Chinese New Year!

The Chinese celebrate two new years every year: the Western New Year based on the Gregorian Calendar, and the Lunar New Year based on Chinese calendar. Unlike our Western New Year, the Chinese New Years lasts 15 days and ends with the Lantern Festival. Wikipedia has a nice article on the Chinese New Year. You can click on each photo for a larger view.


Fireworks are a big part of Chinese New Year (along with visiting family) and it is celebrated personally by each family shooting off their own fireworks. There are no big corporate, or government fireworks displays.

Jan 25th was New Years Eve and so we all went outside and shot off firecrackers and roman candles. The noise outside was deafening. Everyone was shooting off their own fireworks all around the city. Thick smoke filled the air. Went we got back to our apartment later that night, you could not see the stadium just across the street from all the smoke.

For each day after that, for 15 days in all, fireworks were shot off every night. You might think this would become annoying and keep us from sleeping, but it was just the opposite. It was a calming effect and kind-of lulled us to sleep each night.

On the eve of the 5th day, it is the celebration of the god of wealth. This year, more than before (due to the poor world economy) more fireworks were shot off on this eve than any other.

During the first 7 days of the New Year, everyone is expected to go home to their families (if they can), so many immigrants into Shanghai from the countryside took trains back home. As a result, many small restaurants, clothing stores and all furniture stores closed shop for those 7 days. Other stores had shorter hours or smaller staff.


On the 15th day of the New Year, it is called the Lantern Festival (or Spring Festival) and is to celebrate the coming of Spring. We visited the Old Town shopping area that day and took these photos. Brighly colored paper lanterns decorated all the streets of Old Town and dioramas where set up to display old country life.






From Jan 26, 2009 to Feb 13, 2010, it is the year of the Ox. From Wikipedia: "The Ox is thought to be the sign of prosperity through fortitude and hard work. The Ox is a power sign, like the Rat, Snake, Dragon, Tiger, and Monkey. They're quite dependable and possess an innate ability to achieve great things. As one might guess, such people are dependable, calm, and modest. Like their animal namesake, the Ox is unswervingly patient, tireless in their work, and capable of enduring any amount of hardship without complaint." - Rather poignant given the current state of the economy.

Harbin - SNOW!

Harbin, China is one of the northernmost cities in China and sits fairly close to the Russian border. As a result, it gets very cold in the winter with temperatures reaching down to -40f at night. With these conditions, the people of Harbin have embraced this and build a spectacular show of Ice and Snow each year. The following is our tour of the Snow Sculptures of Harbin, China in January 2009. You can click on each picture for a larger view.


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The above Google Map shows you just where Harbin sits: North of North Korea and about the same longitude as Inner Mongolia. Its a 4 1/2 hour flight from Shanghai.


Here is my wife, Ping, at the entrance to the snow park. We were first struck by how little snow there was in Harbin, but came to understand that they were experiencing unseasonably warm weather that year. As a result, they made much of the snow for their sculptures.


Here is one of the epic panorama's of snow. This sculpture went on for hundreds of yards.


Here is a Coffee Bar. Yes, you can walk inside and buy a cup of coffee. Its actually a special building inside made to withstand the snow piled on it. But pretty cool none-the-less.


Deer petting anyone? For a few bucks (sorry) you can have you picture taken with a deer. The show sculpture in the background is pretty cool too.


Here is an archway delineating the edge of the park. Again, just all packed and carved snow. We could not tell if there were any reinforcements in the arch itself.


An almost full sized train! You could also go (partially) inside! While you were not supposed to climb on the sculptures, people did anyway for that perfect shot. This kept the park officials busy shooing people of the exhibits and fixing any damaged they caused.


A bit ghoulish, but the detail was incredible! I don't know they got those ribs to stay in place.


Probably one of the best known snow sculptures of Harbin, this 'mountain' stretches for hundreds of yards and is at least 100' tall. Right in the middle is a snow slide.

Harbin was a harsh contrast of hot and cold. The cold was expected, and after being out in it for a while, you could adjust to it. But the heat was oppressive. The airplance was hot. The bus from the airport to the train station was hot. The hotel was hot (there was no way to adjust the temperature in the room). The cab rides were hot. It just basically put us to sleep and drained us of any appetite.

