Ice Ice Baby.....have I used that title before?

Today is the day that we visit Harbins 27th annual Snow and Ice Festival! Whoop whoop!

The festival covers 3 sites, Sun Island hosts both the Snow Sculpture exhibition and the 'World of Snow and Ice'. Zhaolin Park hosts the Disney Winter Wonderland. For the sake of time, cost and circulation, we decide to visit only two, the two on Sun Island (a decision we were glad we made seeing as there was plenty of Disney to go around at the other two).

We were training home the next day, so we decided to hit up the snow sculptures in the morning with the light, and then visit the Snow and Ice World in the evening with the hostel, saving us the inevitable getting-the-wrong-bus-and-freezing-to-death scenario that would be involved in transporting ourselves.

After bundling ourselves up in all our finery (everything in our bags) once again, we set off once more across the icy Songhua River Tundra and arrived on the doorstep of snow world, where we were greeted by 'Joy Bunnies Greet Guest'. After posing for a couple of photos for a nice Chinese lady we met, we wandered into the festival.

Sara prepares for -30!

Apparently this years theme is 'Merry Snow and Ice Festival. Passionate Country', which I guess leaves it open for just about anything and everything. It doesn't really matter, some of the sculptures we saw were stunning, many of them were easily recognisable internationally, others were more abstract, illustrating concepts rather than actual objects or people.

Kung Fu Panda (that's for you Dad :D)

Represents evolution I believe

There was also what appeared to be a competition going on, lots of people were still working on their entries, people come from all over the world to enter the competition, here are some of the entries we saw.

At one point I was wandering around and heard a thump, looked back to see Sara laying on her side in the snow. No one laughed...it was quite amazing really. I managed to keep my mirth under control seeing as you never know when you're next going to fall over yourself! Bless her, shes got a painy hip and shoulder thanks to that one.

Some of those sculptures were absolutely beautiful, but we had no idea what was about to greet us this evening as we wandered back to the hostel to warm up.

At 5pm that evening we all bundled onto a minibus to head to the World of Snow and Ice. I'm not sure there's an awful lot I can say that does justice to this place. I'm going to let the pictures talk for themselves (and then inevitably burble on about it for a while afterwards anyway!).

The entrance to the Festival

It was something quite incredible, people work from November onwards to achieve this, in significantly sub-zero temperatures! It's not even like they can keep the bulk of it up all year, as Harbin can reach 36ish degrees in the summer months. All the ice is taken from the Songhua River.'

The slides were fun too, Sara and I didn't go on the biggest, which had a huge queue and looked of questionable safety, but we had some fun on the smaller ones. Especially the moment when I was sat down ready to slide, and I heard a familiar thump from behind me. I turned around to see Sara laid flat out on her back, groaning. There she lay for about 20 seconds. During these few seconds, I could be seen from the bottom of the slide trying to scrabble myself backwards on my arse away from the top of the slide without slipping and shooting straight down in a flurry of limbs and iced tea (which kept falling out of my pocket) whilst shouting 'Sara! Are you ok Sara??' She turned out to be fine, but had a bruised arse and head to go with her hip and shoulder.

One thing I have to mention is the tea I had here. Sara and I stopped in a warm little café for a sausage on a stick and a warm drink. I was enjoying my very sweet milk tea when suddenly something solid shot up the straw.

As you can imagine. It was rapidly ejected back into the tea as I mildly freaked out regarding the unidentified floating object in my beverage. It turns out that (for fun I imagine...as I can see no other possible reason) the Chinese like to put jelly in their tea. Apparently it's also common in soft drinks and fruity drinks across Asia. Unlike the trains...I'd like to encourage the UK NOT to take up this practice. It's chewy and it's weird! Jelly tea is made of wrong and fail.

Safe to say, jelly tea aside, Harbin Snow and Ice Festival lived up to and beyond my expectations. The pictures really don't do it justice. To top off a great day, we spent the evening getting a bit tipsy with Severin (spelling? Correct me if I'm wrong!) and Andrea, a lovely Austrian couple that we met at the hostel *big waves to you if you're reading this*.

Thank you Harbin. Back to Beijing now where it's a bit warmer (only -7 degrees)...whoop!

Brrrrrrr....just, brrrrrrrrrrrrr

The train taking us to Harbin was a 10 hour sleeper train, soft seats, so upon arriving at Beijing Train Station we wandered over to the posh waiting room.....where we sat on the floor.

