Day 5 Haerbin

Arrived In Haerbin at 11.30pm last night and after doing a small loop back to the train station(a local sent us the wrong direction) we caved in and got a taxi(10yuan) to our nights accommodation. To the side of the hostel we had booked for the following 3 nights was a hotel which was arranged for us at the last minute, our excitement of having a double room in an ok looking hotel was wiped from our face when we opened the door to the room. It had everything you'd expect but it was pretty filthy!
Morning came and we checked in to our hostel which is clean and nice.
Next stop was brunch(duck & noodles) the tv in the restaurant showing the news confirmed the issue we were having-massive lines at train ticket offices all over the country like a mandatory evacuation order was given, we call it Chinese New Year.
After a coffee and Rachel in flying form having fed her black tea addiction in Star-ucks we got help from our new room mates twins from Hong Kong & 2 Americans to plan our train journey attack. The hostel front desk searched what little trains were left and wrote what we needed on paper to show at the ticket office(not one word of English).
Our plan for after Haerbin was the terracotta warriors in xian but now it's like this;
Haerbin-Beijing Monday
Overnight in Beijing
Beijing-Hāngzhōu(Sou-west Shanghai almost 3000km south of Haerbin )
The distance is 6 times the length of Ireland in 2 trains a fast train to Beijing of 9hrs & a bullet train to Hāngzhōu 6hrs.
A week in that area then in to Shanghai 21st Jan for the Chinese new year celebrations 23rd Jan.
We got to wonder Haerbin today it was -12ish during the day and very little breeze so not so bad(night is bad) the ice sculptures are on every major intersection and many are on the pedestrianised street leading to the huge frozen river where there is a carnival type set up with ice skating, ice sailing,4wheel bikes, slides,horse drawn carts, dog sled rides and a track for mini army tanks which were awesome! You can see brown on the picture under the tank but it's just dirt for traction we are out on the frozen river.
Dinner was stumbled upon, The dumpling king a nice simple place with very helpful staff & cheap dumplings 10yuan for 8 and 24 fed us with a pint of Haerbin Ice larger for 12yuan. Dinner for 2 €5!
Tomorrow evening we will visit the Ice Festival, the Americans just got back from it and said it was pretty amazing so should be great.
If the random sculptures around the city are anything to go by it will be an impressive festival!