I got cocky today. Instead of wearing thermal underwear, jeans, wool socks, hiking boots, undershirt, sweater, winter jacket, scarf, and gloves like I did on my first night, I foolheartedly decided to visit St. Sofia Cathedral and Zhongyang Rd. wearing only jeans, sweater, jacket, and scarf.
Did you know there is a thing called “frostnip” that happens before frostbite? Yeah, I learned about that today. Despite the fact that, as Wikipedia tells me, Harbin is only a few minutes of latitude north of Portland, Oregon.
But then I doubled down on my hubris and decided to have a “wintery hotpot” dinner at the ice palace behind my hotel wearing only jeans and two sweaters.
The food was delicious, but I shivered through the entire hour & a half ordeal. It might look cozy from inside, but this is what it looks like from outside…
And this is the interior of the adjacent ice bar…
To be fair, they did warn me my tauntaun would freeze before the first marker.