Happy New Year - 2013!

I celebrated New Year's Eve with Friends having a "steak" dinner and then walking over to the dancing fountain water show at the Big Wild Goose Pagoda.  We ended the evening with a chocolate dipped cone at DQ.  A perfect ending to a great year!

I finished all of my final exams but still need to finish scoring and recording grades tomorrow.  A friend and I went to Harbin for the snow and ice sculpture festival.  It was very cold but I dressed in layers and the sculptures were truly magical.  Harbin is in the far North East part of China and has quite a Russian influence.  In addition to the "Winter Wonderland" we enjoyed a trip to one of the largest tiger preserves, a WWII museum which was quite emotional because of the biological warfare research done on prisoners and civilians and then enjoyed a little arctic aquarium visit.


 "The Ice and Snow World covers an area of 750,000 square meters. The total amount of ice used is 180,000 cubic meters and snow 150,000 cubic meters. The number of workers building the Ice and Snow World this year is up to over 7,000. In the past months, temperature of the snow's surface was as low as minus 25 degree Celsius, which increases technical difficulties in construction." They expect 1,000,000 visitors.  I hope you enjoy the pictures.

         

Siberian Tiger Park was built in 1996 and is the largest natural park in the world 

St. Sophia Russian Orthodox Cathedral was built in 1907 after the completion of the Trans-Siberian Railway and was the largest Russian Orthadox Church in the far East.  It closed in 1949 following the establishment of the People's Republic of China.  In 1997 the cathedral was turned into the Municipal Architecture and Art Museum.

Happy New Year!