Harbin - how cold can you go?

Well, it is time to finally get around to posting something again. This is from a couple months ago.

Being from Arizona, one could expect that I would not have a lot of experience with cold. One would be mostly right.

However, I do have some limited experience. Many people who are not from Arizona make the false assumption that the entire state is a hot desert. That is not true. About two-thirds of the state is mountainous, and some of that gets a fair amount of precipitation. Anyone who thinks Arizona can't get cold has never stopped for gas outside of Snowflake in January.

I have also lived in Utah. Northern Utah can get quite cold. I moved from Utah in the middle of the the winter of 1990-1991. The news story at the time was that it was the coldest Utah winter in a hundred years. My brother and I drove down to Arizona in my 1971 VW beetle. Every part of us were freezing except our ankles, which were being slowly roasted. If you have ever had personal experience with a Beetle's pathetic heater, you know exactly what I mean. I really did like that little car, but for the life of me I've never understood why those little crap baskets get so much adulation for their "clever design". "Different" is not necessarily a synonym for "smart". Sometimes car designers do things a certain way for an actual reason. Sometimes, it is just stupid. Powering the windshield washer fluid sprayer by means of your spare tire's air pressure is stupid. Directing the entire heater to blow through a small vent inches from your left ankle is stupid.

In any case, a few hours into the trip, my brother and I had to stop the car to adjust the load on the roof rack. That experience suggests a corollary to my statement about stopping for gas in Snowflake. If you can at all help it, never stop outside of Beaver in January to adjust a load on your roof rack.

Actually, there is one other reason that a person can get surprisingly cold in Arizona, and any of you who are actually from our fair state will totally understand how this works. The reason is this: because you are from Arizona, the land where the sun always shines, you have never bothered to buy a proper coat. Therefore, you are wholly unprepared when you actually need to venture into the true cold.

I was reminded of this about two years ago when we visited Emily in France. Standing in line under the Eiffel Tower in January, dressed in our totally inadequate coats, was just about the most uncomfortably cold I've ever been. And it was only around 20 degrees Fahrenheit (-6 Celsius).

That brings me to my current story. During the week after Christmas, we flew up for a quick visit to Harbin, China. Harbin is a major industrial center and transportation hub in northern China. It is directly north of Korea, and Northwest of Vladivostok, Russia. Because of its proximity to Russia, it has in some respects a distinctively European appearance. Not that we saw much of it, though, because we went for a very specific and limited purpose. Each winter, Harbin holds a huge Ice and Snow Festival of snow sculptures and life-sized ice buildings, lit from within by colored florescent tubes. It is amazing what can be accomplished by an army of workers getting paid no more than three dollars a day.

But for all the fame of the Ice and Snow Festival, there isn't a lot of other reasons to go to Harbin (the Russian Orthodox cathedral is said to be beautiful, but we didn't get the chance to see it). So we made the plan to go quickly, twenty-four hours in and out. The reason for that haste was the cold, and that is what I actually want to write about. There are more pictures on facebook if you are interested.

It was cold. 22 degrees below zero Fahrenheit cold. 30 degrees below zero Celsius cold. Cold like we've never before experienced cold.

We actually came quite well prepared. We bought and borrowed some true cold-weather gear. I do try to (slowly) learn from past experience. Perhaps most importantly, I contracted with a driver to take us around, so that we could get out of the cold whenever we wanted (and didn't have to try to find taxis in the cold and dark, and then try to get two taxis to find and drop all six of us off at the same place).

With all the preparations, it wasn't quite as bad as one would think. By which I mean that we didn't die. I really truly felt fully aware at all times that we were in cold that could literally kill you, and do it quickly.

With the exception of my feet, I was okay. Lee was quite miserable with her hands, but her hands are always cold. I swear that she has no circulation at all in them. The one time that I had my hand out of my glove messing with my camera for too long was a big mistake. I couldn't get it to warm up again for half an hour, at least, and the process was very painful. Lee's camera iced up, and at one point stuck to her cheek. My personal favorite was feeling my nose hairs crackle with ice if I breathed too deeply.

My final verdict? Well, the great ice buildings truly were spectacularly beautiful. I was very, very impressed. We all especially liked the enormous Great Wall of China ice slide. It was around two hundred meters long, it propelled you along at shocking speeds, only to shoot you into a snowbank in the dark. At that point, two Chinese workers would rush in to grab you under the arms, no doubt thinking that they were being helpful, but in reality making one flail in humiliation while you tried to stand up without being able to use your arms.

I would say that the Harbin Ice Festival is a once in a lifetime experience. I mean that it two different ways. First, because it was amazing. Second, because it was so cold that I never want to go back.


A long view, showing a variety of buildings. Many of the sculptures were copies of specific buildings, but I didn't recognize any of these.



Emma, on the steps of an icy facsimile of the Forbidden City.


The Colosseum. Not quite life-sized in this case, but still impressive.



Some visual aids for how cold it was. Note, in particular, the icicles on John's lashes. I'm not sure why we didn't end up with a picture of Emma like this. You might note that we had our special guest Ambra with us for this outing. I hope the look of shock on her face was just her mugging for the camera....


And finally, a shelf of Russian nesting dolls for sale in the Harbin airport. I was sorely tempted, but I was feeling really, really cheap at this point. Plus I didn't really like the selection.