Video trip report: Harbin
 

Mrs. PTravel and I spent the beginning of January in China. Our visit included Harbin which hosts an annual Ice Festival. You can see the short (4-1/2 minute) video here:

www.travelersvideo.com/Harbin Ice Festival.wmv

or in much lower quality on YouTube, here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3bmxc9vHcE

Temperatures were so low that our digital SLR froze and was inoperable. I had to take special precautions with our camcorder to ensure it wasn't damaged, and even then the LCD display wound up freezing (LCD = LIQUID crystal diode), which made framing and composing shots an interesting challenge, as the display was so dim during the day I could barely see it, and at night it gave strange "strobe" effects that, fortunately, don't appear on the video.

Thanks PTravel ^

Wow nice work with the video there!

Just curious, what video editing software did u use?

Thanks. Adobe Premiere Pro 1.5, except for the opening titles, which used Ulead Cool Edit 3D for the 3-D animation of the words.

That looks like an amazing festival. Great job with the video.

Were people falling all over the place on all that ice - it looked like there were several close calls on the video?

:) That looks fun,nice video.

Having been in Beijing a few times during the winter I can imagine how cold it was there especially in the wind.
Which airline and route did you take to get there from where you are based?

Most of the areas where people walk were covered with outdoor carpeting, particularly the steps up the ice buildings. There were, however, a number of places that were just bare ice. The long yellowish-green promenade was pure ice, though there was a central carpeted path. One of the ice balconies also had no carpets and, in some places, there was so much foot traffic that people tracked ice and snow over the carpets were it quickly became solid and slick. There are some shots of the interior of a long igloo-like building where we saw the sliver foxes -- it had no carpets at all and we just went slip-sliding along. This is, of course, China were the occasional slip or slide is considered fun and part-and-parcel of the Ice Festival experience. If this was the US, there were be long rows of lawyers lined up just waiting to file the negligence lawsuits. ;)

Mrs. PTravel did pretty well -- her one stumble (which is in the video and, of course, timed to the music ;)) was when her boot caught on a piece of carpeting. I had a couple of close calls despite being extra careful because of the camera, though the worst for me was the luge in the beginning of the video. I was shooting with both hands and kept getting bounced up and down on the little sled. I came very close to being thrown out of it altogether and finished the slide on my side. It actually made for a better video because I was able to get shots of the two "catchers" at the bottom of the luge run. That luge was a lot scarier than it looked -- those are Mrs. PTravel's actual screams as she started down the run.

I should note that we were both dressed for the weather, both in terms of warmth and traction. Harbin was fun, but I wouldn't recommend it without very, very warm clothing and even then, as you saw in the video, we both kept our scarves over our faces to keep our cheeks from freezing solid.

Very, very cool. Thank you! :)

We flew UA to Shanghai. From there, we were on China Eastern to Huang Shan (Yellow Mountain) and then back to Shanghai. We flew on Air China to Harbin and then back. Huang Shan is really spectacular -- I hope to have a video of that to post soon. :)

Thanks for sharing that delightful video, PTravel. Amazing sculptures, even more so when they are illuminated at night. You did an excellent job capturing people's joy while being there, especially the children. By the way, did you venture out to eat often? Is the local cuisine heavily influenced by Russia? Some time ago I recall watching a culinary show on a Chinese channel and coming across a report about a Northern city with these influences. I did not get the name of the city but I suspect that it could be Harbin. Here's looking forward to more. ^

We did have lunch out one day. It was interesting -- a "Russian" Chinese restaurant. The food was quite good and somewhat Russian (excellent borscht), but with an unmistakable Chinese spin.

Thanks for posting this. I've been considering going to Harbin and your video makes me want to go even more.

BTW, it was nice meeting you and your wife at the dimm sum do in SF late last year.