I saw some really great signage in China that made me laugh and sometimes made me feel perplexed and I liked them all a lot. Here are my favorites!

This is from a menu in Harbin… but how to decide if I should order the “The syrup forks the fever” or the “The gold medal burns the goose?”

The “CrazySelf-Help” Karaoke Bar in Harbin.

Yeah, people should totally be “thinkgking” of that before urinating. This sign was in a (very fancy) mens restroom at Qingcheng Mountain, which is actually the birthplace of the Tao religion so I guess they want to make sure everyone remains all Zen. Er, Tao. (Ross took this picture so don’t blame me if it’s all shaky.)

This ticket sign for a museum in Harbin is not exactly PC: you’ve got your “Old People” price, and your “Deformity People” price, in addition to everyone else.

I can’t help reading the message on this Christmas decoration like a command. “Xmas! Marry!”

The first 2 seem reasonable, but the last one really seems a little lofty for being a random sign in a private KTV (karaoke) room (in Tibet Hotel, Chengdu.) If it helps, the name of the private karaoke room was “Sacred Umbrella.”

These meat cubes roasted on a skewer with Caucasian flavor are looking delicious on this ad for a Russian restaurant in Harbin. Doesn’t mention whether it contains actual Caucasians or not though.

This is one of my most favorite signs. These are the Chengdu Municipal Rules Pertaining to Civilzed Tour which are all over the city, in touristy spots. All of the rules are really applicable to life, but I particularly like:
#1: “Don’t spit.” HA! In China? Yeah right! Everyone is hocking loogies constantly.
#3: “Don’t give animal any food without permit when you are in the zoo.” Is this REALLY a problem?
#5: “Do not be out for small advantages.” No idea what that refers to, I’m guessing euphemism.
#7: “Do not wear clothes exposing the neck or shoulders in public places.” This is China, not Saudi Arabia, so I don’t get that one either- we saw plenty o’ necks and shoulders and no one seemed to mind.
#8: “Advocate a happy and healthy way of life. Resist superstition. Avoid pornography, gambling and drug.” Amen to that. Although realistically, I’m not sure reading it on this sign is going to be the tipping point for people in the clutches of those particular vices.

Oddly enough, there are basically no resources I could find on the web or in a book or really ANYWHERE about where and what to eat in Harbin, China. Being home to the fabulous winter wonderland known as the Harbin Snow and Ice World I thought maybe other people had gone there and eaten things and written something about it but it seems that’s actually not the case. And what little is written about it is pretty thin on details AND choices. So, in an effort to provide a helpful, instructive resource for anyone who needs/wants to eat in this frigid burg of 10 million people or so- I offer you what I learned about eating and drinking from my short trip there this month, but I warn you… it ain’t much.

The bulk of the (mostly useless) travel resources on Harbin were wont to describe these frost-covered folks of Northeastern China as gruff, hardy types who drink a lot to stay warm. I don’t know if that’s exactly true, but because of its proximity to Siberia, Harbin is home to many Russians so of course there is a heavy Russian influence on the food. The upshot of this is that there is some good Russian food to be had.

the Russian onion dome of St. Sophia church now houses a museum of Harbin history in its gorgeous interior.

Harbin is not touristy for Westerners, which means 3 things, as far as I can tell. The first thing is that you can eat well really cheaply- more challenging in more well-visited Chinese cities- and have a sit-down dinner for 2, in a perfectly nice restaurant with drinks, for no more than US $10, or even cheaper for lunch or breakfast. The second and most difficult thing (for me, and other non-Chinese speakers I assume) is that there is not much English spoken and there are not always English menus, which can pose challenges. For example, one morning we had no trouble getting big yummy plates of fried dumplings but it took us about 20 minutes of pointing, gesturing, and pantomiming to get a bottle of water. But, food being food, you can generally figure it out! And the third and funniest thing is that when they do have an English menu, often, hilarity ensues from reading the bizarre translations.

There is a long, cobblestone pedestrian street that combines Chinese, Western, and Russian architecture in an attractive way. This pedestrian street, Zhongyang Da Jie, or the Central Street, is home to many restaurants and quite a few bars.

A cheaper, chillier, chancier alternative to taking a taxi home in the cold.

