Winter: See Ice and Snow in Harbin and Xuexiang

In winter, I want to go to the great northeast to see ice and snow.

Above the clouds, watching the frozen earth.

In Harbin, we stayed at the Habsburg Hotel booked on Ctrip.

The hotel has a great location, facing the Songhua River. From the restaurant window, you can see the riverside scenery.

Harbin's most distinctive Central Street is also not far from the hotel, just a ten-minute walk away.

The hotel's facilities are well-maintained, rooms clean and tidy. On the ground floor, there is a restaurant specializing in dumplings, and the authentic Northeast sauerkraut dumplings are very delicious.

Every winter, Harbin hosts an ice and snow carnival. Each dreamlike, crystalline ice sculpture is built from ice blocks harvested from the Songhua River, then workers use special electric saws and small iron shovels to carefully carve out various exquisite shapes.

Compared to the crystalline transparency of ice sculptures, snow sculptures emphasize smooth lines and expressive features.

The sculptors use wooden boards to compress white snow into thick, large square piles, then trace the design from a blueprint onto the surface. This starts as a two-dimensional drawing, but under the sculptors' hands, small iron shovels fly up and down, snowflakes scatter to the ground, and after a few hours, the drawing on the snow wall becomes a three-dimensional, lifelike snow sculpture.

The winter of the Ice City becomes even more magical and wondrous because of these groups of sculptors.

After watching the various ice sculptures being made by the Songhua River, I was curious where all these neat ice blocks came from. Locals said there is an ice harvesting field north of the river, and all the ice used for ice sculptures in the Ice City comes from there.

We took the cross-river cable car from the cable car castle to the north bank, and saw circles of colorful flags on the ice in the middle of the river from afar, presumably the ice harvesting field.

Carefully walking on the ice from the shore to the edge of the harvesting field, rows of ice blocks lay scattered on the frozen river. The ice harvester told us these were defective blocks, unusable, so they were left by the river. They would load the sharp-edged, qualified blocks onto trucks and transport them to the ice sculpture sites on the bank.

On the south bank of the Songhua River, there is a riverside restaurant, a Russian-style small building. It is said to be nearly a hundred years old, once used as a warehouse and a train waiting room, now privately purchased and turned into a Russian-style restaurant.

Returning from the frozen river, our hands and feet were freezing cold. Entering the restaurant, a strong aroma of coffee hit us. After ordering a latte and an American coffee each, the warmth made us forget the bitter cold outside.

In winter, the sun sets early in Harbin. Just after 3:40 PM, the orange sun slowly sank into the Songhua River. The ice and snow on the river changed from white to pink, then to grayish blue, gradually merging with the deep blue sky. Night was coming.

After seeing the ice in Harbin, we set off on the journey to Xuexiang (Snow Town) in the dedicated car arranged by Ctrip for us.

The driver was very talkative, the car filled with laughter, while outside was the snowy scenery.

We arrived at Yabuli around lunchtime. The driver took us to a farmyard restaurant. The owners, a couple, used to be ski instructors at a ski resort. The husband was very handsome, but we didn't meet the wife, though we heard she was also beautiful.

Their iron pot stew was very delicious, especially the freshly made cornmeal pancakes, soft, sticky, crispy, and fragrant—unbelievably tasty.

So, on the way back from Xuexiang, we became repeat customers of this farmyard restaurant.

After a hearty lunch, we continued toward Xuexiang.

Along the way, we passed by Xuegu (Snow Valley). We got off to take photos and check in, but when we returned to the road, our car was gone. Panic struck. What was going on? Where's the car? Where's the driver?

In our hurry to get off, we only took the camera, not our phones. Now we had no way to contact the driver. We looked at each other, wondering if we had been abandoned in the wilderness.

Turning around, we saw a police officer (uncle) walking toward us from a hundred meters away. It was like seeing a savior. We hurried over and said our car was missing. The police officer gave us a sidelong glance and said, 'Parking here is illegal, you know? Go look in the parking lot ahead.'

Trudging through the piled snow along the road, we hurried toward the parking lot. From afar, we saw the driver also walking toward us. Our hearts were relieved—a false alarm.

There was another scenic spot called Tudingzi Mountain, said to be the highest peak in the Xuexiang area, but the admission was quite expensive—over a hundred yuan per person. We thought there would be good views from the top. We queued and squeezed onto a climbing vehicle modified from a tractor. The tractor chugged uphill through a sparse forest on snow, with a strong smell of diesel.

When we reached the top, the view was very limited... truly a little disappointing...

With some disappointment, we returned to the car, hoping that Xuexiang ahead would surprise us.

When the streets of Xuexiang appeared before us, we couldn't take it all in. This was the legendary Xuexiang! Thick white snow piled on the roofs of wooden cottages, red lanterns and golden corn complementing each other. On the streets, sled dogs and reindeer quietly followed their owners, while silly roe deer strolled in wooden pens waiting for their owner to return. It felt like being in a fairy tale—everything we saw was beautiful.

The night in Xuexiang was also dreamy. Many girls wore red capes and took photos with the night. The princess from fairy tales added an extra touch of tranquility and gentleness to the night of Xuexiang.