St. Sophia Church at Harbin

St. Sophia Church in Harbin is the largest Eastern Orthodox Church in Far East Region.
It was built about 100 years ago (at 1907) by the Russian when they ruled the Chinese city. The word "St. Sophia" means "God wisdom".


This church is in Byzantine style, one of the most recognizable features of Byzantine style is the onion dome.

Outside the church there were people feeding pigeons. I think pigeon and church make very good combination. They both signify peace and love.

Shenyang's forbidden city

Forbidden City at Shenyang (at Northeast of China) ? You may think I'm kidding. No, there are another Forbidden City at Shenyang, I just visited there during Chinese New Year.


Shenyang is the capital city of Liaoning province of China, and it was homeland of the Manchus who ruled China during Qing Dynasty.

The old buildings are still in use now, but is no longer the boundary of the city. The inside of the palace is almost identical to that of Beijing. The Manchus copied the Forbidden City in China and built it in Shenyang, the first two emperors did stay here but after that other emperors treated it as a holiday palace.

Royal palaces in China has a similar format, red walls and yellow roof. The format here is a little different, note the layer of green tiles below the yellow roof. The green tiles resemble the green grassland, an important root of the Manchus.

My Trip to the Ice City

Hello Everyone~!

How are you? I hope all of you are now prepared for the new term.

Sorry for my late update of the blog, I was traveling during Chinese New Year and when I was back to school I was busy with my new lesson plans.

I'm very excited and happy to share my tour to the Ice City of China with you. During Chinese New Year, I went to the 3 Northeastern Provinces of China (Heilongjiang, Jilin and Liaoning). It was my first time to places like this cold. How cold? Minus 10 to 20 degree Celsius, that means, much colder than the refrigerator at your home!

For so many days we spent, it didn't snow, but we saw snow everywhere. The photo above shows me in a skiing site at Harbin. There I had my first ski experience. I first thought skiing is a difficult sport, after I tried, I just love it! It's not too difficult to ski.

On the 3rd day we visited the Harbin Ice World. There, you can see tall ice castles and ice lamps. It's just BEAUTIFUL! It was the coldest night of the entire trip, I believe temperature there was only -25 degree Celsius. And that was the only time my camera couldn't function well.

It was very cold to step on the snow, normal shoes we wear are not thick enough to keep the cold air from invading into our feet. In order to keep my feet warm, I put a hot bag (the small one you probably put in your pocket during winter) under each of my foot. If I don't do this I can't imagine whether I can stand 2 hours on snow!

I'll share more about my trip in the upcoming blog entries, so stay tuned.

Love,
Miss Nickie