Colder than Christmas

Before traveling on this journey, I did the typical internet research into travel advisories for China, Finland and the specific areas of the countries that I was traveling. The only warning for traveling to Harbin, China was the “extreme cold” in the winter. It was stated several times on various websites. This week I have discovered the reason for those warnings.

Before we left for Finland, the temperatures in Harbin in late October and early November hovered around 0 ºC (32 ºF). We returned from Beijing and stepped out of our extremely warm train sleeping quarters into the Harbin ice age! The temperatures have ranged from about -15 ºC (6 ºF) at best during the day to -25 ºC (-12 ºF) at night, and that is without the wind chill factored in. It is a dry bitter cold requiring a number of good layers for the short walk across the complex from the dormitory to the rink.

I had my first ever experience of my glasses fogging up when walking INTO a hockey rink, as the temperature in the rink was much warmer than outside. The players get dressed up in their gear and throw huge jackets, scarves and gloves on over their equipment for the walk. You can see Huang Lina trying on Tim’s Russian cold weather hat on the right.


On another related topic, I have been interested to see that some places here in China do have Christmas decorations up and you can purchase them at stores. It is obviously not as crazy as in some places in the northeast U.S., but there are signs of Christmas even in Beijing and Harbin, China.

The rollercoaster has not run since I have returned, as the park is closed for the winter, but I expect that would be quite a chilly ride if it did. As you can see, there is a little snow on the ground but not that much. I guess it must be too cold to snow.


Good night and bundle up!