After the tiger reserve we had lunch and then were on our way to St. Sophia's church. On the way the guide asked us if we were interested in seeing the winter swim. We were going to passing by just as it was going to be taking place. We were game! We made a brief detour to the river where a large swimming pool size hole had been cut out of the river. Just as we walked up to the railing the swimmers started coming out of a warming hut. Remember the air temperature is in the single digits (F). They all took their turn jumping in and swimming a lap and getting out. There was one woman who stayd in at least 5 minutes! The swimmers were both Chinese and Russian. I wonder if winter swimming in Harbin pays well......?
St. Sophia's Church is a Russian Orthodox Church built in the 20's when the Russian's were extending the Trans-Siberan railway through China to Vladivostok. It is now a museum of Harbin's history. The church survived the cultural revolution because it was used as a warehouse but it was largely gutted and stripped of all it's religous artifacts. It still is. There was very little attention paid to the true nature of the building. All the religious artifacts that remain are displayed in the back hallway where the priest would have put their robes on. Very interesting!
We were then onto the walking street in Harbin, a 3km long cobblestone pedestrian walkway with shops lining the road. Lots of Russian Commodity shops selling nesting dolls and Russian vodka. We were beat at this point and headed back to the hotel to have a drink in the Ice bar!
We really enjoyed our time in Harbin and would recommend a visit!
St. Sophia's Church is a Russian Orthodox Church built in the 20's when the Russian's were extending the Trans-Siberan railway through China to Vladivostok. It is now a museum of Harbin's history. The church survived the cultural revolution because it was used as a warehouse but it was largely gutted and stripped of all it's religous artifacts. It still is. There was very little attention paid to the true nature of the building. All the religious artifacts that remain are displayed in the back hallway where the priest would have put their robes on. Very interesting!
We were then onto the walking street in Harbin, a 3km long cobblestone pedestrian walkway with shops lining the road. Lots of Russian Commodity shops selling nesting dolls and Russian vodka. We were beat at this point and headed back to the hotel to have a drink in the Ice bar!
We really enjoyed our time in Harbin and would recommend a visit!
2 comments:
everyone looks pretty cold at the ice bar! And I thought that the park pool in the mornings was sometimes quite brisk!
Thanks for all of the posts! It was great to read about Harbin from another view point. The ice bar looked pretty cool - we missed that! And you got to stay at the Shangri-la, that sounds very nice. You better be careful or the kids will get spoiled!
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