8 Days Northeast China Tour with Harbin Ice & Snow Festival

Full Itinerary Day by day (Can Be Customized)

Day 1 Harbin Arrival

Ni Hao! Welcome to Harbin, the Capital of Heilongjiang Province, which is well known as the "Ice City" in China. Your local guide will meet you at the arrival hall of airport / railway station. Then you will be escorted to your hotel in a private vehicle. The rest of today is on your own to explore this city.

Arrival Ideas:

Harbin Taiping International Airport is 41 km’s driving distance from downtown area. It has flights from Beijing (2 hrs), Dalian (1.5 hrs), Qingdao (2 hrs), Jinan (2 hrs), Xian (3 hrs), Shanghai (3 hrs), Chengdu (3.5-4 hrs), Ordos (2.5 hrs), Hangzhou (3 hrs), Guangzhou (4-4.5 hrs), Xiamen (4-4.5hrs), Wuhan (3-3.5 hrs), Sanya (5 hrs) and more destinations in China, and more international cities like Seoul, Tokyo, Osaka, Moscow, Phuket Island, etc. While Harbin West Railway Station has high speed trains linking Harbin with Beijing (7~8 hrs), Changchun (1 hr), Shenyang (2.5~3 hrs), Dalian (4~5 hrs), Jilin (2-3 hrs), Tianjin (6.5 hrs), etc.

Evening Ideas (Explore on your Own):

In this evening, you can go to Zhaolin Park to appreciate the largest scale of outdoor ice lantern fair in the world. Complimented as “the non-repetitive fairy tales”, Zhaolin Park Ice Lantern Show is one of the three exhibitions that make up the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival. Spend 1-2 hours to enjoy all the colorful ice lanterns and ice sculptures. (Important Note: It is held every year from January 5^th to the end of February. It is suggested to visit after 18:00 when all the lights turning on.)

Day 2 Harbin ( B,L )

After breakfast, your guide and driver will pick you up at your hotel. Firstly, you'll visit the Sun Island Scenic Resort, which is a major venue to hold the International Snow Sculpture Art Expo on Harbin Ice and Snow Festival in winter. Walk into this vast pure lovely fairyland of 60,000 square meters and meet the incredible “white visual storm”. Have a close look at the thousands of excellent large-scaled artistic snow sculptures of landscape, cartoon, figures, buildings, etc., which will make you wow at the outstanding talent of the craftsmen who inject life into the cold snow. With so amazing backdrop, you just can’t help taking some great photos to record the nice moment (You are highly advised to wear sunglasses to visit the Snow Sculpture Art Fair since the glary from sunshine on the snow is really intense.)

Then, be escorted to the nearby Siberian Tiger Park, the largest breeding center in the world for endangered Siberian Tigers that. Over 1,300 purebred Siberian Tigers are raised there. You’ll not only pay a safe walk to observe different kinds of tigers (Siberian Tigers, White Tigers, White Lion, Leopard, Liger, etc.), but also take a tourist bus with wire-mesh protection through the park to closely see the tigers and lions and take some photos.

After dinner, you will head to the incredible gorgeous Ice and Snow World, the highlights of annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Festival. Start your freedom stroll in the dazzling magical world of ice where to appreciate over 2,000 pieces of sculptures of ice and snow including pagodas, towers, famous world architectures, landscapes, and so forth dyed with romantic colorful LED lights, which can easily make you want to stay longer in such an “Ice Wonderland in Harbin”. Besides the sightseeing, if you would like to enjoy the festive atmosphere to the fullest, you can choose to have fun with the world longest sliding, or other winter activities on ice, such as ice maze, ice climbing, skating, etc.

Note: 1) Please wear enough layers of proper clothes and warm shoes to keep you away from the freeze especially when you want to stay here longer to enjoy the beautiful scenery. 2) An indoor Ice and Snow Paradise with smaller scale is built in the scenic area of the Ice and Snow World, and tourists could also enjoy the ice and snow there as well when the festival ends. 3) There may be long queues in front of some hot activity items in the Ice and Snow World during traditional Chinese Lunar New Year and weekends, and you could visit there during other dates to avoid crowds.

Day 3 Harbin & Jilin ( B,L )

Today, after breakfast, your guide and driver will meet you at your hotel. You’ll go to Sophia Square to admire the holy appearance of the St. Sophia Cathedral from 1907. This must-visit site is a typical Byzantine architecture with a large green dome and was once the largest Orthodox Church in the Far East. The cathedral is the symbolic architecture in Harbin and at present is used as Harbin Architectural Art Gallery and displays some souvenirs. Then, you’ll visit the nearby exotic Zhongyang Pedestrian Street from 1900. Stroll along this 1,400 meters long historic street to appreciate the 71 precious buildings in different styles with long history, including Renaissance, Baroque, etc. (The Stalin Park is very close to the pedestrian, so if you are interested and time permits, you could walk there to admire the Russian architectures and enjoy many creative artistic sculptures.)

After that, you’ll go to visit Heilongjiang Provincial Museum that keeps the European Baroque outside building from 1906. In this museum, a great number of valuable cultural relics of bronze, gold, jade, ceramics, paintings, etc. are on display to tell the 40,000-year long human history and culture of the whole Heilongjiang Province, from the remote era, to the rising and declining of different ethnic minorities, from the origin of the last empire era in Chinese history, to the modern time changes and development with the whole nation. Besides, you will see a rich array of imitating scenes and historical relics to know the life of Russian immigrants and their influence to make Harbin rich of Russian flavor today.

Then, you will be escorted to Jilin city about 215 kilometers away with about 5.5 hours' drive (about 310km), the second largest city in Northeast China.

Day 4 Jilin & Changchun ( B,L )

You will get up early today! After your breakfast at the hotel, your guide and driver will meet you at the hotel and then drive about 1.5 hour to visit Wusong Island (Rime Island for its beautiful rime scenery). With the best type of rimes with outstanding thickness, density and structure, much more beautiful than those in the rest of China, Wusong Island is the best place to see the natural miracle of rimes in the whole country.

Walk to say hello to the sunrise of the day. As the sun rises, more radiance sends out to to change the sky into golden, orange, pink, rose, purple, etc., and the mists over the water rise gradually to make the outline of the trees partly hidden and partly visible, which is a superb dreamy visual feast of this winter! Press your shutter as free to record such gorgeous natural masterpiece. Then, after the sky gets bluer, walk around the snow covered path, along the water and under the trees to admire the white and silver rimes decorating like the special winter jade flowers on the new dressing from winter. Enjoy your romantic dating with the fabulous sightseeing and take more amazing photos!

(Best Time for Wusong Island rime photography: rimes usually occur from December to middle February in winter, and January is the month with more frequent rime days. As rimes drops after noon hours, 07:00-11:30 is the best time for shooting the rimes and the sunrise of the day with 10:00-11:30 being the best time for rimes with blue sky.)

After that, you'll continue to visit Songhua River, enjoy the outlook of Catholic Church and discover Sika Deer Farm in the city.

After the tour, be driven to Changchun.

Day 5 Changchun & Shenyang ( B,L )

Today's tour starts from the Puppet Emperor's Imperial Palace, the official residence created by the Imperial Japanese Army for China's last emperor Puyi to live in as part of his role as Emperor of the puppet state of Manchukuo. