The Snow and Ice Carnival in Tianjin

The girls and Mark have had this past week off from both school and work.  For the most part we've been hanging out at the house and not doing much.  It feels rather good after all the hustle and bustle and zooming we'd been doing getting ready for The Big Move.  We just needed some down time to chill out.  

On Thursday we were ready to venture out and meet our new friends at the Snow and Ice "Sculpture" Carnival.  The carnival (I'm not sure I would have called it a carnival and there most certainly weren't any sculptures) was located at the Tianjin Olympic Center.  

Our driver dropped us off at a gate and told us which direction to go in.  Immediately we were accosted by Chinese men yelling at us to buy tickets.  It would have been extremely helpful if we'd had more Chinese language tutoring as we couldn't understand them.  Our kind driver came to our aid and we bought three tickets for the four of us from them.  Apparently they tried to get us to buy four tickets but since Ava is below the height requirement she is supposed to get in for free anyway.  Were these men hawking tickets? Not sure.

We saw a very long line of people standing by the entrance and we stood it in for some time before we realized that this was the line to purchase tickets for the event.  We passed by the slow moving line to yet another line.  Ack!  Fortunately, we saw another family that had tickets in hand and since they by passed the line we decided to follow them.  No problem!  We sailed passed everyone and into the massive arena.  

What greeted us inside the arena wasn't a sight I was expecting to see:

Inside the arena: heaps of man made snow all for sledding on!

Mark found a sled to ride on. You paid a deposit for the sled and then there was an hourly fee to use it. The procedure seemed complicated enough that Mark got only one instead of two sleds.

Annika hauling the sled up to the top of the hill. At least there were stairs to climb up!

Mark, Annika and Ava in the arena

While we were waiting for Mark to get a sled the girls and I observed the food vendors. We did end up getting the meat-on-a-stick and hot dogs-on-a-stick for lunch. The meat was pork and some of the pieces of meat weren't cooked all the way through- ewww! We also picked up some strange hot drinks- chocolate and strawberry flavors. It came in a styrofoam cup with a powder that you mixed with hot water. The drinks were interesting as they had bits of gelatinous chunks in them.

Annika and Ava pulling Mark on the sled. Or at least trying to!

This peacock was on display. You could pay to have your photo taken with it (we opted out of that). Mark did buy two peacock feathers for the girls though. I thought that peacock feathers were bad luck? Hope not!

We met some friends at the carnival. Mimi is Annika's friend (they're in the same class). Mimi is seated on the sled next to Annika. Mimi's older sister (I'm not sure how to spell her name) is standing behind them. Oh…and you'll never guess what's in the tent behind them. I peeked my head in to see an exotic birds show of sorts. There were some children standing on a small platform being handed a cockatoo and a parrot. And people cheering them on. Hm…interesting!

Happy Annika is now a proud owner of a peacock feather.

Chrissie (Mimi's mom) and her oldest daughter.

Mimi, Annika and Ava in front of a sign in Chinese just to prove to you that we're in China. LOL! Yes, we got stared at a lot at this event! We were the only expats and we did attract some attention. Poor Ava seems very uncomfortable with people wanting to say hello to her. Sometimes they try to touch her as well- but I can certainly understand her discomfort with that.

Silly Ava! Can't I get just one NICE smile? I guess what makes this a carnival are the live animals they had on display. They had penguins in this cage. And in another part of the arena there was a petting zoo ….with puppies! I do love puppies but one thing I don't love is their sharp teeth! We didn't check out this "petting zoo" so I'm not sure how calm the dogs were. Not exactly what comes to mind when I think of a petting zoo!

Ava and Mark get a turn on the sled.

Annika has a turn. All the kids got a turn or two on the sled. The dads got to try it too.

Annika and Mimi went down together on the sled. They had a blast!

After our toes and fingers were frozen we headed out of the arena and over to a gigantic mall called Magnetic Capital in search of a hot drink. Photo opportunity in front of this globe! The girls first posed in front of Africa (Mimi's dad is from Nigeria) ….

And then crouched down low to take a photo with Australia. No photos of North America as we couldn't climb on the globe. We did find a lovely coffee shop called Costa Coffee.

Do you remember me mentioning a French bakery in a previous post? You can watch the bakers from Paris Baguette at work through this window. Mmmm…..cakes with strawberries!

We ended up wandering through the gigantic mall and perusing many of the stalls.  We even found a DVD store where we purchased a few movies.  We ended up wandering into Paris Baguette for a stash of treats to take home before calling it a wonderful day!  Thanks to our new friends for a lovely outing!