Right this is what travelling is all about! Just .. what a place!

Getting off the train the cold hit you already, I had already changed into my thermals in the muggy train toilets. 2 socks on, thermals on, hat on, scarf on, earmuffs on and gloves .. check! Once we got off the train you felt the cold, but for 9pm it wasn't as bad as I thought. We walked through the station carrying our backpacks... then it hit you. We headed out the station onto the icy floor. I had my Dr Martens on and still slipped everywhere! Everyone was wrapped up and hobbling about, every now and again a few slips. We headed for the taxi queue but was instead faced by an hour long wait... I could not do that in this weather. My face was uncovered and the cold was really hitting it, making it unable to feel my cheeks and nose. We decided to go into the kfc, grab some food and hope the queue will die down. Inside it was much warmer and took us around 10minutes to get all our layers off so we were comfy. It wasn't until someone opened the door that you would be reminded of the outside temperature. After our food we went back outside but the queue had made no progress, we were not in the mood, so opted for paying someone 100Yuan just to get us to the taxi.. in my eyes it was definitely worth it! Inside the hostel it was nice but had a very assy receptionist who didn't look to keen on her job .. tough luck women. Our rooms were nice and we shared with a very friendly Chinese. I excused myself and went straight for the shower, needed a nice hot one .. what did I get... A dribbling warm shower. I was not impressed and I just felt colder .. waaahhh! I grabbed an early night though and waited to see the others in the morning as they arrived.

The next day we wrapped up - bottom half = tights, thermals, leggings, jeans - socks = 3 pairs - top - vest top, thermal, long top, tshirt, jumper, coat - accessories = 2 pairs of gloves, hat, scarf to cover face and earmuffs. We looked at the temperature for the day, -20, oh brilliant. Heading out though it really wasn't too bad and we all did a good job at wrapping up.. easy we thought! The floor proved another problem, me having to cling to someone at all times in order that I didn't face plant. I took my hands out of my gloves at one point to take a photo for 5 seconds, BIG MISTAKE. Having bare skin outside for just a few seconds freezes them, my hands burning up for around 10minutes once I put my gloves back on, it was agony and really stinging... ouch! We headed to a Russian church first which was very beautiful inside, especially with the icy and snowy surroundings. Street sellers sold real fur on the streets and lots of Russian merchandise, the little dolls and lots of vodka. We walked over to the river to see if anything was going on .. and OMG was it! We found lots of people skating along, little ice cars, dogs pulling sledges and horses pulling carriages. We paid 50Yuan and went ice skating, which was a great laugh. Turned out everyone was really good except for me..gah! I was pulling on everyone as they tried to help me and pushed myself along on a little chair as little kids circled around me. I did get the hang of it after around an hour and managed to skate about on my own. One brilliant moment was when Dan fell over, a great sight after he was showing off the whole day.. proof that karma exists, after pointing and laughing I then slammed to the floor on my side... ouch! The few hours we had on the ice was great fun though and we all laughed about as we pulled each other around, mostly laughs at me though. After this was headed for some lunch and to look around the shops, treading very carefully over the frozen river trying our hardest not to slip which I think we all succeeded in! In the shop the boys came across some type of alcohol in which there was a dead snake inside..... yes of course the boys brought it!

As the day got darker we decided we should find the ice festival, the most famous attraction in Harbin and very famous in China itself. Cat, being the tour guide she is, lead us across the river. It was actually very beautiful, walking across a whole frozen river, quite quiet as no one else dared to walk the distance. As we reached the other side it didn't look like there would be any ice festival near here, all giving glares to Cat who blamed her guidebook for getting us lost. Coincidence or not a man then turned up offering us all a lift to the ice festival, reasonably not charging us too much actually so we didn't mind. I squeezed into the back with some others, of course getting about 5 of us into one small car.