About half an hour before boarding the train I took a wee (ha ha) toilet break. As per usual, the toilets were squat toilets. I’ve managed to perfect the art of squat-toiletting without peeing all over your trousers or feet (mostly), it’s always easier when you have something to hold onto though! On this occasion there was nothing to hold onto and I almost toppled backwards when suddenly a mop appeared between my feet under the toilet door. In her all-encompassing enthusiasm for toilet cleanliness the cleaning lady was mopping the first 4 or 5 inches of my cubicle, about 2 feet under my nose.

Bless her heart.

Later, seeing Sara and I sat on the cold marble floor, she dragged over some empty seats for us to sit on, and then chose to perch on her little stool near us when she had her teabreak. She took us under her wing and made sure she let us know when our train check-in came up. The whole time we passed barely a word between us.

After running the gauntlet of passengers brandishing such weapons as whole peking duck and bags full of noodles, we finally made it onto the train. Lucky things that we are, we found ourselves sat next to two gents who seemed very enthusiastic.....about what I couldn’t be sure.
They started talking to us, as far as they could, they spoke as much English as Sara does Chinese...and my Chinese is non-existent. They kept motioning to their tea and I was nodding and making ‘mmm yeah, nice’ noises. They suddenly produced a little paper wrap with 2 nuggets of what at first appeared to be hash. However, the strict Chinese anti-drug laws combined with the wild abandon at which they were waving the stuff around convinced me that it was, in fact, tea that they were offering me. The next thing I knew, one of them dragged me off down to the hot water dispenser to make ‘tea’.

Once I was re-sat with my beverage I found myself sipping at it very slowly, that initial impression not quite leaving my mind. All turned out ok and it was just tea you’ll be glad to know! Next they bought us beers, despite our protests.

Then the inevitable happened. Despite the not insignificant language barrier, they asked for our numbers. When we wibbled, they gave us theirs. So we gave them our email addresses, hoping this would sate their thirst for personal information.

No.

So Sara began to try and communicate that our mobiles were English mobiles and didn’t work in China (LIES!). And so began a tiresome roundabout of:

‘Number, number, telephone number’

‘No, our mobiles are English, don’t work in China, very expensive’

‘Yes yes,, Chinese mobile number’ *brandishing his own mobile for us to type into’

‘No.....English mobile, no work in China’

‘Yes, Chinese mobile!’

Until eventually the poor lady sat in front of us who obviously understood what the guys were after, and understood enough of what we were saying (or...had been in the same predicament herself) turned around and told them what we were trying to say. Even then, it took a little while for them to accept it.

Soon after, the lights went out, praise de lor’!

*insert countless whinges on how broken my sleep was during the night, and how Sara seems to be able to fall asleep standing up if she wants to, about how it’s all not fair and I’m so tired*

So, we disembarked the train in Harbin at about 7:30am.....and I’ve never felt anything like it in my life!

At first I thought I was bunged up from the night before.....what is this strange feeling in my nose like boogers every time I breathe in? Turns out it’s the moisture on my noztral hairz freezing every time I breathe in through my nose! It's around -30 degrees.

We have trouble trying to get a taxi to understand where we’re going and eventually Sara has to get the hostel on the phone to talk to a cab driver. By this point we’re both freezing our tits off....almost literally.

When we arrive at the hostel we have to wait for our room as we have arrived mega-early. A little while after the room is free I go for a nap because I’m being a nasty, snappy, weird and tired Becki, and we’ve decided to hit Sun Island for the snow sculpture part of the festival this afternoon. A couple of hours nap did me the world of good, and in the afternoon I set out wearing:

2 x long thermal trousers
1 x long leggings
1 x skipants (Michelin stylie)
1 x vest
1 x top
2 x thermal tops
1 x hoodie
1 x coat with a removable fleece lining
1 x neckwarmer
1 x scarf
1 x hat
2 x pairs of gloves
2 x normal socks
2 x thermal socks
And a pair of skiboots

And if we’d made it to that festival on that day, I’d have some really cool pics for this instalment of the blog. As it was, the sun was starting to set and my glasses froze as we crossed the frozen Songhua river! So took the decision to do both festival bits the next day and scurried back to the hostel and warmth, buying comfort cake on the way home.

At least I knew my clothes worked!

Just so it’s not completely devoid, here are some pics of our little jaunt down the road and across the river.

Walking across the deserted frozen Songhua river

Don't like cracks in the ice!!

Amazing pics coming in the next blog guys, keep reading. I must leave you now, Sara is trying to make me buy sauced pig nostril off of the train waitress. I must thump her.