Harbin - continued

 These photos were taken at the snow sculpture park  - this was quiet amazing.  Each year the sculpture pay homage to different countries, this year was Finland.

I kept touching these because I could not believe they were snow.

The girl's had a dog sled ride - I think Paul and I were more excited than they were.  Still it is something they are unlikely to do on the Gold Coast.

Claudia being swallowed by some Finnish God! Not that this photo isn't set up or anything.

We went to see the Siberian Tigers - I don't know about you but I thought tigers lived in tropical places, I was wrong.  I loved being able to see these amazing animals up close, but it did break my heart to see them in captivity.  The plan is to release these tigers into the wild one day, but most have been there up to 7 years - don't think they are being released anytime soon. 

With the tour you could have either the vegetarian trip or the meat lovers trip - I am being completely serious!  On the meat lovers trip they throw live animals from the bus to feed the tigers.... needless to say we took the vegetarian version.

Harbin - the lovely... Harbin the cold!

We were so lucky to be able to go to Harbin for the weekend.  Harbin is up in Northern China (90 minute flight from Beijing), just near the boarder to Russia.  Harbin is famous for its ice and snow sculptures, it is also famous for being very cold. 

 We were lucky the weekend we were there, it only got down to -10!  It was a wonderful weekend  , I am only posting tonight the pictures from one of the ice parks.... as you may have guessed, I took lots of photos.  

We spent two hours here at this park... we could have spent hours more, but it was way too cold.  Everything and I mean everything here was made of ice.  I had to keep touching things because I could not believe they were ice.  Apparently it takes 20 days to create this park.  Well 2 days and a lot of people, so our guide told us!

  

I think the highlight for the girls was the ice slide, we put them in their ski suits to keep warm, but it actually made them fly down the slide... I couldn't even get a photo of Emily because she 

went so fast, but we did hear her, she cheered and screamed the whole way down.

Chinese New Year - Australia Day all rolled into one.

You know you live internationally when one day you welcome the year of the cow with the Chinese people and the next day celebrate Australia Day. We celebrated Aussie Day by donning our best Australia gear, having a leg of lamb and then braving the sub zero temperatures to light fireworks. You can buy boxes of fireworks here very cheaply - now these are not firecrackers, I am talking about professional fireworks, you light a wick and run. Needless to say Paul was in his element.

I have never seen or experienced fireworks like what we saw on Chinese New Year - hours and hours of deafening bangs - I think I understand what living in a war zone might feel like. These photos are shot from my balcony out across Beijing - they truly do not do it justice.

In our bestest Aussie gear... yes it was cold !

Emily is holding fireworks here!

Welcome the Year of the Cow.

Chinese New Year is huge here - I wonder why?  Anyway there are decorations everywhere to bring in the New Year - this year is year of the cow. 

 These shots were taken at the local shopping centre just after the New Year Celebrations.  

Here is Miss Em playing the drums - she is looking very serious!

Miss Claudipops in front of the New Year Tree - Red brings 

good luck.

The New Year Drums

There are cows everywhere - I had to have one shot in front of it.

We went to a Brazilian restaurant for lunch and had this drink - nothing like a shot of guarana to get you through the afternoon.

Snow Fun

I will never complain that life is boring.

One week we are in the sun of Thailand, the next we are playing in the snow. 

These pictures were taken about 2 weeks ago, when we took the girls snow sliding at a local park. There isn't this much snow in Beijing - it is all man made, but that didn't matter, the girls had so much fun.