I thought hell was suppose to be hot?

Greetings Spring Festival- what the Chinese call the national holiday we refer to as Chinese New Year.  Although it is called “Spring” Festival Shanghai, Beijing, and definitely Harbin are frozen tundra.  And so  my journey begins, East of Siberia in Harbin.

As I looked out the window of my first class cabin seat (strangely Mike, John and I bought our tickets separately and checked in separately but were all moved to first class) I thought to myself, “I thought hell was supposed to be warm”.  At -40 degrees ground temperature, Harbin looked like a freezer burnt ice box from the sky. On the ground Boston-Kate and I decided Harbin reminds us of home.  Surprisingly the 150 year old architecture and dilapidated buildings of Northeast china remind us of Northeast United States.

If you didn’t already think I was crazy for spending my “Spring” festival in -40 degree weather, this is the part where you might change your mind.  Kathryn and I tried couch surfing for the first time.  Couchsurfing.org is a website where you can post any extra room you have in your home and you can host travelers to stay with you, without expecting any payment.  We’ve had a few surfers stay with us in Shanghai and decided it couldn’t be too bad.  We looked for people who were experienced hosts with good reviews and wound up in the home of Paul, an American teacher, and his Taiwanese girlfriend Violet.  Violet’s translation skills will ultra-handy and Paul entertained us with stories of his travels (he’s been EVERYWHERE) and how he grew up Amish.  We really could not have stayed with nicer people!

Anyways, the reason we were in Harbin (we being me, three of my roommates Mike, Miles and Annie, my future Spring Festival travel partners John and Kate [plus 8 haha- American TV joke], and adorable friend Samantha) was to attend the annual ice festival.  I had some friends go while I was studying in Hong Kong and they loved it.  It really was cold. I had three pairs of pants on, five pairs of socks and six layers on top and I was still sooooo cold.  We got some great pictures, rode a yak, went sledding on snow sculptures, tried out curling, and laughed non-stop about how ridiculous we are for even thinking this would be fun.

I am happy we survived Harbin (it was questionable at times) and I am writing this midair on Asiana flight 304 (to be posted later).   Unfortunately, we did lose one in Harbin.  Travelmate John, who is supposed to be coming to Korea and Japan with Kate and I, missed the flight to Seoul from Harbin International airport.  I’ve posted two or three times already how air travel in Asia is just screwed up.  Mike and I supposedly didn’t have tickets on our way to Hong Kong, Kiristi missed a flight, Miles missed his flight to Harbin and now John is stuck there.  Harbin has the worst international airport I’ve seen, worse than Albany International because there are only two international flights a day and the city has TEN MILLION residents.  So John will have to take the 20 mile ride back into Harbin city center and return to the airport tomorrow to hopefully get on the day’s single flight to Seoul—or Vladivostok, the other international flight.

for some reason the city was decorated with Italian and Chinese flags, no other countries represented