went home (using taxi drivers that were more than willing to make you pay 3 times the rate that the meter would have shown). I realized on the way home that I had been surviving on ice cold fruit and sugar for the past 14 hours or so. I was starving. So I looked around for food but couldn’t find any, everyone was closed save for one:

McDonalds is pretty much a life saver sometimes. Many people in China seem to think that westerners just love McDonalds and KFC. They think we really love the food and the atmosphere and everything about it. When I walk into a McDonalds I often see people look at me and give a “Ah ha! It’s true! I knew it!” Every time I get the chance I always explain “It’s not that we particularly like McDonalds, it’s just that sometimes we get bored of Chinese food and want to eat something else. Anything thing else. Mexican, Italian, German, anything. McDonalds and KFC is usually the closest not-Chinese option we have. Also we don’t know how to read and Mickey D’s has pictures.”

I have explained this a number of times to random students and they’re always absolutely fascinated when they find out. This time I had a new reason to go to McDonalds. They had a western toilet (always good to keep in mind who has western toilets while traveling asia) and they were open late.

Anyway, looking at the menu I figured out I wanted something really beefy and meaty. So I went for what I thought was the Chinese version of the Big n’ Tasty:






Turns out I was more right than I thought. It was the Chinese version of the Big N’ Tasty. I thought it was going to be the same recipe, but with a different name. Wrong. I was told Chinese McDonalds changes the taste of their burgers “to be more Chinese”. I had only had the Big Mac here, which seemed to taste exactly the same as home. This was different though.

It was a burger with a sweet and Sichuan hot and spicy sauce added to it. Also it had a big pile of cucumbers instead of pickles. I had not had a Chinese style hamburger before, most of the burgers I had had were attempting to be American style but failing. This was clearly an attempt to incorporate Chinese flavorings into the dish. It wasn’t bad actually. It just wasn’t what I was expecting and desiring at that moment. I might go back again later sometime so I can fully appreciate the confusion of fusion inside my mouth:





In the next post I will have the most amazing video I have ever recorded of anything ever. Stay tuned for:

“Harbin There Done That: Valley of the Tiger”

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Harbin There Done That: Chapter I

February 16, 2010 – 12:40 am

Nothing eventful happened to me on my way to the airport (minus the usual missed bus, hiring of gypsy cabs, running late all the time stuff). The airplane ride was pretty uneventful as well, except I met a woman named Ying on the plane. She was returning to Harbin to for the upcoming spring festival holiday. I talked with her for the couple hours that we were on the plane together. She was quite cool. Her brother and her husband met us at the airport and they gave me a ride into Harbin when we arrived (around midnight or so) and even dropped me off right in front my hostel. Then she gave me her phone number and she emailed me a bunch of stuff to do in Harbin (restaurants to visit, important bus stops, etc etc). Very cool of her. Especially cause all I did was meet her on a plane and talk with her.

So I went into my room, settled in, and eventually went to sleep.

Next day was my wandering day. The day where I just kind of walk around and see where I’m living. One odd thing I noticed was probably this big old pipe:

In New York they have big pipes like that to keep the pressure of all the subways and sewers and stuff to keep it under control. I don’t know what they’re for here.

The first time I noticed a distinct difference from Shenzhen however, was when I wanted to eat lunch. I looked around and realized I had no idea what was a restaurant and what wasn’t. There was no English whatsoever (the usual white people in this area are Russian) but that’s not even a big deal to me at this point. The problem is that in Shenzhen it’s still reasonably warm, even in winter, so there’s people outside cooking and that’s how I know it’s a restaurant. There also might be pictures in the windows that show food on plates or a menu outside. They don’t do any of that in Harbin. It’s too cold (same temperature as Minneapolis really).

So I suddenly realized I couldn’t read any signs and I couldn’t figure out what was a restaurant or grocery store or a tea shop without walking inside, looking like and idiot, then walking outside again. It was hard to look in windows as well because a lot of it was down below street level and the windows would be covered in ads and cardboard and stuff in order to keep the cold out (because it wasn’t well insulated). The store fronts didn’t really have a lot in the way of windows anyway because they wouldn’t be able to keep the heat in, so the only places there were windows were the doors.

