There's nothing about this city in the winter that doesn't look "cold".
With a howling wind, you're constantly being blasted.
The area near the train station has the added advantage of smelling like coal, because of the huge power plant next door.
They start putting up ice sculptures all around the city in December, and they usually last until the end of February, at least.
Of course, that doesn't necessarily mean it doesn't look like every other middle-sized Chinese city.
Crappy panorama time wooooo! ...
We started wandering around the city, which you quickly decide is a bad idea.
We started walking into old Russian hotels looking for cafés or some other appropriate place to grab a hot cup of coffee.
The architecture is a fascinating mix of old Russian and new Chinese.
The most famous building in the city is probably the old Sofia church.
Now closed, it's more of a museum than actual place of worship.
The square around it is one of the key parts of the city, it seems.
And they're building a nice new subway system here, for this will be an entrance.
Apparently you need to be quite careful where you park in this city!
Apparently, frozen makeup is quite a problem in this city as well. I kept seeing this all day …
There are ice sculptures everywhere.
Not a lot of people out and about at 8am.
Got settled into the hotel and then started wandering again near the Sofia church.
Most of these old buildings are banks and shopping malls now.
After some morning shopping and watching pickpockets run around, we made the move to one of the more critical stops in the city — dongbei food!
The Gubaorou here is unbelievably awesome, served in huge portions, and dirt cheap.
The rest of the dishes aren't bad either.
Yum!
Next stop, a café in a Synagogue in Harbin. All the radiators are on at full blast, and everybody is wearing coats, hats, and scarves indoors.
This is now part museum, part youth hostel, and part café. Evidence suggests a number of Jewish people fled Europe as things got nasty there a century ago and came here.
The next thing to do is start walking up ZhongYang Jie (Central Street), one of the main outdoor shopping drags in the city.
with ice sculptures every 100m or so.
There are lots of Russian restauarants around here.
And the Colonel.
At the end of the street is the big river that cuts through the city, and Stalin Park.
It's still cold.
Stalin park is now a big outdoors activity centre.
Ice skating, sledding, inner tubing, horse-drawn carriages, andmore.
The ice is so unbelievably thick here you can drive on it.
Always lots of hats.
With this many horses, the ice starts to look a little ... discoloured after a while.
What's that in the distance?
Some kind of racing?
Rally Car Racing on the ice 
More rally. 
Awesome! It's a rally car track on the ice. Super cool!
They just raced around in little icy circles. Super cool