In the last post I mentioned that "nothing memorable happened" between Oct 2013 and Jan 2014. I lied a little bit. I left out one of my favorite trips in China this far! So, now I will tell you about Harbin.
The Harbin Ice Festival happens each year between December and February. We went the weekend before we were departing to Cambodia for Chinese New Year holiday. If you "google" this festival you will likely get to see better photos than I took, but I won't be in them... So I know you all prefer my pictures to Google's. Many of them I am hardly recognizable as I am wearing so many layers and face coverings, it could be anyone in there, but I promise it was me. Anyway, Harbin is located way up North in China, directly above North Korea, about 200 miles south of the Russian border. There is not much in China above this city. Here is how we began our trip.
It was a three hour flight from Shanghai to Harbin that we took on a Friday evening. When we got ff the airplane in Harbin, there were locker rooms to change in. By change, I mean add layers. The only problem there, is we had to take all of our top layers off and add layers underneath. The rest of the evening was uneventful. We got a cab to our hotel and had some dinner at a restaurant next door. It was cold.
The next morning we woke up and had plans to go to the Snow Sculpture Garden for the day time. We also planned to stay out all day and go to the Ice Sculpture "city" at night, as it is lit up with neon and supposed to be super cool. After we had the worst free Chinese "continental" breakfast ever -- the only edible thing was hard boiled eggs-- everything else was unidentifiable, we began to get dressed. This process was nothing short of a process. It took us close to 30 minutes to layer-up. I recall having 3 layers of pants under my snow pants. I had only one pair of wool socks under my boots, but had foot warmers in there to keep my piggies from falling off. The top of me had several long sleeved layers starting with a thermal layer. Finally I got to a fleece jacket and a wind-proof shell on top. I had double gloves with hand warmers for that variety of piggies well-being. My face was covered by a ski-mask that left only my eyes and the bridge of my nose exposed. I had a scarf around my neck, then a beanie-like hat, and a fleece hood and the wind proof hood over that. I was sweating before I even stepped out the door.
However, all of this layering was NECESSARY. In the daylight, the temperature got up to a whopping -15 degrees Celsius. I said NEGATIVE. Lets convert that to Fahrenheit. 5 degrees Fahrenheit. That doesn't sound as bad. Just because it is not negative. After we were all ready and had the courage to step outside, we found the correct bus route and walked along the river for a bit. We stopped to get a roasted sweet potato from a street vendor (mostly because it was something warm to eat) and decided to make a quick stop at a convenience store for some liquids. We decided on a few 8 RMB ($1.50) 16 oz bottles of rice liquor to" keep us warm" throughout the day and night. We boarded the bus and continued to get lost, but eventually got to our snow sculpture park destination. We walked the park for several hours seeing lots of sculptures done by artists of varying skill levels. The one in the picture here was several stories tall and quite amazing to see in person. Throughout these several hours of hiking around in the snow we stopped at several "warm-up huts" that were placed all throughout the parks. At each hut we bought a warm food or beverage alternating cup-o-noodles with coffee, tea, and hot chocolate.
As the sun began to sink, we made our way to get a cab and head over to the ice city. It was about 4pm when we arrived, and it was dark. Very dark. Which was good for seeing the ice city, but also meant that the temperature dropped as the sun went away. They had strategically placed a giant thermometer in the ice city to broadcast the torture we were inflicting upon ourselves. It was in Celsius as it is in China, but Ill convert it to Fahrenheit for you. The thermometer read -35 degrees Celsius. That translates to about -31 degrees Fahrenheit. NEGATIVE. THIRTY. ONE. DEGREES. FAHRENHEIT. It was beyond cold. It was windy too, so with the wind chill I'm saying it was probably close to -40F. After we were able to handle (drink rice wine) the cold, we could stay outside for about 15-25 minutes before having to go into a warm-up hut and gain feeling back in our small appendages. Each journey back outside was a tough one, but took us to different parts of the ice city to explore. Many of the buildings we were able to go up to the top or inside and explore. It was one of the coolest, no pun intended, things I have seen. After a good hour and a half of in-and-out of warm huts and icy buildings, we decided to find a ride home. We found a taxi, and got a ride back to our hotel, where we proceeded to eat dinner at the same restaurant as the night before. We were in bed before 10 with a soon to be rice wine hangover.
