Photos - Day 1 - Harbin

Harbin is China's northernmost major city and capital of this most northerly Heilongjiang province. The city has a lot of Russian influence, especially after the Russian Civil War of 1918. The influence remains very noticeable in the architecture of buildings and food.

In early January 2008, we spent two days visiting the northern city of Harbin in China. Known for it's world famous ice festival, Harbin attracts many visitors during the month of January. We went with a group from the Chinese Culture Club (now called Chinese Culture Center) from Beijing.

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Day-1 started with an amazing visit to the Siberean Tiger Park. The park is not big. It is HUGE and apparently is the largest natural park for wild Siberian tigers in the world. We got into a beaten up old shuttle bus that creaked it way slowly into the enclosure to get closer to the animals. It was awesome to see the tigers sitting on pure white snow at minus 10 degree Celcius, without a care in the world.

Snack time. The park ranger drove up in his jeep and threw a live chicken out his window. The tigers quickly circled the prey, growling intensely, with their sharp eyes focussed on the prize. Who's chicken now? 

With a quick pounce, one tiger leapt onto the roof of the jeep, and the chicken was ... well... finger lickin good. It was interesting to note that there is some etiquette between the tigers because the others did not bother to join in the chicken snack once one tiger had laid claim to it.

The signboard outside the park reveals that for a small fee, visitors can buy live animals for the rangers to feed the tigers.

And some very useful and some might think, pretty obvious things to do/not to do while at the park... it is forbidden to threaten the tigers in any way .... duh!

Then it's off to the Snow Festival.

A different theme every year. In 2009, it was a French-inspired theme.

Auguste Rodin's "The Thinker' live size statue carved out of snow. What is he thinking of? ... "It's getting chilly out here... where are my clothes?"

Some of the snow sculptures were of amazing sizes. This photo puts into perspective the size of the carvings vs the people in the foreground. It's actually a mass wedding celebration.

The highlight of the trip was the visit to the world famous ice festival. We braved the frigid temperature of minus 20 degrees Celsius to take in the sights at the festival. Held after sunset, colourful lights embedded within the ice blocks allow a kaleidoscope of colours to brighten up the festival. There are only three other ice festivals in the world: Japan’s Sapporo Snow Festival, Canada’s Quebec City Winter Carnival and Norway’s Ski Festival.

An ice creation of the Beijing Forbidden Palace main entrance.

It's "the real thing" made out of ice blocks. I'd prefer a hot cuppa tea instead.

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Westminster Abbey; a life size replica made in ice.

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Photos - Day 2 - Harbin

Day-2 and it's a visit to the former Japanese Army Unit 731, to watch ice swimming and the St Sophia Orthodox Cathedral.

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Unit 731 of the Japanese Army was set up in 1935 as a biological warfare research and test centre where it conducted cruel experiments on humans. According to historical records, about 3,000 people were maimed and killed as subjects at this location. It was a very sombre visit to this museum.

The Frostbite Laboratory. They used live humans as subjects in this lab.

The Yellow Rats breeding room. It has 96 cement pens to breed yellow rats.

After that very serious visit, we headed for something totally different - ice swimming. Here a 30 meter swimming pool had been cut out from the frozen river. Elderly locals braved the minus 20 degree Celsius temperature for a dip into the icy waters. Hats off to them.

With it's Russian historical influence, the St Sophia Orthodox Cathedral built in 1907, stands in central Harbin.

St Sophia Orthodox Cathedral

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Photos - Day 1 - South Hokkaido

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A. Chitose Airport

B. Toyota-Rent-a-Car
C. Bibi Beef Restaurant
D. Lake Shikotsu
E. Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel

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Our flight took us from Singapore to Chitose via Nagoya. Upon arriving at Chitose, we were transported to the Toyota-Rent-a-Car facility to get our rental car; a Toyoto Prius fully equipped with English-speaking GPS. Loved the license plate number 336-88-88.

First stop was for lunch, a 5-minute drive found us at Bibi Beef Restaurant. This beautiful log house, in lush greenery by a calm stream, was the restaurant. We had wagyu beef and grilled them ourselves right at our table.