In the middle of me trying to figure out how to not look like an idiot, I remembered that there’s something I had read about restaurants in Harbin: they put lanterns outside to show the quality of food they have. It’s like how we have 3 or 4 star restaurants. They do the same with lanterns and they show them off out front. So I just started looking for lanterns, found some, went in, and I was right. I was so proud of myself.

I found that in Harbin they add oil to their food as a condiment? What? Why do people say Americans eat unhealthy food? I brought this up to people I met there and they were still convinced that Americans eat worse food. It’s exactly the same. At least we hide our oil in the food somewhere:

It was hard to capture a picture of this, but that was 2.54cm/1 inch (seriously) of oil and fat and grease in the bottom of my plate. Americans eat unhealthy food though, not Chinese people:

Harbin reminds me very much of Minneapolis. It’s just like it. I kept laughing because I was having these random big “home” feelings (even though it was all Russian influence, not early American architecture).





If I were to be a famous king, I would probably want to be this one:





Especially if the nearest rival kingdom was ruled by this guy:





Ah ha! So! Finally a taste of what I really came to Harbin for: The Ice Festival:






Kickass.






When I saw those Pacman ice sculptures I felt like I was definitely someplace that I should be. When I found out that those Pacman ice sculptures were spread out all over the city and were apparently some kind of city-wide theme this year, I felt even more assured.

I would have cautioned these ladies about the dangers of dealing with Ice Pacmen, but I’m sure they recognized the perilous situation they were nearly in:





I don’t know what it was about this ferris wheel that just screamed “RUSSIAAAAA!!!!!” at me, but it did:





“Look we can’t just make a clone of Starbucks, we’re better than that you guys, we have to be more creative. What’s something else we can do that’s really cool but also gives us that edgy, foreign, yet lived-in feel of Starbucks?”

Old Russian style housing architecture, a Christmas tree, Chinese lanterns hanging outside, and “Hey Jude” blasting from a set of speakers screwed into the wood. This is one of those little epitome of China moments I get to experience occasionally:

I like these things. The facemasks here are a fashion statement. In Shenzhen when people wear them it’s kind of unnecessary. There’s not a lot of point to it because it’s not actually all that polluted here. In Xi’an you need them because of the pollution (which made them into a fashionable accessory). You also need them in Harbin, but they can duplicate as just something to keep your face warm in place of a scarf. If I knew where to get them I would have grabbed one, but I didn’t want to walk into like a lingerie store cause I couldn’t read the signs:





Wow, I’ve never actually seen a mannequin that looked like a specific nationality of people. Lol Russians:





Down an alleyway. I don’t know what that sign says. I’ll assume it says something like “Free pie and fruit smoothies this way! Also cute girls and sweet motorcycles with fireworks attached to them! Bring all your friends!” instead of like… “Clothing store”:





I love these boards I see all over the place in this country. They’re so ugly and fun to look at. I can easily see a Duchampion out there being all like “This is art.” Man I don’t like Duchamp:






This is my hostel by the way; it’s a renovated synagogue. I met a couple there that went to a Jewish museum nearby and they found out from reading all the plaques and stuff that our hostel was actually the first synagogue in Harbin (and let’s face it, probably all of China). Then all the revolution stuff happened and the synagogues were burned save for a few. It’s so strange cause it’s not even mentioned in any of the guidebooks or anything, it was just an aside at the museum they happened to be at that day. Pretty cool.

Apparently Harbin had a pretty large Jewish population at one point (like 25-30%). There also wasn’t a lot in the way of racial tensions or anything. Apparently the Chinese and the Jews got along really well (When I think about it, traditional Chinese values and traditional Jewish values aren’t that far apart on their core issues). That same couple I was talking to earlier also found out that after WWII Harbin was a possible relocation option for all the Jews.

