This trip was my first time going with an organised company tour. I chose to join M2 Adventures after looking at Harbin trips for the past 2 years. The tour was initially postponed with Covid popping up in Shanghai over the New Year festival and strict rules in Heilongjiang Province (Harbin’s province). Eventually the trip happened between the 11th and 13th February.
Friday evening – Arrival in Harbin.
Flying from Ningbo to Harbin takes around 3 hours (just under), but being Harbin, snow delayed all of the flights heading into Harbin. From the airport, the hotel was about 40 minutes away (DiDi cost about 120RMB). The tour group chose a hotel called Modern Hotel, located just besides Zhongyang Pedestrian Street which was quite nice and old style inside.
Saturday (Day 1 of planned events)
Breakfast – This was a mixture of western and chinese style foods delivered to our hotel room. Fruit and hot food with juice and coffee.
Sunday (Day 2 of planned events – depart around 7pm)
Itinerary for 2 Days:
Sun Island
Siberian Tiger Park
Songhua River
St Sophia Cathedral
Ice Festival
Zhongyang Pedestrian Street
Temple of Bliss
Volga Manor
Sun Island – We arrived here early (around 9am) which worked well as the park was pretty quiet. Also it wasn’t as slippy under foot as expected because the ground snow was still kind of fresh. We spent 3 hours in the park, seeing each sculpture and taking the ice slide down. There’s a small cafe which we could visit for a break, cheap drinks given the attraction it is inside.
Siberian Tiger Park – Inside the park, we took a bus which would drive us through the majority of the park. On the bus, we could decide if we wanted to feed the tigers, buckets of meat were 200RMB for 10 pieces. Tongs were given and you could feed the tigers through the windows when the bus stopped. After the ride, there is a walkway to follow where you can see more tigers (caged up) and a lion, some jaguars and a cheetah.
St Sophia’s Cathedral – People who visit Harbin always talk about the Russian influence, St Sophia gives that impression while located more mid-city than the other Russian influenced areas. We visited here briefly, walking around the outside area mostly.
Songhua River – The river is completely frozen over in the Winter meaning locals make the most of it by partaking in ice based activities. We spent around one hour here. The choices for things to do was vast, especially to what you would think. We could Quad Bike over the river (and we did), sit in the tyres and be pulled by a Quad Bike (which we did), take a ride by snow dogs or walk over the bridge and watch it all. Very fun and locals will have set prices but you can haggle a little bit.
Ice Festival – The main viewpoint for anyone visiting Harbin in Winter is the Ice Festival. 2022 was the 38th Annual Ice Festival for Harbin with a focus on the Beijing Winter Olympics. We spent around 2-3 hours here in the evening, so the lights were already on. First, we went to the ice slide which was recommended by our tour guide and then took a walk through the festival. The colours and design of the sculptures really is amazing!
Volga Manor – The Russian influence area is one which is in all the tour guides but not necessarily amazing. The ‘Russian’ restaurant here is questionable. A bus will take you up to the main manor area where you will take a long slide with 7 other people down to the base. Walk around some buildings and enter the Vodka sampling building. Nice photos can be collected here though and the buildings are quite spread apart.
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