Monday, January 19, 2009

Harbin - Walking down streets under the snow

On Sunday, we woke up to find out that it snowed during the night and everything was white. At least early in the morning, after a few hours of traffic the snow started to turn grey which is not so nice to see. We continued our exploration of the city, checking out Saint Sophia, the orthodox church now converted to a museum (when you're in front of it you feel like if you were in Moscow, Russia, and not Harbin, China), discovering the underground network of shopping streets and more ice sculptures.
It was both pleasant to walk under falling snow and quite perilous as you need to pay attention at each step (as you maybe know where I grew up there was 1 day of snow once every 2-3 years, so whenever I see some I'm somehow fascinated).
I'm still amazed by the number of people we saw eating ice creams, which we would never consider given how cold it was.
Last thing on our to-do list: the Disney park. One of the parks of the city is converted into an ice park featuring Disney characters. It is also the place where you can have a look at the ice sculptures from the international contest. Some of them are quite impressive by the level of details. By the way, did you know that Gabon has a team of ice sculptors? I would have never guessed.
Last but not least, we tried one of the ice slope. Basically you sit down at the top of it (yes directly on your trousers) and someone pushes you. Before you know you're going down full speed and screaming (probably scaring the Chinese people around who do not scream when they go down)! 10s of fun just for the cost of wet trousers for a couple of hours afterwards:)

No comments: