Sun Island
It was cold. We started the tour at -20C and finished at -16C. There are a few coffee shops around to get out of the cold. Of course if you keep moving and don’t take your hands out of gloves to take pictures it is easier.
These sculptures are made by making artificial snow as that snow is wetter and sticker than the snows that falls on Harbin. They place the snow in big wooden boxes to pack then use the block to make these incredible sculptures that are the largest in the world. All of this is made from packed snow.
Siberian Tiger Park
The siberian tiger park was pretty cool. People move through the various paddocks in caged vehicles. Some tigers are in cages if they are not acclimated to weather, weak, pregnant, or young. They can get enough nutrition that way. There are over 1300 tigers and the park is very large.
You can pay to feed them by holding meat through the bars or even feed them a live chicken which is dropped through a chute.
Some of the buses also will be used to feed the tigers. You can always tell which bus.
They are such beautiful animals.
Volga Manor
This was a Russian village created by a wealthy entrepreneur in the turn of the century. It prospered until the cultural revolution when it was destroyed. Since then it has been rebuilt on the actual style of the original buildings.
We took a bus to the castle at the end where you took a freight lift to the 5th floor. There you could lay on an inner tube and hold on to each others legs to sled ride down this impressive ice chute. It was so fun we did it twice.
We looked at the Russian church.
There were many other buildings that were not open.
Of course there was a vodka chateau. We learned about vodka.
Sampling the vodka was fun. It was poured in ice cups. I sampled an amber colored vodka that had a definite spicy kick at the end. I also tried a dark colored vodka that had a really full flavor. You could buy your favorite vodka in the gift shop. I purchased the two I tried!
Walking back to the bus was beautiful to see the lit houses.
Afterwards some pedestrian street shopping and food at a Japanese restaurant. On the way back to the hotel we saw this sign which is so very covid-19. It is a little blurry as the bus started moving.