Of course, Harbin is not immune to Western influence- you can get your standard fast food in Harbin, and as in the rest of China, KFC reigns supreme. With over 30 branches in town, they are so ubiquitous that one place we were looking for was described to us as “near the KFC on the main street” and we were vexed not to be able to find it- until it dawned on us that there was, in fact, a KFC on every other block of the main street. You can find McDonalds and Pizza Hut as well. But the only vestige of globalization that you will probably actually desire will not be available, because Harbin remains untouched and unspoilt by all of the good Western coffee chains, including Starbucks. You’ll have to turn to watery hot chocolate, Nescafe, jasmine tea, or whiskey to warm and comfort yourself on the cold winter nights (and mornings and afternoons too.)

But that’s quite enough exposition: Here are my thoughts on some places to eat and drink!

USABucks

How to get there: it’s on Zhongyang Da Jie, about 3 blocks down from the Songhua River end. It has a pretty big sign so it would be hard to miss.

This is a HILARIOUS place. With no Starbucks, you might think of trying USABucks but I recommend you go for an alcoholic drink there, NOT a coffee- the coffee is weaker than a Minnesota bridge and nearly as unpleasant. And while the logo bears a striking resemblance to Starbucks, once inside the place, you’ll see it’s actually done up in Sarsaparilla-style Old West saloon-type deal. But, it has 2 things going for it: it’s really warm inside, and it’s kind of fun. They have snacks too- me personally, I was not adventurous enough to order one of these snacks- here is the menu- a pretty far cry from the scones and muffins you’ll get at the original ‘Bucks.

I know, it’s SO hard to decide whether you want Explode the Valley (?!?!?), Dried Intestines, or Red Bowel with your crappy coffee. But really- go to warm up and order a beer or some whiskey, maybe a Happy Nut to go with it, and enjoy the scene… which may or may not include the owner parading around in full 1920s military regalia, greeting the patrons like a Chinese Eva Peron.

Lao Chang Spring Pancake

How to get there: the address is 180 Zhongyang Da Jie (The Central Street) and it has this nifty sign in English. It’s about 2 blocks down from the Songhua River end of and this is what the sign looks like, for your edification.

This was a great spot! Imagine an order of mu shu pork. Now imagine, like, mu shu everything. That’s pretty much the concept of Lao Chang Spring Pancake. You order a bunch of stuff, and spring pancakes with sauce and onions, and you mu shu all of it up and eat pancakes. It’s really tasty and it’s a pretty nice restaurant- and a nice hearty lunch with entirely too much food, for 2 people, was around US$15 with beer and tea- so I think you could realistically get out of there for much less, if you ordered fewer mu shu-able items. We left more than half of the food uneaten- we just had no idea how big the portions would be or how filling it was.

Orient King of Dumplings

How to get there: I think there is more than one, but the one we went to is a couple of buildings down from the Shangri-La Hotel, so if you are facing the Shangri-La, it’s to your right.

We ate breakfast here because the stupid continental breakfast in the Shangri-La Hotel was 138 yuan per person. That’s like almost US $40 for 2 people which is a crazy price! So we walked on over to Oriental King of Dumplings and got some freshly-made fried dumplings for breakfast each day. You can watch a bunch of folks in surgical masks rolling out and filling the dumplings. They have an English menu… sort of. This is the most bizarre and entertaining bit of the menu:

I totally wanted to order “scalding cymbidium” but Ross wouldn’t let me. What IS that?! And how did they get the word “lobscouse” for soup? (Don’t answer that: according to wikipedia, cymbidium is a kind of orchid and oleaster is a kind of shrub… so those seem odd. It turns out “lobscouse” is an obscure British sailor’s term for a hardtack stew. SO the only logical conclusion I can draw is that the menu translator is actually a myopic, floraphilic, 19th century Liverpudlian stevedore. There is simply no other possible explanation.) We actually did order something from the “Fries explodes” menu one day- mistake- I would stick with the dumplings. At any rate the dumpling section of the menu is translated reasonably – you can get fried or steamed, and for my money the fried are more enjoyable. They’re 3.5 yuan (50 cents) for 6 and each person will probably need around 12. So you can get out of there for a $2 breakfast unless you do as the Chinese do (and apparently, now I do) and drink beer with breakfast, in which case you’ll end up spending a couple more dollars.