Don't get us wrong, we are very happy we went! And the timing was perfect. Going just after Chinese New Year, there were less people. Harbin was also a little warmer that week. And we were told as we were leaving that they may have to shut down the parks the following week because it was going to get too warm.

Harbin - ICE!

Just a few days after the Chinese New Year, Jan 26 2009, we flew to Harbin. Harbin is one of the northernmost and coldest cities in China. Temperatures can get down to -40 at night (that's the same in C and F), and during the day often does not get above Zero F. Luckily for us, is was not nearly that cold.
We stayed in a very nice hotel just across the Songhau Jiang (river) where the Ice Festival is held in the Taiyangdao Park. You can click on any image to see a larger view.


When you first enter the park, this is what you are greeted with - quite literally a city of ICE!


All the ice comes from the Songhau Jiang and because it is a fast flowing river, it is very clear. You can climb the steps of the building, some have slides, and all are illuminated from within with bright colorful lights.


There are towers and spires, archways and windows, and as you will see later in the video, the lights are animated. All this making it quite a winter wonderland.


All this Ice had it drawbacks, though. It was slippery. Carpet was laid down on the stairs and snow machines blew snow over everything to help give you traction.


Here is an Ice Castle built on top of a hill and coming out of it is a very long ice slide. Walk up the steps next to the slide, buy your ticket and then slide down on a board to the bottom. All made from blocks of ice.


At one end of the park, and rather hard to get to, was a giant snow Buddha. Very beautiful and wonderfully done.


Here is the video I promised earlier. I grand panoramic view of the entire park. You can get a good feel for the size of the sculptures and the park in this video. Yes, that's my sweet, silly wife waving at the end.


Our last photo is of the Entrance/Exit gates - also all in Ice and also illuminated from within.

It was a thrilling experience, and well worth the trip, but it was (as expected) bitterly cold. I was wearing 3 layers of pants, including ski pants and thermals, plus 4 layers of tops including thermals, long sleeve shirt, sweater, vest, plus my heavy coat. We had winter boots with insulated socks and heavy insulated gloves. I was wearing an insulated hat with ear protection and a hood, plus a scarf around my face.

Whenever I wanted to take a photo with my phone, I had to take my gloves off because the touch screen was skin-touch sensitive. I froze my fingers, so I didn't do that often. The first battery in my camera went from about 80% charge to Zero in about 10 minutes. The second battery did manage to last throughout the night. But it wasn't until we ducked into a small coffee shop and had some hot coco that we warmed up enough to stay out enough to see all of the park.

Of course, the natives of Harbin were dressed quite different: we saw people wearing simply jeans, boots, a jacket, thin gloves and occasionally a hat - at 20f below! Wow! I guess after living there all your life, you get used to it...

Shanghai World Financial Center

On Jan 27th, 2009 while in Shanghai, we decided to travel to the top floor observatory of the Shanghai World Financial Center - the tallest building in China, and at the date of its completion, August 2008, the tallest in the world. We arrived there at around 2:30pm. You can click on the images to see a larger view.


There was a very long waiting line and we were told it was 90 minutes to get in. A local tour group, short on people, told us they could get us in much quicker. After waiting outside for an hour and watching other people who arrived after us getting in, we abandoned the tour group and stood in line. Once we finally did get inside, we saw that tour group still standing outside waiting their turn. However, once inside there was another 90 minute waiting line, after buying the tickets ($150 RMB each), just to get the lower observation platform. Ugh, a lot of waiting.


The lower observation platform was on floor 90 (I believe) and I did not take many pictures there. I wanted to get to the top, floor 101, for the ultimate view. Of course, there was another line to wait in for that.


Finally, on the top floor! It was getting dark out by then, 5:30pm, and actually, with all the city lights, the view was even more spectacular!
The upper observation platform extends from one end of the building to the other. It is all glass, including the floor, so you can look almost straight down to the ground (in spots).


Here is a shot of the Jin Mao Tower. Last year it was the tallest building in Shanghai at 88 floors and 1,380 ft (counting the spire). We are easily looking down on it from the 101st floor and 1,614 ft up! We went up in it in 2007 and posted photos in this blog.


Here is a shot of the Oriental Pearl TV Tower. We toured it in 2006. It's 1,535 ft tall, and we can still look down on it from here!


At 6:30pm, 4 hours after we started, we left. It was incredible! A very long wait, and expensive, but worth it!