Straight through my heart

Sunday, December 27, 2009 @ 3:57 PM

HEYYYYYYYA I'M BACK FROM HA ER BIN!
(and I don't ever wanna visit it again!)

The temperature's scarily scary there and it just gets lower and lower. Before arriving at Harebin we actually visited Da Lian, Shen Yang and Chang Chun. I know all these places sound foreign, i've never heard of them either before the trip. It was about -10c at Da Lian, then -15c at shen yang and chang chun. Harbin was hell cause it was nearing -30c. Can you imagine -30c!!?? My fingers and toes get frozen whenever i stand outdoor for more than 10 min and it's reallllly unbearable! And the snow made the floor all slippery so it was quite difficult to walk. Truth is I don't remember much of the places we visited in the previous 3 provinces because there's really nothing much, thankfully there are some photos to remind me about them. I only remember that it's freaking COLD COLD COLDDDDDD! Photo taking was a chore because the battery of my camera kept freezing so we could only take a few photos at a time before it freezes and then try to 'melt' the battery by putting the camera in our pockets with the heat pack. lol.

The attractions are mostly artifical so I wasn't very impressed. BUT IT SNOWED DURING CHRISTMAS!! So i had my first white christmas, quite memorable :) Christmas would be much better if it wasn't so cold though, i was so affected by the cold that i was trying to keep myself warm all the time than enjoying the snow. But it was still v pretty, like small cystals falling from the sky.

Our first stop was a museum which had 2 real mummies in it and it was rather creepy! That's the museum behind us. The weather was still quite alright at that time, so we were not heavily clothed. The number of layers of clothes increases progressively during the trip. hah.

They have like 40 over guang chang at Da Lian. I supposed Guang Chang is just a term used for wide open space with some specially designed buildings or sculptures here and there, that are supposedly tourist attractions.

The only attraction that amazed me was the Guai Po ( direct translation : weird hill) where the directions are reversed such that when you cycle/walk/drive downhill some effort is needed whereas you can go uphill effortlessly. I tried cycling and it's really cool cause you don't even have to cycle uphill, the bicycle will just go upwards by itself as if you're going downhill. Nobody has the answer as to what's going on even after many many tests, so maybe......it's the spirits. I could feel some force pushing me from behind when i was walking uphill, creepy right!

This is one of the beach at Da Lian and there's a myth about it. Something about the Hai Long Wang's daughter falling in love with a guy who was killed by a tiger later on, so she was damn sad and couldn't stop mourning his death by the sea and she eventually turned into a mountain. Lol. She's....one of the mountains behind us, i dk which one.

We left for Shen Yang after that. Visited the palace where a few emperors of China resided a few hundred years ago. I expected it to be much bigger though. It doesn't have the lakes/pond and the many many rooms of the palaces we see in huan zhu ge ge and shows like that. lol. Maybe 'cause it's one of the earlier palaces so it wasn't very magnificant.

Group photo.

I couldn't stop laughing after seeing this! 'Carpet of green grass you are forgiving!' Super direct translation.

Then we went to Zhang xue liang's mansion, he's one of the famous generals in the past. He just died recently i think.

This is a wax museum of the bank that he owned. Nothing is real except me and my sis. Those 'people' look damn real, when i first got into the bank I was still wondering why is it so crowded -.-

After Shen Yang, we proceeded to Chang Chun. I think Chang Chun's the most boring province. Full of travelling but nothing to see. Waste time and petrol only.

And we went skiing! at chang chun for a while. It was very tiring and very cold. We were all moving around with restricted movements looking damn fat, ugly and clumsy. I was sweating but my hands were frozen, terrible:(

See, fat and clumsy.

We took a 2hr ride to this Korean village which was deserted. zzz I expected some tour around the place to allow us to find out more about the village but there wasn't and we just walked around aimlessly and took some random photos. Waste time only! Apparently the village head ran away with the villagers' money so it's now a dead town.

See it's looking at me!

We visited this deer farm which specialises in deer products. We didn't buy any cause it was too cruel! Deers are such docile and cute animals.

The sceneries along the way while travelling from place to place were rather breath taking, full of snow and all. I rather look at all these than some no link church/railway station/bank and things like that.

Finally..... Ha er bin!! The coldest of all places.

I don't remember the name of this place but the whole area's filled with snow carvings and the temperature was low low low low low but it was not the coldest.

It looks so dark here, but actually it's only 4.18pm! The sun starts to set at about 4 everyday so the day is short but the night is long. I'll start to feel sleepy at about 9 everyday! There's no night life over there, nobody wants to go out due to the cold and they rather sleep. The shops close at about 9 everyday so we can't shop even if we want to.

My mum kept saying that the people are damn free cause they can just spend hours carving snow/ice everyday. lol. But that's what keeping the tourism industry going, if there's no such snow/ice sculptures there'll be nothing to see in Haerbin seriously.

Pretty right!

And it was snowing rather heavily that night during christmas. They say the temperature will be higher when it's snowing but I was still freezing the same and couldn't feel the difference. Guess i'm already numbed from the cold.

After that we visited the ice palace where the sculptures are made of ice instead of snow.

The ice palace was the worst. COLD LIKE HELL SERIOUSLY. Normally it'll take about 30 seconds to freeze the battery of my camera but in this place it took only like 10 seconds!! We were all wrapped up like a terrorist, but it was still freezing cold. But maybe it's 'cause we had already been outside for about
3 hrs, cannot tahan alr.

One of the attractions was Dong Yong ( which means swimming during winter) Those people are crazy. I was wrapped up like a dumpling with 5 layers of clothes and I was still freezing and they actually dare to jump into a pool of ice cold water with the surrounding temperature at -30c to swim! Of course they didn't swim for long cause it was really too cold. There were about 10 swimmers and they each did one lap.

This is another guang chang. I stayed outside for about 5 min before running back to the coach cause i could feel myself freezing. lol.

We visited the tigers/lions too! Some of them were really cute, there was one licking it's paws like a cat. hahaha

And this is Ji Di Guan, something like an underwater world.

This dolphine's really cute! And the performance was amazing, i wonder how they train the dolphines. There were 2 dolphines and while one's performing the other will stand( or swim) at attention at the side with it's head sticking out of the water. cute!!

This is another ice palace which is smaller.

This is an old railway station that is still in operation, built in some kinda Russian style, that's what makes it special. I found it quite lame, bring me to railway station for what, nothing nice somemore!

A church built by the Russians. They really cherish buildings built by the Russians.

Yeap that's about it! Haerbin was the prettiest but it was really really too cold, even my homeostatic mechanism can't deal with the cold! After the 3rd day or so i was already hoping that I can get back to Singapore as soon as possible. I rather it be hot than to be cold! Thank god i'm finally back in Singapore, i can finally wear T shirts!! hahaha. Anyway i must really cherish all these photos, took me soooooo damn much effort to capture them, risking my life as well as that of my camera's.

Anyway it's gg to be New Year soon! Happy new year everybody!!