Have you ever been to Harbin Ice and Snow festival?
Nice pics on the Internet may misinform you – oh, so beautiful and shining, lots of tourists can’t be mistaking!
But you ignore one thing – Harbin is so fucking cold, that you’d better prepare for it. But let’s start from the beginning.
In winter 2016 I was studying in China, and that time Harbin was close to the city I lived. My classmates posted pics from the fest, so my friends decided to go there the next day. We bought tickets (which were suspiciously cheap), and didn'e even think that «without a sit» to be something worth of our attention.
But on a train we found out, that “without a sit” literally means you won’t have a seat, and other people will. Those who bought “without a seat” tickets took chairs with them. So we were sitting in a enclosed platform of a car until my friend found a sit in a different car.
It was good for us, as in couple of hours the lobby I wanted to stay in was covered with ice.
When we left the train, I understood that Harbin is the coldest place I’ve ever been. It was 6 am,my friends were drunk ‘cause they drank to fall asleep, stayed awake and still got drunk. I was angry and sleepy. First we headed to the hostel we booked for the next night and were said that booking starts at 12. We had 6 hours to see the city, it was cold, windy and looked like Russian suburbs.
Thanks god, you can get hot water for free in China, otherwise we would have died there.
At 12.00 sharp we came to the hostel and fell asleep as soon as we entered our room.
Next day we spent strolling down the main street, taking photos of stupid signs in Russian (like this one below writing literraly Russian Nadya cake) and trying not to die.
It was hard, as to get a taxi you have to wait at least half an hour on freezing wind. And we didn’t understand how could locals wear nike airmaxes and survive while we wore winter boots and thought we would lose our legs.
The answer was the special insoles making your feet warm. We bought this staff and decided to wear them when reaching the fest itself.
Guys, we were so wrong. It didn’t help at all. There was lot of snow and ice, and it was even colder than the city itself. I tried each attraction, but to try the main one, you would have to wait outside for an hour or so, I couldn’t afford it. It didn’t worth my health and life.
Oh, and hot water wasn’t free of charge!! It was 10 yuan per small bottle (you can buy a lunch for 10 yuan in China), so I decided that I can wait for getting to a warmer place. Btw, we bought tickets from a taxi-driver for 300 yuan each, as we didn’t know that students can get a 50% DISCOUNT!!!!! God, I was so angry, it was the worst journey in my life.
And when we got to the nearest bar, we took off the useless insoles. And they started working in half an hour.
Mother of God!!! I wanted to leave as soon as possible. I spent a fucking lot of money on freezing, getting cold and being afraid to leave my room for the next two month.
And guess what? On black Friday I bought a ticket to Oslo for January 2018, wish me luck.