Harbin Ice Festival - Places and Things to do

[Brian US]

I just got back from my second trip to Harbin and I thought I would share my experiences on my favorite travel destination in China.

When to go:

The Ice Festival officially starts on January 5th and goes for a month, but I hear it may start sooner and go later depending on weather. Plan on spending 2-3 full days to see most of the attractions.

What to pack:

The first time I went to Harbin I packed like I was doing an expedition to the South Pole. I quickly realized that unlike Beijing, every little noodle shop and store in Harbin is heated well. During the day, I was fine in 2-3 layers of clothes as you are always a few steps away from a heated building. The Ice Festival itself always has warming stations in sight. A good pair of boots are needed, especially when you find yourself standing on a block of ice for 45 minutes waiting to ride the zip line.

How to get to downtown: Zhongyang Dajie 中央大街 (main shopping street)

Plane

The easiest way to get to Harbin is to fly, which is less than two hours from Beijing. A cab ride to downtown will be 100+RMB and the drivers are notorious for picking up others along the way. Taking the bus is another option for 20RMB per person and the ticket booth is directly to the left after leaving the terminal. It's about 45 minutes to downtown and many buses will make a stop at the train station (see Train for further directions).

Train

A couple options here with an express train taking around 10 hours from Beijing. The train station is centrally located in the heart of the city with a 20 minute walk to the main shopping areas or a 10RMB cab ride. Like the case in every Chinese city, just walk a block in any direction from the train station to get a cab in order to avoid the 300% markup on black cabs.

Where to stay:

The entire city goes all out for the Ice Festival with every roundabout decorated with ice sculptures surrounded by buildings equally decked out in lights. I mainly stayed around the main shopping street Zhongyang Dajie 中央大街, which is a pedestrian only cobble stone street flanked by shops in Russian architecture. At the start of the street you will see a Holiday Inn and a 20 minute walk will take you to the North end where you will find a Sheraton.

On the cheaper side you can find smaller hotels on almost every block downtown. I found the prices around 150RMB a night for a decent room, but every single hotel I went to strangely had an all glass bathroom. I mainly stayed at a basement hotel down a back alley for 60 RMB which is a closet with a bed and computer. 80RMB gets one with a bathroom and shower (all glass).

Ice Festival: 冰雪大世界

From what I understand there are three main parks for the Ice Festival. The main event is located just outside downtown and is a 20RMB cab ride. Cab drivers always try to pressure you into paying extra for them to wait for you for a return ride, but you will be bombarded with cabs once you are ready to leave.

A standard ticket will cost 300RMB or 160RMB for a student. Prices are cheaper during the day, but you wouldn't want to miss the buildings lit up at night. The price will include many of the smaller rides in the park. You could spend a good 2-3 hours walking around enjoying the sites. There are the horse drawn carriages you can take around or pay 20RMB to get your picture on a Yak. There are a few buildings with marked up fast food or be prepared to pay out the nose at the warming stations situated around, 30RMB beers and my friend coughed up 30RMB for a pack of cigarettes. The main park closes at 10pm, but they start shutting off the lights a little after 9pm and everyone is generally gone by 9:30pm.

Honestly, after seeing the main event with 4-story ice castles, the other sites seem a little underwhelming. The North end of the shopping street takes you to a frozen river with tubing and skating. Last year was better with more ice and snow sculptures on the river, but there was also a 100RMB entrance fee.

Just two blocks southeast of the frozen river is a smaller park with more sculptures. It's a nice change of scenery as it is set in a nice park with trees whereas the other sites are situated on open fields. I didn't pay for the 200RMB entrance fee, but it's still nice to walk around it's gated fence at night.

Tiger Park: 老虎公园 Laohu Gongyuan

This is a must see in Harbin and it's about a 30 minute cab ride outside the city, and a great stop during the day while you wait for your night visit to the Ice Festival. You shouldn't pay much over 50RMB for the cab ride and again they will pressure you into paying for a return ride saying there won't be any cabs when you want to leave, which is a lie. They will also try to take you to a closer tiger park within the city, so don't be afraid to get out of the cab.