Russia Food and Coffee

How to get there: It’s right near the KFC! Just kidding. I mean, it is near a KFC but that’s totally unhelpful in this context. It’s just off Zhongyang Da Jie, essentially across from Lao Chang Spring Pancake- about 2 blocks down from the Songhua River end of the street.

This place is I think the only place I saw in a guidebook- but it makes sense because the food is quite tasty, the service is nice, it’s cheap, it’s a pretty attractive ambiance, and it doesn’t have a funny menu, just a regular menu. We got pot beef which was a deceptively large amount of beef and vegetable stew in a little tiny pot, mashed potatoes with black pepper sauce, and best of all, a fantastic piroshki (they spelled it “piloshki”)- one of my best ever… a good piroshki is hard to find! (The other two that round out my top three are my friend Jane’s homemade ones, and the ones we used to get as kids from a now-defunct Russian shop on 9th and Irving.)

Dinner for 2 was around $10 with beers. They had a lot of fun coffee and tea choices but we were too full. It seemed like it would be a nice place to warm up with a tea and a snack if you’re hanging out on Zhongyang Da Jie during the day!

Mr. Lee California Beef Noodle King U.S.A.

How to get there: they’re a chain so you will see them all over China. The one we went to is near the St. Sophia end of Zhongyang Da Jie (The Central Street.)

I don’t know what is up with this name- I find it pretty amusing- but this is a chain throughout China. We were really hungry and wanted to be warm so we checked it out. For 10 yuan (about US $1.40) you can get a big bowl of passable ramen in beef/soy broth with chunks of beef. The beef is a little like yak meat (ie: chewy as hell) but damn, it’s not too bad, especially if you’re cold and want to be thrifty! I imagine if you were drunk it would also be satisfying. It’s not, like, awesome though.

Ice Palace Bar & Restaurant in the Shangri-La Hotel

How to get there: go to the Shangri-La hotel in the winter and ask where the ice bar is.

The Shangri-La sets up an ice bar- a bar made of ice with ice stools and everything ice- in such a way that you can enter and exit from the warm hotel. There are other ice bars we saw but this one was the coolest because it was the iciest- it had more things made of ice than the other places- and it was kind of hip with good lighting and dance beats. You can also grab a larger table and eat hot pot in this ice bar, which would be an interesting combo of the spicy spicy oil at the icy icy table. If you don’t bring a coat, they’ll lend you one. It was really expensive but I think that’s directly related to the fact that we stupidly ordered really expensive drinks, so I think it would only be kind of be normal hotel expensive if you paid more attention!

Coffee Garden

How to get there: it’s in the Shangri-La hotel.

“Coffee Garden” is a total misnomer because it’s actually a full-service restaurant that’s pretty nice. They have a lot of American/Western food and some kind of somewhat Westernized Chinese options. We only ate here because it was in our hotel and we were too cold to go out, but then it was surprisingly quite good and not nearly as expensive as we expected- reasonable, in fact… which is funny because everything else in the hotel was really expensive. We kept getting French Onion Soup room service and tried some other soups, which were really pretty tasty if you’re in the mood for something Western- but we really didn’t try the other stuff. A meal of hearty soup was around 30 yuan or less, like $4 or $5, which seemed reasonable in this context. Also, you can get imported wine if you have the hankering, but that will set you back a bit more. They also have a big fancy buffet that many people were partaking of- very lavish- but I’m not a buffet type of gal. After a couple weeks in China, sometimes you have the urge to go West. Note: bad ice cream.

DDL Bar and Coffee

How to get there: it’s a few storefronts off Zhongyang Da Jie, just around the corner from USABucks (walk down towards St. Sophia and hang a right.) Look for the “coffee” sign.

We were having some trouble finding an after-dinner spot and then frigid feet and desperation led us to settle in here. It was a nice surprise- a sweet, mellow, well-lit little cafe/bar with nice people and a good vibe. We had yummy lavender tea and beers and listened to the Russian hipsters chat and smoke.

