Currently 25 degrees Fahrenheit in Beijing

But this past weekend, I was in NEGATIVE 15 degrees Fahrenheit weather. That's right people, wayyy below freezing temperature.

I spent the past two days visiting Harbin, which is a city in the way northeast part of China (in Heilongjiang Province). Every winter, they have the famous snow and ice sculpture festival (and China is one in only 4 countries in the world that has the biggest snow and ice sculpture festivals).

I wore ski pants over jeans and long underwear and I wore 5 layers of jackets under a down coat the entire weekend! And I felt fine (not too hot, and not freezing). The city was wonderful. We visited a park with giant sculptures made entirely out of snow. And at night we visited this area with buildings made entirely out of ice. We could climb up the structures and slide down. It was so slippery (duh, it's ice) and the pieces of ice are each made with a hole in them so that fluorescent lights inside can shine out brightly colored lights. And uh, the ice doesn't melt cuz it's so freaking cold all the time.

AND I went to a bar made out of ice! ICE BAR! And we went to a Siberian Tiger park, and I saw a real live LIGER!

Below is a video I took at the snow sculpture festival where some people are working on building some snow sculptures. They're literally breaking the snow away in blocks, leaving behind gorgeous shapes in snow. It's amazing.



This is another video I took while at the Snow Sculpture Festival. You can't tell in the youtube video (since the quality is so poor), but my cheeks are bright red from cold windburn (since it was the only part of my body not covered in 5 layers of clothing).




This last video was taken at the Siberian Tiger Park. Here they breed Siberian tigers since they're an endangered species. They have about 300 in the park, and they claim that they're preparing them to be released in the wild, but I don't believe them. It's pretty much a tourist spot, and you get taken around the park in vans, and people can pay money to buy birds or cows to feed the tigers. Here is a video of the tigers preying on some birds.





Pictures on facebook!