Just imagine what a different (better?) world it would be if the outcome of that decision had been made a little differently:

My room. My bed was the top bunk in the corner back there. When I first arrived the guy who slept below me was very large and wheezed a lot. As soon as I saw him I thought “This guy is going to be snorer.” Turns out I was right. The guy snored like crazy. Soooo loud. He actually put earplugs in before he went to sleep because he was so loud. Personally I think if you have to put earplugs in to go to sleep at night you might want to think about trying to separate yourself from other sleeping people. I figured out a trick though, since I had the top bunk that meant I had control over the stability of the entire bed. Every time it got really really bad I just made it seem like I was rolling over in bed and readjusting. It shook the bed enough that he would briefly stop snoring for a minute or two. I relayed this trick to my other roommates and they thanked me for it.





The Hostel is only on the first floor, there’s still two more floors above and a third I couldn’t get to. 2nd floor I think is a day care. Except I don’t remember seeing many kids coming in and out of there so who knows? Could be a massage place:





I’m going to say that the 3rd floor is a… photography studio? I don’t know. I’m waiting for my Chinese friends to read this and then correct me with the right answers:





I’m 90% confident there’s a secret passage behind that mirror. There are some blocked off stairs at the other end of the hostel’s hallway that I couldn’t get to to find out where they led. I think they went to the back of this mirror. The mirror has a really hollow sound behind it too so that only makes me feel even more like I’m a super sleuth:





Internet area:

God I LOVED these things. I took a picture of like every other one of these that I ate. It’s fruit on stick that is then covered in candy glass (which then freezes into a sweet ice). It was great. I ate them constantly. I tried to get a different one every time. This one has some kind of sour plum (I think they’re called haws?) with another kind of plum filling and peanuts. Put the sweet crunchy candy glass coating on the outside and it’s just perfection. I’m going to post like every picture I have of these over the course of the next couple blog posts cause I loved them so much. So here’s to the first one (and worst picture of one) I had ever had:

1.





Here’s a little ice slide for kids. I wanted to try it but I felt like everyone would have been annoyed with me:






A big cool fish with dyed ice (which seems to be pretty unusual at the festival). It was cool because as the days went on and there were more sunny days it would melt and look like it was bleeding blue or red or yellow blood:





Hahaha eeeeeegh:





60th anniversary of China:





Oddly enough this movie theatre immediately made me think “Could I live here?” I could definitely live someplace with a theatre that looks like this:





At the end of the main street near my hostel there’s a big memorial statue, then some fun activities, then the river. The river is all frozen over so you can walk across it to the ice festival on the other side. However I wasn’t doing that today. Many people come to this area to do things like ice skate and buy frozen fruits, hats, and other fun winter activities:






This thing is pretty sweet. I didn’t quite understand what it was at first. Extremely James Bond hideout looking:





This sign says whatever it is costs 10 RMB to go up there:





Oh… oh yes… I’m paying for this:






This was insanely fun. Nothing like hopping onto a piece of wood with runners and going at ludicrous speeds down an ice slide without a helmet:






Only about midway down did I suddenly think “Wait, how do I stop it when I get to the bottom?” They had a big pile of sand that the sled ran into and just slowed down. It was pretty nifty:





Lol Russia:






A section of ice festival in a park nearby. It was cool to see it like this. A teaser on what was waiting for me:






The Pac-men light up at night. I guess green is a cool color to choose:

I got lost on the way back to my hostel, so I stopped in at a place that had a big street fighter character on the front door. Turns out it was a real arcade! So cool. I love arcades. No one has them in the US anymore outside of movie theatres. I was very happy. I played for awhile in there. They also had gambling machines? I thought that was only legal in some specially designated cities and I highly doubt Harbin was one of them:

Last thing I got to see as I tried to get back to the hostel was a park full of old people walking in circles backwards. It’s some sort of health thing. There are a lot of really strange things that people do here and then say “it’s for health.” I’ve never been told how they physically help or any of the science behind any of it;“it just helps.” With this one the only thing I can think of is that it stretches your tendons and calf muscles? I’m assuming that must be what it is. Why everyone would want to walk around backwards in a park as a big group is beyond me though. I guess it makes you look slightly less ridiculous when everyone else is doing it too:

In my next post I go to the snow and ice festival. There will be too many pictures to count and it was so amazingly awesome and fun. I would have included it in this post, but it’s just too immense to get it in (that’s what she said). The next post will come faster I think seeing as how I’m on vacation with nothing to do right now. So stay tuned!

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