Admission is 90RMB, which will include a Jurassic Park style caged bus that will take you through an hour long tour of the park. If you want them to feed the tigers you will need to pay ahead at the ticket office and give the receipt to the driver. I think strips of meat are 10-20RMB, live chickens 60RMB, pheasants 100+RMB, goats 600+RMB, and cows around 2800RMB. For cows and I think goats, you will need to book ahead of time. Basically during the tour while you will drive freely around dozens of tigers, a caged jeep will pull up and start throwing out food people have bought. There are some Youtube videos if you want to see how good of an investment a cow will be.

After going through different pens of lions and tigers you will be dropped off and you can walk around another pen on a caged walkway. On busy days there may be someone there that will let you feed the tigers yourself. Again it was 10-20RMB for strips of meat or 60RMB for a live chicken. This time they will tie the chicken to a pole and you can literally go fishing for Siberian tigers with it. This is not for the feign of heart and I may or may not have done this more than once. Don't judge me.

Unit 731 Museum (Japanese Military Biological Testing): 日军地731部队

This is a free museum on the grounds where the Japanese military did weapons/medical experiments on Chinese during the second world war. It is an hour bus ride from the train station on line 338 or 343. Most of the site only shows the foundation of the buildings where the Japanese Unit 731 were stationed. The Japanese did a thorough job of destroying most of the evidence on their retreat, so many of the artifacts on display are recreations. The main office building still stands and you can pay 15RMB for a recorded tour through about 13 rooms. They are still working on it, so the last two rooms are only in Chinese and Japanese. Nothing too graphic is shown with experiments and scenes depicted with clay figures. There is another building directly behind the main building, but it was closed during Chinese New Year.

Food and Nightlife:

I'm a little bias with my love for restaurants in Beijing, so I have found during my travels that smaller cities can be hit or miss with their food. Harbin in the Northeast fell in this category with some places being really great and some being pretty bad depending on what you order. Dumplings were always a nice treat especially for something hot and fast to escape the cold. Another staple is sweet and sour pork or chicken 锅包肉? I also always enjoyed the pan cooked fish in a variety of sauces. In the tourist areas you will always be able to find some Russian restaurants.

There is lots of information on bars/clubs in this topic:

http://www.chinese-f...fe/page__st__20

A couple blocks east of Zhongyang Dajie is a Russian bar called Russian Size or just Russian Disco? It was a nice bar setting with about half foreigners and half locals, cheap drinks and a small dance floor. CoCo is a much larger club and bar in the southern part of the city and a 15RMB cab ride away. There are two separate sections and it was much nicer than most places in Beijing. Expect to pay 35+RMB for a drink. Besides the odd Russian or two, there are almost no foreigners at CoCo, even during the Ice Festival.

If you want to go to a bar that bleeds Americana, stop by USA Bucks on the main street Zhongyang Dajie. 20RMB beers will put you in company of about half foreigners and half Chinese.

A lot of the stores in town start closing shortly after 6pm and restaurants around 9-10pm. As a foreigner, don't be surprised to be handed a Russian menu or Chinese people starting off a conversation with you in Russian.

Harbin Travel Guide from Wikitravel goes into great detail on the city:

http://wikitravel.org/en/Harbin

Harbin's Famous St. Sophia Church is a nice stop, but paying 20RMB to enter will lead you into a gift shop and a gutted inside covered with pictures of Harbin through the last 100 years.

Many wise men once said, "It's not the destination, but the journey." They obviously have never been to Harbin before. Harbin is a beatiful city where you learn to appreciate the destination, especially when it's -30C outside and you take your time sipping your coffee indoors.

[Brian US]

I hope some other members can add or fill in the gaps here as I was only in Harbin for a couple weeks. I didn't do much exploring food wise, but there was an awesome dumpling place half way down Zhongyang Dajie station next to a pastry shop and across from a noodle restaurant and KTV. It was just off to the side and a few meters off the main street.

Can anyone recommend some restaurants or dishes? There are a couple members that have been in Harbin long-term, I know who you are .

[wushijiao]

I traveled up to Harbin for the ice festival roughly 10 years ago today (Spring Festival time in January/February 2002....wow, how time flies!). Isn't there some ice skating and other activities by the river? I can't really remember.