I was never really truly sure that ligers were real- it seemed like the kind of thing that gullible me would believe in and then later learn I had been hoodwinked and feel stupid for believing Napoleon Dynamite and stuff. Well, when I visited a Siberian Tiger preserve and breeding center up in NE China, where they also have lions. And I SAW a supercute and cuddly-looking-but-could-kill-me-instantly liger in the flesh, sleeping in his enclosure!

A liger is conceived when a male lion mates with a female tiger (tigress)- which is kind of weird and pretty uncommon, since in the wild, tigers and lions don’t have overlapping habitats. But if tigers and lions are raised in captivity together, they might get the idea to mate across species. So perhaps more exciting than seeing the liger itself was the chance to see a liger being conceived- as in, a lion in flagrante with a Siberian tiger! And the proof is in the pudding. Kids, avert your eyes. It’s kinda freaky.

Exciting, eh? The Chinese graciously describe this cross-species canoodling as “Affinity between Lion and Tiger.”

Ligers are infertile- like mules- and very difficult to conceive successfully. They estimate that only 0.1% of couplings result in a successful liger birth, and that there are only around 10 ligers in the whole world! Wow. Ligers  are actually the largest cats in the world, whereas Siberian tigers are the largest “pure” cats. Ergo, the coupling between an African lion and a Siberian tiger is going to make a really big liger. And FYI, if a male tiger mates with a female lion, it’s called a tigon.

So, to sum up, Napoleon Dynamite pretty much had it right when he said, “It’s pretty much my favorite animal. It’s like a lion and a tiger mixed… bred for its skills in magic. ” I totally agree. Ligers are cool.

Other highlights of the Siberian Tiger preserve: seeing super big tigers super up close… they drive you out to the big open fields where a bunch of tigers live and breed. I will admit I enjoyed the experience with some trepidation, mostly due to the relatively recent Siberian tiger tragedy at the San Francisco Zoo. Ai, Tatiana!

The tigers seem nonplussed by the presence of the ancient converted school bus (that was so clearly about to break down and leave us stranded with no way to defend ourselves against a gang of enormous bloodthirsty wild animals whose incisors are as long as my arm.)

At one point a guy in a caged-in car drove out and started throwing live chickens out of the car. The tigers clearly know what’s up with this chicken-delivery truck. One jumped on top and grabbed the chicken.

This guy got the 2nd chicken. Victory! He is kind of giving me the evil eye, don’t you think?

It’s a little bit sad to see the chickens- probably not realizing their imminent fate is to be tiger food.

There were many many tigers in the center, and some other cats. It seemed a little unfair to the African cats to be living in such a cold environment and the lionesses all had to huddle for warmth!

All around a super fun and interesting event! Unfortunately, it’s unclear what the scientific and environmental quality of the tiger breeding plan is, long-term, for the park. There have been reports that when the park has re-released these tigers into the wild, it has not worked out terribly well. It’s unclear if that’s due to the shrinking natural environment or to an inadequate preparatory experience for the tigers that are in captivity. My guess is a combination of those 2 factors and more. Regardless, it is thrilling to experience these beautiful and powerful creatures at such close range.

For more info on the Harbin Siberian Tiger park, check this link.

Now we get to THE ICE PART! Which is arguably the more fascinating part. If you haven’t read Part One: The Snow I strongly recommend doing that now, in advance of delving into The Ice, since it contains useful information and background about the event and location as a whole, as well as a good deal of descriptive prose about the extent of the freezingness, iciness, snowiness, coldness, windiness, and so forth. So just to review, we’re in Northeastern China and it’s insanely cold and you have to dress yourself in so many layers that you can’t move or have any part of your face or body exposed and you can’t last that long outside but there’s a wicked cool ice and snow festival and it makes it all worthwhile.

Moving on… without further ado: THE ICE!

So, in case you’re wondering, let’s clear this up: pretty much everything is made of ice, with lights inside. The pathways, the buildings, the stairs, everything: all ice. I love the pathway, it is so fun to walk on, and reminiscent of the Saturday Night Fever dance floor in fact. But more slippery. You can get a sleigh ride along the path!

The Ice World is super cool because it happens at night… when all the coolest things happen, natch. Of course, it gets dark at like 3:30 PM up in Harbin so “night” is sort of a relative term. (Of course, being at night, it’s pretty challenging to take great photos.) If you look up close, the buildings are made of ice bricks, some of which have channels to hold the light tubes, which taken as a gestalt illuminate the whole building. Here’s a close-up of the light in the ice bricks.

