Trip to Dongbei- Haerbin (3)

Our day got off to a late start today, as we stayed up fairly late last night drinking some baijiu that Danthemanstan had somehow managed to find sold in a squirt bottle. Only in China is 100 proof liquor sold in a squirt bottle, only in China. Danthemanstan and David had decided that the Northeast China Tiger Park was the best place to visit, so we headed that way. Our journey included an enthusiastic English learner also was a taxi driver. Encouraged by Dave’s Chinese knowledge and willingness to help him learn some English, he arranged for a friend to take us to the park and back for a reasonable price. So we missed out on trying to change three buses in a new city, tough loss. The tiger park was everything we expected and more. Essentially we drove around in a mini-bus through many enclosed fields filled with Siberian tigers, and one section with lions and even a ‘liger’. The real excitement came when a Jeep, with caged in windows and doors, entered one of the fields. All the tigers swarmed the Jeep, the reason was clear as it soon released a live duck. The tigers jumped and jostled to catch the duck (wings clipped so the tigers don’t have to work too hard). A few more ducks, some chickens, and even a small goat were released. These animals were all purchased by the other people in our bus and the other buses; the three of us didn’t make any purchases and thus were able to free load of the others. I don’t know that you can really do this sort of thing in the States, but I was pretty entertained and excited to see it here.

After dinner, we headed to the Ice Lantern Festival, which is the big tourist attraction in Haerbin this time of year. Well, there is plenty of reason why. It was truly amazing. Castles, churches, the Olympics Bird’s Nest, the Summer Palace, and many other things were replicated here; in ice or snow. Some of the castles were giant and incredibly intricate, and we could walk around inside of them. Some of the sculptures and buildings had slides on the side of them, which were a lot of fun. Now, I couldn’t really feel my feet for most of the visit, and there’s a very little warmth in a city of ice; but it’s not like I expected it to be warm. I really had a great time, the sheer volume of the amount of ice and snow was amazing and I hope the pictures can show how spectacular it was.