Zhongyang Ice and Snow Festival 2017

This isn't part of the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival per se, but it was cool to see the lanterns rising over the Flood Control Monument the evening I went to check out Zhongyang Avenue's ice and snow sculptures!

The snow and ice sculptures of Chinese dumplings near the Flood Control Monument - the ice sculpture is almost good enough to make you hungry!

One of the ice-block beer gardens set up along Zhongyang this winter! 

This year's Coca-Cola store and snow sculpture.

My favorite of this year's ice sculptures along Zhongyang!

Chinese New Year 2017

Happy Chinese New Year! 新年快樂! I hope this Year of the Cock brings you prosperity and happiness! This is my first Chinese New Year actually spent in the PRC as I usually use all the time off work to travel, and I must say the fireworks going off all over everywhere were pretty impressive! I was just at the point where I didn't think any more loud noises could make me jump when fireworks started exploding right outside my window, and I'll tell you what, they made me jump! More than a little crazy, but also very cool...

What was less cool was how our air - which amazingly had been in the 60s and 70s by the Chinese scale all day - in the space of a few hours got to this. The fireworks were incredible and I was touched by the love behind all the joss paper-burning that happened last night, but I can't help wondering if only having a couple of big city-organized fireworks shows and limiting the joss paper inferno to temples or a handful of locations citywide might not be healthier (not to mention safer!).

2017: Year of the Coughing Chicken

I was able to get away from the PRC around Christmastime and Harbin welcomed me back with some gorgeously blue, clear (for here) skies...and then settled back into this. The air pollution seems to hovering in the upper 100s and low 200s, with a few days up near 500 on the Chinese scale. This will be my first Chinese New Year in China, and I'm told the pollution will only get thicker as we get closer to the holiday thanks to all the joss paper-burning and fireworks that happen around the holiday...