The Ice World doesn’t hold much allure during the day- the ice all looks greenish-gray and dingy in the glaring winter sun. But as the sun starts to set, around 3:30 PM, the lights come on bit by bit and the Ice World becomes gradually illuminated from inside out. It is an amazing sight to behold, and one of the most incredible things I have ever seen. It is at its most breathtaking just at dusk, before the sky is completely dark. This only lasts a few moments so you have to be quick to get a photo!

The theme for the Ice World in 2008, which is when these pictures were taken,was, of course, The Olympics. You should realize that 1 billion plus Chinese citizens were collectively in a state of practically peeing their pants about the impending 2008 Summer Games in Beijing. They were, as a nation, proud and excited as hell. (Of course, as individuals, their Olympic fever ranged from raging hallucination-inducing temps to stone cold.) So there could really not possibly be ANY other theme for this Ice Festival.  Ergo, you’ve got your ice Olympic rings with the giant “Olympic Tower” behind. You can see little tiny people in front of Olympic Tower- the thing is maybe 8 stories tall? Taller?

They weren’t completely faithful to the theme, but instead presented a seemingly random amalgam of representative buildings from cities to hold past and future Olympics. For example, the dusk picture up top shows a Moscow building (1984 Olympics) and there was a funny London Bridge (2012 Olympics.) They also had the Athenian Acropolis (2004 Olympics):

We couldn’t figure out what the pink church (top picture) was representing. But there were also a lot of pagodas. Pink round ones… I think these are for Beijing?

And red square ones. For Tokyo 1964 perhaps?

But the best thing about the Ice World is that there are so many weird and fun activities. For example…

• You can go on a terrifying death-defying insanely fun and scary ice luge. See the Ice-cropolis? That’s the launch point. The whole curving yellow turreted path is actually the 2 parallel ice luges. It is really long and although it doesn’t look steep, it is. You can see a person in the foreground which gives you an idea of the scale.

• You can climb these ice walls with ice toeholds and non-ice ropes.

• You can hold the cutest baby snow fox in the whole wide world, but only for about 30 seconds.

• You can ride on these bicycle ice skate hybrid thingies. This was at the end of the night and I thought they looked super cool all lined up.

• While you warm up and drink really expensive and watery hot chocolate in a little clear plastic lean-to, outside the window there might be a creepy old-fashioned circus- of a type that has long been frowned upon here in the Western world, and with good reason. The animals seemed totally drugged up or something. Not to mention cold. Lions live in Africa! Not Siberia!

• You can take an expensive sleigh ride around the central ice pathway.

• You can try to walk across these bizarrely constructed and clearly ancient perilous chain bridges which totally seem, and feel, like death traps. When a bunch of people are on them, the planks move in a most unpredictable manner and I was shocked that no one broke an ankle.

And just in case you were wondering… there are a few snow things in the Ice World, like this giant Buddhist statue made of snow that people can pray in front of- also photographed right at dusk.

So if you’re ever in or near Northeastern China between January and March… I recommend making the detour and seeing it for yourself. It’s pretty frickin’ amazing.

CLICK HERE for Part One… The SNOW!

The Harbin Snow and Ice World (henceforth known as HS&IW) is a giant world of snow and ice, in Harbin, China. Whoa! I bet you didn’t see that coming from the title, eh? They gather the best snow and ice carvers and constructors from all over the world for the biggest, coldest, neatest, frozenest festival you will ever see.

According to this sign, it’s actually called the Har Bi  Sno  Wan  Dic  Ebig  Wo  Rld!

Harbin is cold. Obviously it has to be pretty cold, or it wouldn’t be such a great choice for the HS&IW. I mean, I have been to cold places before, but this place is way colder. It’s on the same latitude as North Dakota, for example, but it’s much colder in Harbin. It is the capital of the Northernmost and Easternmost province of China, Heilongjiang province. Go north, you’ll hit Siberia. Go south, you’ll hit North Korea (ahem, DPRK.) Go east, you’ll hit Mongolia. So that might clue you into the bleakness a bit. The temperatures while we were there, in January, hovered between about 12 F at the warmest point of the day, and dipped to nearly -20 F at the coldest. But those figures belie the additional cold wreaked by the biting, bonechilling, boreal winds that alight from Mother Russia’s icy bosom, seemingly enveloping even your very bones and veins in pure numbness. Why, it’s so cold, some of the rickshaw drivers light trash can fires inside their rickshaws and drive around with lit fires under the steering wheel! See?

