SSAB - January 23, 2025

Last day in Harbin, well worth the trip but… winter should just be a vacation, not a lifestyle! Lol jkjk Morning meeting done n done, Starbucks first, and baozi. Not as cold as yesterday. Off to Snow sculpture festival. This is the one with massive snow carvings that LOOK as if they’ve been manufactured BUT in actual fact, I think they’re done by people. They had teams that each contributed a piece: China, Mongolia, Spain, Ecuador, Russia, Indonesia, etc. No real theme, lots of experimentation. BIG sculptures included four horses, snowmen, the Asian winter games mascots, WuKong (Monkey King), something with birds, a winter games, and a massive “surround” sculpture that I didn’t get the name of. (This is the problem not taking a picture of it!) Went on the spinny tube thingy, hooked up to the back of an SUV. Got a drone video of it, what an interesting job that would be. Also went down the large slide. Off to a Russian restaurant for dinner. There are a few along ZhongYang Street, but service was slow and the food was only 还可以. 老俄侨 was the name. SMALL, five tables on the first floor, a few upstairs. Nice decor, but they said we had to be finished within an hour… and then got our order wrong. Off to the airport by bus, forgot how far away the airport is from the city centre. Midnight arrival… not in bed till 3 am! Overall, good trip. Nothing went wrong and we got to see a few things. We only missed Zhaolin park and the 731 Museum, but as I told the gf, this trip was for the winter activities. Donate to the show! PayPal link below! https://www.paypal.me/stevensirski?locale.x=en_CA *** Show notes n tracks up on stevensirski.com And on Notion: https://stevensirski.notion.site/SSAB-The-Audio-Blog-of-Steven-Sirski-00acfe344e164bfab191d3cddf6952b2?pvs=4 December Drumming 2024 over here: https://skrskimuzik.bandcamp.com/album/december-drumming-2024 Newsletter over at stevensirski.substack.com (soon to be AI generated!) Language vlog on http://www.youtube.com/@stevenslanguagevlog Hope you have a great Thursday!! 00:00 Introduction and Arrival in Beijing 00:17 Morning Routine and Snow Sculpture Festival 00:37 Reflections on the Trip and Work 03:15 Exploring the Snow Sculpture Festival 08:57 International Contributions and Observations 17:55 Fun Activities and Drone Experience 25:56 Dining at a Russian Restaurant 34:46 Return Journey and Final Thoughts 40:33 Conclusion and Sign-Off