Arctic weekend - Harbin (哈尔滨)

Definitely no promises on how often I will update this blog, but here goes...

Last weekend, a group of us headed to Harbin to enjoy the annual Ice Festival and experience firsthand what -35 degrees (Celsius) feels like.

Highlights and pictures follow:

• The 12-hour train ride, which was a lot of fun thanks to drinking games (we were even lucky enough to have a local join us for several rounds!);
• Drinking Russian vodka at Russia Cafe (we spent roughly 38.3% of our time at this place);
• Spending time with Sheila while she was passed out on my arm at Russia Cafe;

• The Ice Festival - this was actually really impressive. It was an entire city, castles and all, made out of ice! The toboggan ride was a definite highlight, along with the infamous 'photo shoot'

• Tiger Park - this is totally controversial - we saw a live sheep mauled by a streak of tigers! Live chickens were also on offer. The most disturbing part of this whole experience was when returning to work on Monday, and telling several colleagues what we had seen, one commented in a delightful manner: "You are so nice to feed the tigers a sheep. The tigers were very lucky!". Mmm...

All in all, a fantastic weekend! Thanks to all those who joined in the fun: Devrim, Sheila, Simon, Dom, Habib, Aude and Rebecca.

Nick