It was soon that we could see the sparkling lights of the festival .. IT WAS BEAUTIFUL! We luckily paid less with our student cards, although the lady was very certain that we were lying so I just threw all my cards at her which she just accepted in the end.. yay! Inside the festival there were huge sculptors made completely of ice and snow, with tiny lights inside to let off different colours. Heading around we saw all kinds, huge angry birds sculptors with catapults and snow carved pigs. Huge slides allowed you to travel down them and castles built of just ice. Despite having an amazing camera, the cold made the battery die within 3 minutes but we were very lucky that Cat's kept working. One sculptor had a thermometer on it, telling us that the temperature was hitting -25. The slides were good fun to go down although sitting on them gave you no speed. On the big slides we came up with a plan to stand up and wiz down them .. BIG MISTAKE. As soon as you stood up you fell down hard onto the ice, and when getting to the end I stood up and fell immediately taking down Henry in front of me and creating a domino effect down the slide of lots of very angry Chinese people. One women moaned about hurting her back in which I just swiftly moved along, hoping she wouldn't know I was the cause of all of it... oops. There were definitely a few falls at the ice festival though and I know I hurt myself a few times as you slam onto the ice. We paid a huge amount to grab a hot drink as all of us were beginning to feel the pain in our feet, hands and face. We spent a few hours there and had a great time, having to head home in the end though because it was just too cold, squeezing into a small minibus to take us back home.

The next day we decided to head out to a museum, something about the Japanese, I don't know! We met an American guy at our hostel who we took along for the ride and had such an exciting time at the museum cough. All of us headed back quite quickly though, slightly bored of the huge museum and heading back to get a bus as the snow started to fall down.. beautiful. The bus ended us at the train station where we grabbed some rice and attempted to haul a taxi.... impossible! Especially with that day snowing and the freezing temperatures, taxi's were impossible to take, no one wanting to take us. We decided to then try and walk to our hostel from the station as Ryan (USA guy) knew the way. We tried and tried to grab a taxi as we walked but none were free. Eventually we got back to the hostel and JUST managed to grab a taxi outside... result! Me, Ryan, Henry and Dan were ahead of everyone else so jumped in it, phoning them to say we would meet them at the Siberian tiger park... our next visit. The park was awesome, a minibus tour around the enclosures, coming within metres of tigers through the bus windows. The enclosures were very nice, huge and allowing the tigers lots of room! I got some great pictures on my camera which you can see, especially because the zoom on it is unreal! The others didn't manage to grab a taxi in the end so we decided to just meet them at home. There was an option to buy and feed a live chicken to the tigers, which we opted out of but the boys did do the day they went. It cost them around 60Yuan and one of them held the chicken above the tigers as they all tried to grab for it. It was then that he threw the poor live chicken in and even then recorded the killing. Don't get me wrong, even when we went someone did it and it was very cool to watch but a little disturbing, I know my mum wouldn't want to watch that haha... imagine if it was nugget .. haha. Walking back from the park we attempted to grab a taxi but realised we should of maybe asked the taxi man to wait for us, the park was along a main road so not many taxis went by and when they did they were full. In the end we managed to squeeze 4 of us into a random guys car who took us back home … I didn't care, it was just too cold and standing on a main road in -25 was horrible! Getting home I headed off to grab Cat a birthday cake as we went off for a banquet to celebrate Cats birthday which was the next day. The meal was again very nice and helped with Ryan coming with us, being able to speak more Chinese than any of us so being able to order what we wanted.