The Bibi restaurant was in lush setting, with fir trees, wooden bridges... a very calm and picturesque setting.

Next stop - another picturesque environment - Lake Shikotsu. It is Japan's second largest caldera lake with a circumference of 42 km, formed as a result of a volcanic eruption about 32,000 years ago. With the average temperature at 3.6 degrees it is Japan’s coldest ice-free lake. Around the lake spread the deep green virgin forests of broad leaved deciduous trees such as maple and oak and conifer trees as Jezo spruce.

It was a misty autumn afternoon at Lake Shikotsu. The mist added to the beauty as the rich autumn colours graced the foliage by the lake.

A path at lake Shikotsu covered with autumn leaves.

Beautiful red and yellow maple leaves at Lake Shikotsu.

Our first hotel in this trip; Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel.

As it was getting dark, we rushed to our hotel; Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel. Our room floor was covered with tatami mats, a small square table in the middle of the room and floor chairs. Hmmm... where are the beds?

We heard about the technology in Japanese toilets so we had to determine if our hotel room's toilet was equally equipped. It was. Noticing the various buttons on a side panel we experimented. Trrust me... the aim was very accurate indeed! As we were late to join the rest of our group for dinner, we quickly changed to the traditional yukatas and made our way to the dining room.

Dinner was a Japanese set with lots of seafood; crabs, sashimi. It was nice to meet our fellow travellers over dinner too. Then a quick dip into the hotels onsen before retiring for the day. Yes, our first experience in a Japanese hot spring. A little intimidating at first, but you get over that quickly, scrub down while sitting on short stools and dipping into a couple of indoor and outdoor tubs. It was an incredibly relaxing experience.

Once back to our hotel room, the answer to our earlier question about our beds was answered. While we were at dinner, housekeeping folded out our mattressess to the tatami mats. It was either the comfortable floor arrangements, or the awesome dinner, or the relaxing dip in the onsen, or perhaps a combination of all, but we had a most relaxing and peaceful sleep that night.

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Photos - Day 2 - South Hokkaido

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A. Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel

B. Ano Kanko Fruit Farm
C. Onuma Quasi National Park
D. Hotel Hanabishi

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Breakfast at Nororibetsu Mahoroba Hotel.

A 5-minute walk from the hotel is Jigokudani (Hell Valley).

Jigokudani (Hell Valley) - A place where clouds of steam, hot water and volcanic gas are given off from the surface giving the whole place a strong smell of sulphur.

The perimeter of Jigokudani (Hell Valley) has a beautiful path lined with trees in rich autumn colours.

After checking out of the hotel we drove to our next destination - Sobetsu town - home to many fruit farms and orchards.

At the Ano Kano Fruit farm, we went orchard picking. For ¥1700 for two adults, we were free to roam, pick and eat as much apples, plums and grapes in their orchard.

We has the juiciest and crunchiest apples, hand picked ourselves from the trees.

Red and green grapes hung at their vineyard. The grapes had a strong winery taste to them.

Lunch time. A small sushi bar in a very local area was recommended to us. Reaching there at 2pm, past the lunch time crowd, we almost had the entire place to ourselves. This young guy hand made the sushi for us.

Fresh sushi.... yummy!

Onuma Quasi National Park. Designated as a "quasi" national park and located about 20 km north of Hakodate.

Onuma Quasi National Park is known for its picturesque island dotted lakes and majestic dormant volcano Mt Komagatake.

The bridges add to the charm of the Onuma Quasi National Park.

Reaching the city of Hakodate, we stopped by the local yatai for a quick bite.

Hakodate Yatai. The charms of yatai are not so much about their food but rather the cosy atmosphere of being in one sitting shoulder to shoulder chatting and laughing with people you don't know.

The elderly husband-wife couple served at one of the yatais where we had mince meat rolled in cabbage and a couple of beers.

Since only I was drinking at the yatai, wifey took to the wheel and drove us to our hotel - the Hotel Hanabishi. There were checked in quickly, donned on our yukatas and joined the rest for a sumptuous Japanese set dinner.

After dinner, we soaked in the hotel's onsen, then retired for the day in a very comfortable Japanese style bedroom.

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