Yeah, it’s on fire, but he did it on purpose. Moments later he slammed the door and sped away in a plume of lung-choking coal smoke.

There are actually 2 parts to the Snow and Ice World- SNOW, and ICE. This post is going to cover the snow, with the ice covered in a separate post. Obviously there is a little overlap, but not as much as you might think. The sun is day, the ice is night- kind of like a yin/yang thing. You see, the daytime is the perfect opportunity to go out to Sun Island, a huge outdoor park, where they have all manner of giant sculptures made out of snow. They are amazing! And they are really big. I have tried to include people (usually strangers, the occasional myself or Ross) in the following pictures to give a sense of scale, because without the people I could be showing you super closeup pictures of mini-marshmallow carvings, right?

See, with people in the photo you can tell this thing is enormous. Without the people, who knows, it could easily be a cake topper, or a Barbie house, or made out of legos, right?

The incredibly random-seeming theme for the snow world in 2008 was something to do with the burgeoning friendship between China and France. (It seemed random to me anyway… but maybe I’m not following world news closely enough? Does it have a relevance I’m missing?) So, among hundreds of others, you’ve got your Parisian Chinoiserie goddess montage at the entrance… already getting pockmarked with pollution after only a couple of days by the roadside. (For reference, that Snowffel Tower was around 4 stories high.)

The life-size Arc de Triomphe for 2 lanes of traffic to pass under…

Napoleon “un”…

and Napoleon “deux”…

This awe-inspiring behemoth, which also takes the official prize for largest snow sculpture in the whole world…

You’ve got your Rodin… or should I say Snowdin?

The tres classy “China Beer & French Wine” sculpture…

And so forth, ad infinitum. Truly, there are hundreds if not thousands of sculptures ranging from a little bit bigger than me to as big as a building.

Now, that’s all well and good, but let’s get to my favorite part. We were actually there just as the HS&IW was getting going- it starts officially on January 5, and we arrived on January 6. So we had the great fortune to see some of the snow sculpting in action, and were able to chronicle the steps it takes to create these enormous snow sculptures. Which I frankly think was cooler than even just seeing the finished sculptures. These pictures are not time-lapsed over one snow sculpture, but rather an amalgam of folks in various stages of creative repose, working on their structures.

• First, bring in truckloads of snow encased in plywood shells, and move them in place with cranes.

• Next, remove the plywood and get it out of the way so you can size up the structure.

• Working from the top down, go ahead and start the rough-shaping process. It helps to grab 20 or 30 guys with shovels to help out. Oh, and you’ll have to get rid of all of that snow before carrying on as well.

• To add colors, sculpt special colored ice blocks into the appropriate shapes (in this case, purple for grapes and green for leaves.)

• Also, you might need to put up a scaffolding at some point.

• For fine-tuning of faces and such, get an expert to work his magic with a small shaping tool.

Neat!

There are activities at the HS&IW as well. You don’t just look at the snow stuff. Allow me to share some of the odd activities in which you can partake, for an additional fee…

You can:

• Get a ride in a dog sled, but the dogs were fighting a lot. Some of them weren’t even huskies, they were like golden retrievers or something. Also, the dogs didn’t seem to be under their masters’ control too well. Hmm.

• Sit on these weird bicycle/ice skate mashup gadgets things and pedal around the ice. I call them “bicicles.” Get it?

• Take a ride on a yak. Looks lumpy.

• Warm up in an ice and snow log cabin-shaped cafe (not snow inside, only snow outside) and drink expensive yucky “chocolate milk tea.” However unpleasant and overpriced, this is an absolutely necessary activity because of the freezing temps outside.

+

• Take a photo with a teletubby and/or Santa, or get a snapshot of a man in a chicken suit posing in front of a giant snow head, natch.

CLICK HERE for Part 2… The ICE!