Harbin

We took a great family vacation to Harbin, which is in northern China. Four families went, the Bramer's, the Miller's, the Fansett's, and the Yuce's. So there were 8 adults and 5 kids (all girls!). Harbin is VERY cold we all had to buy lots of stuff before we went. We flew in on Friday morning and got to the hotel in time for lunch. We picked the Shangri-La as it is currently one of the few hotels with some western food. Plus it had a swimming pool (which I will get to later). After we loaded the kids with carbs from the lunch buffet, we all piled into taxis and headed across the river to our first ice park on Sun Island. The weather, while cold, was actually pretty good. The sky was clear and the sun was very bright. Of course many people took pictures of our kids, especially Grace Fanset and Natalie who attract a lot of attention due to their blonde hair! They had a replica of the Forbidden City that had four large ice slides on them. After negotating for about 10 minutes, the kids got to ride. Hannah didn't want to ride alone, so I volunteered to ride with her. The hard part was carrying the inner tubes up the steps! The ride down was fun. Even the two little ones, Grace and Natalie, went one time. As you can see, they were too busy having their pictures taken to be bothered with silly slides! After having some hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches we had brought with us, we had to head back to hotel. We found out AFTER we got there taht the park didn't have any night lights, it closed at 5pm. The funniest part of the day was trying to get taxis for all of us. A woman came up and offered us a "van" that would hold all 11 of us for only 40 RMB. We thought, "what a great deal" until we saw the "van". It looked like a clown car! But we decided to chance it, so we piled the moms in with the kids on top of us. the guys took the slightly larger seats near the front. It seemed like a lot longer ride to get back to the hotel than it did to get there! I am sure there were no shocks at all in that little van! So we took the kids back and took them swimming. Which was harder than you think. In the U.S. hotel, you could get the kids dressed and head down to the pool, no worries! But here, you had to sign in at the desk, buy swim caps for all who were getting in the water, go to the locker room and place your stuff into a huge locker with a key, then pass into the pool area. See, indoor swimming pools in China are really more for exercising as opposed to playing in. So the whole time that the parents were sitting at the tables watching the kids play, the girl who was mopping the floor was hovering around us, nervous because not all of us had on appropriate shoes (barefoot is bad). But we snuck in a few beers and the guys drank some Scotch anyway. After the swim, we got the pj's on the kids, piled them all into Bramer's room and ordered room service pizza. We put in a DVD on Tom's laptop and they all zoned out! The parents then headed down to the restaurant for some well deserved food and wine. [note that the we left Lauren in charge upstairs, she is eleven, very responsible, and had a cell phone ready to dial us if there was a problem. There was no problem!].

The next day we first headed to what is known as the "poor man's ice park". It was the old one at Zhaolin Park. The kids could ride many slides for free and play on a few of the sculptures. The park had advertised ice skating, but there was no skaiting to be found! But the kids had fun anyway. Again, hot chocolate and peanut butter sandwiches signaled the end of our playing.

Later that afternoon around 4pm we headed to the BIG park, also across the river, the Ice and Snow World. If you have seen pictures of Harbin, more than likely it came from this park. We got there early so as to not have to wait in line, whcih we heard happens at dusk. To call these building sculptures was a bit under describing. They were huge buildings made out of big locks of ice. At this point in the season, some of the sculptures were closed due to the fact that the ice just evaporates over time and is not so safe. But the kids didn't seem to care. This is one of my favorite shots of them, lined up in a row. Once it started to get dark, the lights came on. And it is very amazing. When the Chinese do something, they always do it BIGGER than anyone else. So while you might have been to an ice show in the U.S. or other country, I assure you that the scale of this one is much bigger! But it was also very cold. One by one, the families started heading back to the hotel. But first they got to hold Artic foxes, slide down a few slides, run through an ice maze, and eat frozen strawberries covered in frozen candy! Unfortunately the biggest slide, which you had to use a plastic sled for, was too big for the any of the kids to ride. Luckily we found that out before standing in line too long! All in all, a great park!

Once we headed back and again, got the kids ready for bed, we ordered hamburgers from room service for them and then the adults all headed back down. That night we all at in an Ice Bar, called the Ice Lantern Resteraunt. The table and chairs were in an igloo what was outside (though conncected to the hotel). We ate Hot Pot in -10C! We had to keep our hats, gloves, and boots on during the meal. It was pretty good (I am not the biggest hot pot fan) but not something you would want to do more than once a year! We had lots of laughs and generally enjoyed each other's company.

The next day, the women headed out for some shopping. Little did we realize that in being so close to Russia, the two things you could buy were Russian stacking dolls (very cheap) and plastic replicas of russian guns. Who knew? Literally there was nothing to buy. Not even the standard pashimas, bags, scarves, jewelry, etc. that you find here in Shanghai on every corner. But that was ok, we had a nice walk and spent no money. We all left for the airport around 1:30 and got home around 6:30 p.m.

Overall, this was a great short trip. Not sure I would want to go for more than two days as it is cold and just getting bundled up to go out takes 45 minutes. But the parks are worth it and it is a good vacastion for the kids as the iceparks are really all you can do up there. There is a Tiger Park that we opted out of as usually there are tourists who buy a chicken, a goat, or a cow to feed the tigers while your bus drives by. None of the girls were interested in seeing that!

We are now uploading many of pictures on Shutterfly. To check them all out from this trip use this link.