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Following a day exploring icy man-made wonders, a nature expedition of sorts makes for an interesting diversion. The Siberian Tiger Park was once a dingy little zoo where morbid tourists could purchase live cows and watch the feeding frenzy from the safety of an iron-barred bus.
The World Bank recently urged an international tiger-conservation congress to ban private tiger parks, so this entertainment may be worth seeing while it lasts.
To celebrate the bravado of two days of traipsing through ice and snow, finish with a meal at Da Quan Shao Kao, where everything from enoki mushrooms to larvae, as well as the more conventional lamb chunks, comes on a barbecued skewer. A few more rounds of ganbei and you might start to think that the cold isn't all that bad for a winter voyage!
It is easy to get to from the ice festival by taxi or bus. The park houses about 100 of the less than 500 animals that remain in the world. While the intent of the park is conservation, it's hard to imagine how tigers trained to wait for tourists "on safari" to drive through and throw chickens could be reintroduced to the wild.
Winter swimming has been a longstanding Harbin tradition, drawing many enthusiasts who rave about the health benefits of polar plunging into -30 C waters. The less adventurous can stand on the sidelines and watch as middle-aged swimmers strut their stuff on the frozen surface of Songhua River before diving off a platform made of, you guessed it, blocks of ice.
A panoply of less extreme diversions can be found on the banks of the Songhua River, just outside the polar swimming hole - dog sledding, horse carts and tops spun with long whips. The strangest contraption here, which attracts a surprising number of customers, is a chair set atop sharp blades, which a rider can propel using short ski poles.
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