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.