Icy Haerbin...
(Excerpts from Summer of '69)
Oh when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life
I am living the winter of '04, the way Bryan Adams had his summer of '69....THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE
From the great wall to skiing to F1, i've "been there, done that"...and these are the events that have punctuated my visit to Beijing...But the thrill part was missing...something very naturally romantic...;-)
and so I decided to visit Harbin Ice & Snow Festival...For the uninitiated, it is one of the coldest places in the whole of northern hemisphere...colder than some parts of Russia as well...!!!!
and when I told this to some of my friends here, they gave me confusing stares...why would anybody want to go to someplace where the day's maximum temperature reads -14 degrees...I guess eccentricity runs in my blood...!!!!
Most of my friends were busy with official work, so I set off to Harbin alone to spend a weekend and arrived on a dark saturday morning...Even the sun here has "core working hours" of 10:00 - 4:00...:-)
Harbin is the hometown of one of my colleagues here and so I had a lot of info abt the places to visit...I knew that the must-see places were the snow festival and the ice festival...Also on the cards was the Siberian Tiger Park...the biggest natural reserve of the Siberian Tigers in the world...!!!
Travelling alone was also a new experience to me...but must say I really enjoyed it...I set out with my backpack and reached the snow festival...the temperature must've been abt - 17 to -20...getting my gloves off for a few seconds made my fingers go numb...and my feet were also becoming heavier...but I realized all this later...Standing before me was a solid block of snow, given the beautiful shape of a roman god...on the other end of the pathway was a gorgeous nymph...greeting visitors into the snow festival...The supressed excitement within me was about to burst out...Spellbound, Awestruck, Dumbfounded...I was all that and much much more...!!!!
Huge blocks of snow had been sculpted so perfectly, not a single chisel must've gone wrong...It seemed the only thing left to do was for God to breathe life into them....!!!!
From the Mythical Warriors to the 2008 Olympics...the festival was a blend of the glorious past and the bright future...Also on display was a giant rooster...(2005 is the Chinese year of the rooster)
It took me more than 2 hours just to view all the exhibits on display...
From there I set off to visit the Tiger Park...I am always a bit apprehensive about going on safaris...considering the ones in Bannerghatta and Mysore made me think tigers are always meek animals...!!!
Siberian Tigers are the biggest of all the tiger species and I found out they can be quite ferocious as well...This safari was quite different since the van drove into the protected area and right beside the tigers...I could almost feel the breath of the tiger as it passed our vehicle...The best sight of course, was the white tiger lazing in the snow taking an afternoon nap...and it let out such a big roar as if daring anybody to disturb it...Very obidiently, I left the place and went to the site of the ice festival...;-)
As I entered the place at about 5 pm, it was long time since the sun had set and the lights had taken full effect...How I wish I could describe the scene...A feeling of having wandered into Alice's Wonderland passed my mind...!!!
I was surrounded by master-pieces of ice, from towers to ships to palaces to churches, the more notable ones being the replicas of St. Petersburg Church from Russia and the Louvre Museum from Paris and a very artistically crafted great wall...
But the star of the show was the central ice tower standing tall in the middle amid all these beauties...Freezing in sub zero temperatures, wrapped in 6 layers of clothing, my heart missed a beat at seeing that magnificient structure and left me gasping for breath...It seemed to be the castle stuff fairy tales are made of with a princess sitting by the window waiting for her prince charming...!!!!
Well the prince had arrived...where was the princess....;-)
And so I finished my journey through the land of Harbin with my desire for doing something different completely satiated...:-)
HARBIN, a place where people fought the adversity of extreme cold and created marvels from a thing as inanimate as ice & snow...Truly in this respect, man playing God can bring only joy and happiness...!!!
Oh when I look back now
That summer seemed to last forever
And if I had the choice
Ya - I'd always wanna be there
Those were the best days of my life
I am living the winter of '04, the way Bryan Adams had his summer of '69....THE BEST DAYS OF MY LIFE
From the great wall to skiing to F1, i've "been there, done that"...and these are the events that have punctuated my visit to Beijing...But the thrill part was missing...something very naturally romantic...;-)
and so I decided to visit Harbin Ice & Snow Festival...For the uninitiated, it is one of the coldest places in the whole of northern hemisphere...colder than some parts of Russia as well...!!!!
and when I told this to some of my friends here, they gave me confusing stares...why would anybody want to go to someplace where the day's maximum temperature reads -14 degrees...I guess eccentricity runs in my blood...!!!!
Most of my friends were busy with official work, so I set off to Harbin alone to spend a weekend and arrived on a dark saturday morning...Even the sun here has "core working hours" of 10:00 - 4:00...:-)
Harbin is the hometown of one of my colleagues here and so I had a lot of info abt the places to visit...I knew that the must-see places were the snow festival and the ice festival...Also on the cards was the Siberian Tiger Park...the biggest natural reserve of the Siberian Tigers in the world...!!!
Travelling alone was also a new experience to me...but must say I really enjoyed it...I set out with my backpack and reached the snow festival...the temperature must've been abt - 17 to -20...getting my gloves off for a few seconds made my fingers go numb...and my feet were also becoming heavier...but I realized all this later...Standing before me was a solid block of snow, given the beautiful shape of a roman god...on the other end of the pathway was a gorgeous nymph...greeting visitors into the snow festival...The supressed excitement within me was about to burst out...Spellbound, Awestruck, Dumbfounded...I was all that and much much more...!!!!
Huge blocks of snow had been sculpted so perfectly, not a single chisel must've gone wrong...It seemed the only thing left to do was for God to breathe life into them....!!!!
From the Mythical Warriors to the 2008 Olympics...the festival was a blend of the glorious past and the bright future...Also on display was a giant rooster...(2005 is the Chinese year of the rooster)
It took me more than 2 hours just to view all the exhibits on display...
From there I set off to visit the Tiger Park...I am always a bit apprehensive about going on safaris...considering the ones in Bannerghatta and Mysore made me think tigers are always meek animals...!!!
Siberian Tigers are the biggest of all the tiger species and I found out they can be quite ferocious as well...This safari was quite different since the van drove into the protected area and right beside the tigers...I could almost feel the breath of the tiger as it passed our vehicle...The best sight of course, was the white tiger lazing in the snow taking an afternoon nap...and it let out such a big roar as if daring anybody to disturb it...Very obidiently, I left the place and went to the site of the ice festival...;-)
As I entered the place at about 5 pm, it was long time since the sun had set and the lights had taken full effect...How I wish I could describe the scene...A feeling of having wandered into Alice's Wonderland passed my mind...!!!
I was surrounded by master-pieces of ice, from towers to ships to palaces to churches, the more notable ones being the replicas of St. Petersburg Church from Russia and the Louvre Museum from Paris and a very artistically crafted great wall...
But the star of the show was the central ice tower standing tall in the middle amid all these beauties...Freezing in sub zero temperatures, wrapped in 6 layers of clothing, my heart missed a beat at seeing that magnificient structure and left me gasping for breath...It seemed to be the castle stuff fairy tales are made of with a princess sitting by the window waiting for her prince charming...!!!!
Well the prince had arrived...where was the princess....;-)
And so I finished my journey through the land of Harbin with my desire for doing something different completely satiated...:-)
HARBIN, a place where people fought the adversity of extreme cold and created marvels from a thing as inanimate as ice & snow...Truly in this respect, man playing God can bring only joy and happiness...!!!
posted by Sathish at
4:21 AM
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