2009 New Year and Harbin!

Hello everybody. I hope you've had a great new year!
For my new year, I went on vacation. It was to a place filled with snowy wonders, Harbin!

Many people have heard of this city, but in case you haven't, I'll tell you a bit about it.

Harbin is one of the northern-most cities in China. It is the capital and largest city in Heilongjiang Province. It is famous for its Russian heritage and unique architecture. Once a small fishing village, this city has grown out of its roots as time passed. It is now the center of trade with Russia. It is also famous for its winter festivals and liveliness in the Wintertime, as the snow never melts there in Winter.

Well, now you know it!

I did a lot of things there, and it was great, because Harbin has extremely cold winters, perfect for playing around with snow. It's so cold that the river there (I forgot the name) freezes more than half to the bottom in winter! That's why skating and riding ice-bicycles on the river is so popular. Even I tried it out! The the ice-bikes had skate blades in the front replacing the front wheels, and a regular bike wheel at the back. It was really cool looking, so I decided to try it out.
My dad also had a friend there, and he was really nice. He bought me 2 pizzas, and we went to dinner with him. He was our guide around Harbin.
That was the first day. On the second day, it was great because we got to see what we really wanted to see, ICE SCULPTURES! Actually, we got to see snow sculptures too, at Sun Island. I didn't really like the snow sculptures, but the ice sculptures were great! They were terrific especially because they were all Disney themed. This year was different, because Disney was giving them the designs and helping them, so it looked a lot more like Disneyland instead of an exhibition. It was especially beautiful at night, because the ice sculptures and castles and houses, etc. all had lights implanted in them, so the whole area was filled with wonderful colours. There were many fun rides there, like bumper cars, mini roller coasters, and even a huge slide coming out of a huge castle, all built from ice!
After all that fun, we again went to dinner with Greg, dad's friend there.
The next day, we went to all the same places as the first day, but I also went to the sledding hill right beside there. There was a huge man-made hill covered with snow, and people could go in and select an inflatable circular sled, and slide down the hill! It's sooooo fun!

Well, I had a great Christmas vacation. I hope you had a great one, too!

Cheers! :-)

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