Oh baby, it's COLD outside!!!
Someone should have reminded us that we lived in Saudi Arabia for almost twenty years. Our blood thinned out and became very non-resistant to cold temperatures. Maybe we should have had an anti-freeze cocktail before we went to Harbin (the coldest place in China) to visit the Ice and Snow Festival that they hold there every January. We were there for the New Years weekend (3 days). It was cold!!!!! Below is what the weather forecast looks like for today, the 4th of January. It was about the same, maybe just a hair colder while we were there.
Weather for Harbin, Heilongjiang, China |
-7°F Current: Smoke Wind: S at 2 mph Humidity: 72% Tue  Wed Thu  Fri |
Here's the Harbin Airport we flew into. There are ice sculptures like this one all around the city. The entrance of the airport gave us a chilly welcome to the city. Man it was cold!
We enjoyed several fun activities for our Saturday through Monday stay in the cold city. It's a bigger city than we imagined. They have 4.7 Million people! It's congested, and has bad traffic. Everyone drives very slow, and very civilized, except for the horn blowing. The slow driving is because the roads are so icy.
The first thing we did after flying into the city was to go to the Harbin Ice and Snow World. They've constructed lots of buildings and sculptures out of ice blocks and lit them with some kind of wonderful lighting that changes colors. Despite the frigid temperatures, it was very enjoyable.
We were told that it only takes them about two weeks to put this ice world together. From what we understand, they cut ice blocks from the two meters of frozen ice in the river. Sounds like a very cold job.
It looked a lot like an imaginary fairy castle world.
Frozen fruit on a stick was a favorite refreshment at the Harbin Ice World
It looked really good, although I thought it was way to cold to be eating something cold. We stopped into one of the heated buildings about half way through our hour long stay there, and got a cup of hot cocoa for $6.00 (US money). Just like most amusement parks -- they gouge you on the treats.
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