The next day had a rough start, as you would expect with out decision to use alcohol to stay warm. We went to a hole-in-the-wall noodle shop for "breakfast", but I personally couldn't stomach the food or the smell. I sat on the step outside the restaurant with my jacket open exposing my core to the -15C daytime air. Believe it or not, my hangover resolved pretty quickly in that weather. We took a risk and went to a Siberian Tiger park, which ended up being a low budget zoo with only one kind of animal. Not worth it. After our cheap safari we made our way back to the city and got to the airport by way of being ripped of by several cab drivers. On the flight home the person next to me *wink* attempted to sleep their residual nausea off for 3 hours without success. We made it home. Back to school in the morning.
This trip was once in a lifetime, and I highly recommend attending one of the few festivals like this around the world at some point. It was the most cold I have ever been. Also the closest I have been to crying about being cold. However, looking back, it was well worth the suffering. I doubt I will ever expose myself to this kind of weather again voluntarily. For the skeptics, the pictures don't do it justice. You will only be cold walking to the next warm-up hut. The people that put these parks together are professionals, and they cater to the weak, warm-blooded species that we are. They don't want to deal with whiny, cold, or frostbitten people, and they know how to help you prevent doing that to yourself. JUST DO IT. I think Nike should pay me too.
Ill try to pick up with spring 2014 next time.
Welllll I guess it is safe to say I forgot about this... since it's been over a year since my last post. I apologize. I cannot promise this will not happen again. So, apologies in advance if (when) it does. I will do a quick re-cap of the last year for you. Where do I begin?......
October 2013 - January 2014:
No big events that I can recall. I celebrated NYE on "the Bund" which is the area of Shanghai many people recognize because of the city skyline. It was a crazy night with one memorable event. I GOT SLAPPED IN THE FACE. Some dumb girl wore a white dress and my wayyyyy to intoxicated friend was dancing with me--long story short, he fell on me. I hit her on the way down. Her red wine spilled on her dumb white dress. I stood up. I got slapped. Didn't even know what hit me. Didn't know why I was being slapped. So, naturally.... I just started to cry and went to the bathroom. When I came out of the bathroom back to the party, everyone had already forgotten it had happened. Nice friends.
January 2013:
Every year between Jan and Feb the biggest holiday in China is celebrated. Chinese New Year is the beginning of a new lunar year, and the vacation time they get here is amazing. It is much like our "winter break" in college. As a teacher I got 3 full weeks off and of course, did some traveling.
The first stop was Cambodia. At this time, Cambodia was the poorest country I had traveled to. The people were great though. They were just as content as could be, many of them possibly owning as little as one full outfit. We hit the big cities here (Phnom Phen and Siem Reap) and the major tourist attraction, well worth spending time at, Angkor Wat. We had little fish eat the dead skin off of our feet while drinking beer, and then read an article that this was spreading HIV and Hep C. Too late now.
From here we made our way to Bangkok, Thailand, but went directly to the airport to fly to Chiang Mai in the North. At this time, Thailand was having pretty major protests in Bangkok and we decided it would be best to see this city a different time. Chiang Mai was beautiful. We bought souvenirs at a night market, ate local street food, went white water rafting and elephant riding.
From here we flew and ferried to a small island off the southeast coast of Thailand called Koh Tao. You may have heard of this place in the news kind of recently--you know, for the two British tourists that were beaten to death with a garden hoe on the beach. Before that glorious incident, we spent 10 days at a diving resort there. We got our basic diving certificate, and then decided - what the heck - to get our advanced certificate. We did 9 dives in these 10 days. We also played beach volleyball and tried to get rid of our "porcelain" skin complexions.
Many of the dives we did were similar, but equally amazing. We learned about different fish species, corals, underwater navigation, and about all of the equipment used to dive. With our advanced certifications we are allowed to dive to 30 meters, which doesn't sound that crazy--but thinking about being 100 feet under water for 40 minutes makes it sound a bit more cool. There are two diving experiences I would like to tell you about. Both left me smarter and knowing more about my body than I had known before.