Our plan for the next day was a good 3am start. We were off skiing!!! MY FIRST TIME! We all awoke to an early start, wrapping ourselves up again to go and brave the cold, especially at the early hours. Taxi's were luckily easy to get at this time so we headed to the station and onto the train, all of us sleeping for the 3hour train journey. On arrival Ryan had told us what bus to get as he had previously been, but with it still only being 6am it didn't look like we had much choice but to get into a taxi. We ended up paying around 700Yuan for everything including the taxis, ski hire and cost to get to the big slopes... an expensive day but I think we paid more for the taxi lady to help us out and wait for until the end of the day, I think it was worth it and made the day very easy! Out of the 8 of us 5 had already been skiing before and were good, 3 of us being our first time. So being the idiots they are they took us to a small, but big for me, slope. They started by just teaching us how to move and stop. Dan automatically zoomed off down the slope, Catherine having to chase after him to make sure he didn't crash at the end. Naomi managed to get the hang of it quickly so slowly headed off down the slope... but then of course there was me. Poor Rob and Henry were stuck with me at the top, crying, moaning and shouting at them that I just couldn't do it .. I really couldn't get the hang of stopping. In the end we lost everyone and Rob was left to look after me, something I knew he didn't want to do. Wanting to ski, he took me right to the took after my first try, me being persistent that I really did not want to go! None the less he took me up there, dumped me with Nold, Cat and Ella and skied off. The sloped were MUCH steeper here and something I wasn't ready for. I fell and I fell and I fell, really bruising myself and hurting my back a lot. The others were getting very frustrated and cold as I moved at snails pace down the mountain. The worse was everytime I fell down I couldn't get back up again as I got more and frustrated with myself. In the end we got back down to the small slope where the others said sorry but went off, leaving me. At the time I understood as they wanted to get the most skiing they could and didn't want me holding them back, but I was annoyed that after not long I was left skiing on my own, not ready at all for that. I headed down the slope though and even managed to not fall over, it felt great actually! I went up the ski lift alone and headed down again, great fun! I met up with some of the others on the ski lift, Naomi and Dan sticking together and getting the hang of it much quicker than what I was but still falling over lots. Here I met Rob and Henry again who did offer to help me for a bit but I was happy on my slow slope. As I headed off I fell over automatically … oops … Henry then came to come down with me as I think everyone was a bit worried for me. I then did the blue slope (big one for me) all by myself, coming across Cat on the way who was very proud of me. I still fell over lots and got very scared but it was nice to be off on my own. The only trouble was my scarf, protecting the very cold wind from my face had now frozen and was freezing against my face, a horrible feeling when you are high in the mountains. Everyone was very proud that I had been off on my own and Rob volunteered to go down with me again and grab a hot chocolate at the bottom so we could both rest. I think he felt a little guilty as I shouldn't of been left on my own (agreed) as I think it is a little dangerous but i'm glad I didn't hold anyone back to much and had a good time on my own. I was very bruised by the end though and definitely hurting after I had falling over well over 100 times! I ended the day with heading down a small slope with Dan which I managed to pull off looking better than I was with him .. yay! Overall the day skiing was amazing, I loved it so much! Despite crying at the beginning I enjoyed it so much and want to do it again so much. The train back we all slept and then walked back to hostel, me getting an early night as I really was shattered .. what a day!

Everyone else wanted to go to the tiger park on the last day as they hadn't been. With Ryan already leaving, Henry gone as he was making a trip back to England, it was just me and Dan who had already been. We grabbed some lunch together, struggling very much to use our Chinese with a stupid women. We then decided to do a few temples that we had heard of around Harbin. We came across a huge one was was very pretty. The temperatures were even colder this day though so being outside for 30minutes was killing us, us sneakily heading into a 'no go' building just to be next to a radiator. It was after this was discovered something very cool, an abandoned fairground … ooooooo. It was awesome, we headed into a small tower, maybe stole some books and some fairground looking coupons. We looked around but spent no longer than 10minutes before us both struggling to feel our toes any more and deciding it was time to get a taxi. Of course we forgot we were in Harbin and spent AGES trying to get a taxi. We hid in a bank for a bit where the people were nice enough to let us sit and warm up. I think it only took us around 30minutes before we taxi took us home, me saying thank you to him about 10times and my whole body stinging as I began to warm up. When we arrived back no one was around so we waited until everyone came back from the tiger park, having a good time and telling the story of them feeding the chicken to the lion. We then brought some banquettes for dinner and them with butter, cheese and ham .. OMG it was amazing, haven't had butter since I've been in china.. AAAMMMAAZZZIINNGG! We then drank away into the night, only getting about an hours sleep before I needed to go and grab our train with Ella and Cat to go home, ending our spring travelling :( It was sad to sad goodbye to everyone and pack up for the first time. We went off to the station, ready again for a horrible train journey .. this time 28hours and then 6hours, both sitting as we struggled to find tickets home during the busy Spring Festival. Luckily it wasn't too bad again, Cat slept the whole way and me and Ella chatted as we drifted in and out of very bad sleep. The lady in front of me was nice enough to let me stretch my legs out when I could and it a McDonalds at the end of it all was worth it as we brushed our teeth and quickly washed in the McDonalds sink. We were all pretty sad when we were back home again but it seemed that everyone missed us and getting to sleep back in my bed again, having my warm shower and a western toilet was good.

Harbin has by far been the best place I've been so far and anyone travelling to China in winter season should for sure go! I'm sorry that this is a long entry (that's if you even managed it until the end) but there really was so much that went on in Harbin and we had such an amazing time! We are back home now, Cat is off to Singapore next week to see her dad whilst I will be celebrating my birthday in a week. In May we are off for a bit more travelling for a week, heading to Chengdu, home of the pandas which is going to be great! Until then it is back to teaching, or showing Harry potter in Cats case. Only around 4months now until I am home.. God, this year is flying by, it's crazy!