[Brian US]

Last year I think they only had ice bikes and tubing, but lots of statues and a giant snow Buddha. This year they have a toboggan, ice skating, saw a couple four wheelers whipping around, and what looks like an airsoft course setup during the day.

[wushijiao]

Nice. Well, those are some other good options.

I also went up to Harbin in the summer (of 2004), and had a great time at the beer festival. The cool temps make it a great summer vacation spot for those down south. So, i guess that's another option as well.

[abcdefg]

Thanks for the excellent report. Makes me want to go. The 架子王 chain of dumpling shops was real good when I was there (Summer, 2008.) I enjoyed the Tiger Park.

Another staple is sweet and sour pork or chicken 锅包肉?

Is this the same as 古老肉？(At least the pork version?)

[Brian US]

Is this the same as 古老肉？(At least the pork version?)

I think it is generally flatter (less meat) and I ordered it at a hole in the wall restaurant. The owner proudly proclaimed that I couldn't get it in Beijing. It's not actually that sweet, but then again I found that sauces are easily substituted in any Chinese restaurant.

Did a search of 锅包肉 and it looked just like this:

http://image.baidu.c...T8352&S34

[abcdefg]

It looks tasty. All in all I do not consider Harbin a food paradise, pretty much like you said above in your original post. (I'm sure locals would argue.) Was also surprised to see that even many young women there were really into the booze. It seemed to be a hard drinking place, albeit usually very friendly to strangers.

[WestTexas]

There is a really good Russian restaurant close to the river. If you walk up to the Stalin monument then take a right and walk along the river, you will see it. It is in the first or second block of shops going away from the river. I have been to several Russian restaurants and this one is by far the best. Reasonably priced too. There is another Russian restaurant I've been to that I don't remember the name of which has all Russian waitresses. It is expensive though - two friends and I paid around 600 RMB, though we did have vodka, beers, and a bit of wine (as you should at a Russian dinner). Anyway, I think the first place, the small place by the river, is actually better. You can tell it's good because it is almost always full of Russians.

For night life I like Fox Pub... good atmosphere, cheap beer, nice people. Very few Chinese go there though. I get enough of Chinese people at the town where I live, so when I go into bigger cities I kind of like to be with other foreigners. Not to mention many Chinese bars seem to be overpriced, have overly loud music, and fewer girls who are not working.

[Matty]

I lived in Harbin for 4.5 years, I really loved it there, and you REALLY need some warm boots, this can't be over stressed enough.

At the tiger park in the bus I noticed a chicken swimming not to far from a tiger totally unconcerned, and still uneatten as it left our view.

A cab ride to downtown will be 100+RMB and the drivers are notorious for picking up others along the way.

Not only that, you may in fact be sold... I was sold to a driver of another taxi because the original driver didn't want to pay to cross the toll booth. There's often a taxi or 2 waiting to do some passenger trading and a little cash trading hands. It makes for an interesting topic with the drivers though.

It looks tasty. All in all I do not consider Harbin a food paradise, pretty much like you said above in your original post. (I'm sure locals would argue.)

Oh how I miss the food in Harbin! If you don't like the food there, you're eatting the wrong food in the wrong places.

[abcdefg]

Oh how I miss the food in Harbin! If you don't like the food there, you're eatting the wrong food in the wrong places.

I would not be at all surprised if that were true. What a pity.

[Brian US]

I was sold to another cab driver going back to the airport with the driver pulling over in the middle of the highway. I argued on arrival, but couldn't complain too much with my buddy and I paying 70RMB in all.

[Kaixinguo Billy]

Hello together, as I will be in Harbin in summer I would like to know if anybody of you would know a beautiful place in Harbin to go and meditate. Does anybody knows of a Buddhist Center in Harbin or has any kind of connection to it? Thank you very much for your hints and tipps and kind regards. Have a wonderful week.

[geraldinho108]

I'm planning to see the Ice Festival here in January 2014. I will be traveling alone and coming from a tropical country, it will be my first to experience below freezing temperature. Anybody who will go around during the same date??