After my exams I braved the cold with some friends and travelled to Harbin. We used Spring Airlines which is the budget airline company out here in Shanghai. The flight was at 7.45am from Pudong which actually has nothing opened until 7.30am or so which meant we couldn't eat or anything.
Spring Airlines is the cheapest for a reason (think Easyjet or Ryanair), seats are small and you don't get any free drinks or snacks. A small bottle of water will cost 5RMB. The flight was around 2.5 hours which wasn't too bad as most of us slept the way there.
Harbin is VERY cold. I did feel I prepared well and brought lots of layers (Uniqlo Heat-tech was a lifesaver!). From the plane we had to get onto a bus to be taken to the terminal building but along the way the bus stopped for ages as there was a plane landing so all traffic had to stop and wait.
We stayed at the Ibis again which was pretty much the same as in Beijing. We walked along Central street and found some Korean food to eat and just took a general stroll. The streets are filled with ice sculptures and actually the ground was quite slippery.
We went to a nearby park to see ice sculptures which was already amazing to see with all the lights - I could never have imagined what waited for us the next day at the main festival! Afterwards we took a taxi to Shangri-la hotel where they have a restaurant based in a cold room like an igloo where you can have hot pot. It was cool to see, much like the Ice Bar in London but obviously bigger and better! Prices were steep though and it was already so cold so we decided to go somewhere nearer the hotel. We found that restaurants outside of Shanghai seem to close early and already at 9.30pm we were being pushed out the door.
Inside the Shangri-la hotel
The next day we got up early and went to the Saint Sofia church which was very beautiful but inside was crazy crowded and costs 20RMB (10RMB for students) to get inside where people are crowding the entrance/exit buying souveniers, the walls filled with photos and the middle with model statues of the city, it didn't seem worth it.
Then we took a taxi to Taiyang Dao (Sun Island) to the Snow festival. Giant sculptures all made out of snow! It was very beautiful to see and so white and clean in the sunlight. The main lake was frozen over and a big castle built where you could slide down on rubber tyres, there were cars you could drive on the snow, sled dogs, people singing and dancing in costume too.
Afterwards we went to the Polarland which cost 130RMB to get in. I was surprised how much more was inside compared to Shanghai Aquarium. There were even polar bears, wolves, arctic foxes, and the opportunity to feed giant fish with milk bottles and feed the sealions. The main show were the beluga whales dancing to My Heart Will Go On.
We managed to negotiate a taxi to take us to the Ice and Snow Scultpure Festival and entrance fee cost 300RMB. It was so cold but worth it. It reached around -30 degrees that night! It was very busy with so many people and many sculptures to slide down. It was such a large scale I had no idea what to expect! Many times I underestimated the cold and my camera struggled to deal with it. There wasn't much food apart from instant noodles but later on we came across KFC which seemed empty of almost everything.
By 9.30pm it was empty in the park it was rather eerie but a good opprtunity to take some photos. I don't plan to go back again but it was worth it at least once in my life to go. I highly recommend wearing ski trousers, lots of layers, definately a hat. I wore double layer gloves, one layer being special ones for using my iPhone and a top layer which were fingerless. Definately wear boots and extra thick socks!
Angry Birds is so big in China....
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