In my previous diary notes I told you about my exciting journey from Beijing to Mohe, a chilly place in China's famous northeastern province of Heilongjiang which is reputedly the coldest in China.

My first day in Mohe was a very busy one. After a hearty Chinese breakfast at the hotel, our group hopped onto a small minibus which took us to a place known as China's North Pole, its Chinese name is Bei ji Cun. It took over 2 hours to get there as the roads were covered in snow and ice, so our diligent driver had to be very careful.

We stopped once en route to check out the local scenery and play in the snow, but only for a few minutes as it was a bit chilly outside: the temperature was about minus 30°C.

It was difficult to see the beautiful scenery along our route because the windows in our minibus froze over. Though I managed to scrape a small hole in the ice and was able to catch a glimpse of the snow covered landscape.

Unfortunately the heater on our little minibus was faulty so it became quite cold on the bus, and as we sped along the temperature outside dropped rapidly, even with the bright sunlight it was still about minus 38°C or less.
 
Shortly after our arrival at the North Pole Village we were taken to a nice restaurant which was made of local timber and treated to a buffet lunch which contained both Chinese and western food. The restaurant was nice and warm inside, and this was due to the building design as the walls were about 3 feet thick and the windows were double or triple glazed.

After lunch we were taken to our rather unique accommodations. Our group was split up into two, and each half was taken to small Chinese courtyard style Inns, each one having between 8 and 10 rooms.

The Inn where I stayed was located very near the banks of the famous Heilongjiang River which also happens to be the natural border between China and Russia. As you could imagine the river was frozen solid, and covered in deep snow but in some parts winter sports facilities had been built temporarily.

After we checked into our rooms at the little Inns we visited the winter sports area on the river, and even in the bitter cold many people were enjoying different activities like curling, sledging, speed skating and ice hockey.

Even though the temperature was dropping rapidly as the sun went down people were still outside enjoying themselves. I also saw some impressive looking giant ice sculptures on the banks of the river. The sculptures featured intricately carved dragons and large faces of Santa Clause.

With the temperature dropping by the minute our group couldn't stay outside for long as we weren't yet acclimatised to the extremely chilly weather, though the local folk seemed much tougher than us city folks. I even saw children of all ages out enjoying sledging and skating on the river.

In the evening something special was going to happen near the North Pole, China's first Christmas Village was about to open.

So later that day we all headed a few miles down the road by minibus to check out this special festive event.

When we arrived at Mohe's Christmas Village it felt much colder, but that didn't stop us checking out the large ice and snow sculptures, many of them lit up from inside by brightly coloured neon lights. There were also many log cabin styled buildings containing lots of Christmas toys, candles and glittery decorations.

I went into one large cabin. It looked quiet from the outside but when I opened the double wooden door there were about 200 people milling around waiting to see Santa Clause, who had travelled all the way from Finland to meet his Chinese fans.

There was a lot to see inside some of the brightly lit wooden buildings, and it was warmer in there too but the excitement was building outside!

A large bonfire was being made ready, and a few smaller fires were already ablaze with quite a few people, myself included, crowding around them trying to get a bit warmer. Standing around that log fire was great!

There was also a lot of people inside some of the large ice sculptures because the inside part of the sculpture was as intricately carved as the outside.

With more and more people arriving for the big official opening of Mohe's Christmas Village, a large firework display was made ready, and that was about the time when I found out that the temperature in that part of Mohe had hit a record low of minus 47 degrees Celsius.

The extremely cold weather didn't dampen the spirits of the thousands of people who attended Mohe's biggest opening party. It was a big success and now organisers of the Christmas Village plan to keep it open to visitors 365 days of the year.