1 to 4 February 2019 - Seoul (South Korea)

Although the flight from Harbin was delayed the actual flight was good. The taxi fare from the airport to the Hotel Ibis was expensive though. I spent one night in the hotel, leaving my suitcases there to be picked up when I leave South Korea in about nine days time. Prior to arriving here I had arranged a tour with Novaland Tours by email and arrived with printouts of all air and train tickets, hotel confirmations and different tour companies receipts. The morning after my arrival I was picked up for a tour around Seoul going to the Jogyesa Temple, Deoksugung Palace, ginseng and kimchi factory, Namsangol Hanok Folk Museum, Seoul Tower and a shopping area for lunch. At the end of this I was taken to a different hotel, the Travelodge Dongdaemun for the night.

Views of Jogyesa Temple

Namsangol Hanok Folk Museum

Views from the Deoksugung Palace and the changing of the guard

Views of and from the Seoul Tower 

                                        

      

         

26 January to 1 February 2019 - Harbin Tiger Park (China)

The Siberian Tiger Park has over 1,300 purebred Siberian tigers with 100 visible to visitors. In addition there are white tigers, lions, lynx, leopards, and black pumas as well as Bengali tigers.
The park is divided into ten areas to include the young tiger area, the mature tiger area, the king tiger area, a walking area and a platform for viewing the tigers. Except in the walking area and the platform for viewing the tigers the tigers are seen by taking a bus encircled by a steel fence to the areas where the tigers roam freely in the fields.

The mature tiger area has 30 Siberian tigers wandering free. The tigers in this area are all about 7 or 8 years old. And in the young tiger area, there are over 40 young active tigers about 2 years old. The Siberian Tiger Park also houses some lions which coexist peacefully with the tigers.
The Siberian Tiger Introduction Project being carried out at the Tiger Park involves re-establishing
populations of the Siberian tiger, also known as the Amur tiger, in their former habitat. Also it is hoped to expanding their habitat by introducing them as replacements of their genetically similar relative, the extinct Caspian tiger, into Central and Western Asia. Currently, the Siberian tiger inhabits the cold mountains of the Russian Far East and northern China. Genetic studies have revealed that the Siberian and Caspian tigers are descended from the tiger population that colonized Central Asia about 10,000 years ago.

Siberian tigers used to be common on either side of the Amur River in Russia and China, as well as in northeastern Mongolia and South Korea. Caspian tigers lived around the Caspian Sea in Azerbaijan, Iran and Turkmenistan, and also further away in Armenia, Georgia, Turkey and Kazakhstan all the way to the Altai Mountains in the East. Caspian tigers reportedly became extinct in the 1970’s after many years of hunting, poaching and habitat loss. Siberian tigers lost most of their ranges in Siberia and China and became extinct in the wild of Korea and Mongolia.

        

                                                                                                                            

On leaving Harbin for Seoul (South Korea) I was told at the airport that I did not have a visa in my passport for South Korea. It took a while to convince the airline people that I was entitled to a 'visa on arrival'. 

26 January to 1 February 2019 - Harbin Snow and Ice Festival (China)

I thought that I had organised to go to the Snow Festival one morning then the Ice Festival the following afternoon but had not understood properly the instructions given by the tour people nor they when I tried to make them understand what I wanted to do. This resulted in my going to the Snow Festival in the morning then going to bed early that evening only to have them bang on my door to tell me that the tour for the Ice Festival was immediately. So off I went. I think I was not charged for going into the Ice Festival as I had to show my passport and was then taken through a different entrance to everyone else. There are a lot of places in China where entry is free for those over 65 years old, apparently for foreigners as well.

Snow for the sculptures was made by a snow machine.

Making a snow sculpture

Skating in-front of a sculpture

Snow Slides

The ice festival was in an area opposite to the snow festival area and although I had gone to both with an organised tour it would have been just as easy to have gone by myself as taxis there and back were in abundance, and not expensive as I had been led to believe. 

No cruises today

It's me!

The entrance area

The 'buildings' shown in the photos are all made of ice and what surprised me was that they could be walked on and through with mats being placed on the floor, including steps, so no-one slipped. The lighting of some changed occasionally as well.

 

This was also a slide

This was meant to be a 'Gothic' building

The view from the top of one of the slides