Home Inn (Harbin Zhongyang Street)

Where do they get the ice?

by mke1963

So how exacty do they get the huge of blocks of ice to make the sculptures that are found all around the city? The river obviously, but also from the other lakes and streams in the cities many parks.
They use a wheeled machine with a circular wood saw attached to a small two-stroke engine. However, if you think about it, it's not al quite as simple as you might think. It's easy enough to cut downwards, but not across. Local knowledge, handed down by generations of ice-cutters tells them when the ice is just thick enough so that it is the right 'height'. A micture of machinery and what might be called indigenous knowledge.

Heilongjiang Provincial Museum - Part 1

by mke1963

The Heilongjiang Provincial Museum has its ups and downs. Its not as bad as most of the guidebooks say, but a few hours makeover would turn this into a very impressive place. As it is, it suffers from 'sullen old women' syndrome: large numbers of ignorant, unpleasant and unfriendly staff who won't even give you the time of day.
The cloakroom doesn't accept coats. You have to swelter it out as you go around. Fortunately they have made as much of the museum as boring as possible so that you don't have to swelter for too long. It is indicative of many of China's tourist problems that most cultural heritage facilities have no idea how much money they could make or how much more interesting they could be if they could just get off their backsides, stop drinking out of jamjars for a while and start to consider the possibilities. Museums in China are as close as you get now to experiencing old-style Communism.
The Heilongjiang Museum is in a beautiful art-deco building that was originally a department store. However, they have put huge advertising hoardings over the upper floors, to cut off any possible aesthetic pleasure that one might derive from looking at the place from the outside. Indeed, it is actually easy to miss the museum entrance because of all the shops that use the ground floor (it is up the steps at the stone lions).
The aquarium is worth visiting on its own (separately reviewed) although it does end with a rather pathetic seal display. Ah, the ability of China to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory!
The upper floor has two huge display areas, with virtually nothing in any foreign language, other than a few of the obligatory 'hyperbole display panels' found in every museum, telling us how fantastic the place is. The series of the rooms on the left is the historical section. The labelling in Chinese is pretty useless.

Harbin is a old city! Lots if history!!

by mrtrainer

You need a open mind going around China. Lots of old stuff. This is the real people. They like it there. Harbin has old and new areas. I stayed around the Shangrila Hotel and the Large river area. I went up to QuiQiar and down Shenyang. People up north are like people in Alaska!!

The Children's Park

by mke1963

The Children's Park in Harbin is almost as old as Harbin itself, having been developed as a garden area for the China Eastern Railway in 1925, before being incorporated in the Nangang Park in 1953 after the Communists won the city.
However, it was on the 1st June 1956 that the park railway was opened, operated ever since by the city's children. The trains rumble around the park's 17 hectares during the summer months along a 2km long narrow-gauge track. The whole thing is directed, operated and manned by children from the city's primary and middle schools.
In the depths of winter, the trains do not operate, but the park remains a focal point for local people. A river which forms the southern edge of the park ices over, and ramps are built for skiers and a smaller slope is used to slide down on inflated inner-tubes.
Even with thick snow on the ground and long icicles everywhere, with the wind whipping through the bare branches, Harbin people, young and old, crowd the park to walk, chat, exercise and have fun. There is simply nowhere better to see the real Harbin (or indeed, the real China) than in the park.

Wonderful world of ICE

by muileng

"Harbin Ice "Garden""

Harbin is known for its annual Ice Festival .. and it's truly awesome.

Huge chunks of ice made into life-size buildings and monuments, colourfully lighted up.

But be warned that the temperature at night reaches -25 degrees.