Wreck Dive: Our instructor was a crazy old guy who had lived on this tiny island for about 30 years. Every response out of his mouth had some sexual innuendo in it. You got used to it. Anyway, we were doing a wreck dive to a ship that was purposely wrecked there for divers to enjoy. Well, you are supposed to be "wreck certified" to go in ship wrecks... but I believe I told you our instructor was crazy. He took 8 newly certified divers into the wreck. There were two opportunities to go into the ship. The first one was exciting! You swim through a door and into the captains deck. There are windows letting light in (because only the instructor had a flashlight) and its a pretty clear path to get out if something were to go wrong. I DID IT. I came out of there feeling like a champ. "Whoo hoo," I though. "I went in a ship wreck!" Then we went to another door. But why? We already finished. I though I was done going in small dark places while 100 feet underwater. Nope. Apparently not. I followed the person in front of me to the door, watched her swim in, stuck my head inside the door to find I could only see small bubbles and a giant black tunnel that was a flight of stairs leading down into the dark hull of the boat. I could not see her flippers. I could not see a flash light. I could see nothing. So, I promptly shoved myself backwards out of that door back out into the light blue ocean. NO WAY. Luckily, the instructor at the back of the group did not plan to go in the ship, as she is claustrophobic, so I could stay with her and meet them on the other side. Unfortunately, Kyle was behind me, and my mini-freak-out prevented him from being able to go in the wreck. Maybe next time? Lesson learned: I am extremely claustrophobic underwater.
Night Dive: Yeah, you read that right. NIGHT DIVE. DARK DIVE. BLACK DIVE. BAD IDEA DIVE. Apparently people enjoy going into the ocean at night. I have no idea why. Didn't they watch Jaws? Anyway, I expressed my fear to all of the instructors and people that I would be diving with. Somehow, they convinced me to jump in that water. Let me tell you, I was hyperventilating before I even jumped in. It was cold. Everyone had flashlights for this one. The majority of this dive I don't really remember. I was hyperventilating--using up my air tank way faster than the other people in my group. I was shivering-- also not helping my oxygen issue. I was constantly looking at my watch seeing if we were close to 40 minutes yet so I could get the hell out of there. Apparently everyone else in the group saw a sea turtle. I think I saw it's fin--I lied and told everyone I saw it so we could keep moving (just in case something big and hungry was following us). So after about a 35 minute blur of darkness and fear, my air was finally low enough to do the "low air" signal so we could start to surface. YES! LOW AIR! I never thought I would be happy to see my oxygen low. But I was. I was ecstatic. We were deep enough during this dive that we had to do a stop at 5 meters to let our bodies get rid of some of the nitrogen we had absorbed during the dive. This was the hard part. I wanted so badly to get out. I was so close to the top. And I had to stop and wait. I did, don't worry--I didn't get the Bends. I was hovering in the water, slightly above my group, when my instructor signaled for us to swim towards the boat, as it would be easier to swim underwater than on the surface with all of that gear. Anywho, my group started to swim under me and all of their bubbles came up around me. That doesn't sound too bad, right? WELL IT WAS! I had bubbles from every direction. All I could see was bubbles. I didn't know which way was up. I was terrified. Just at my peak of fear, I started to feel the swaying of the waves close to the surface. I got to the top, but I was alone, completely separated from my group that was still 5 meters down. Another group had surfaced near where I had, so that instructor saw me and made sure that I was okay. She asked where my group was. I told her what happened. She made sure I floated safely over to the boat and I met my group there. Kyle was unhappy, to say the least. I disappeared into the dark ocean without warning. I apologized, and tried to explain, but I know that I would have also been angry because I would have been scared that I lost my buddy. I now know what vertigo feels like. And I never want to feel it again.
I probably just made you want to go night diving really bad, didn't I? Yeah, I should work for them promoting it, I think.
I'm going to end on that note. Seems I'm not too brief in my recall. I'll pick up the next time I think about it. Happy Travels!
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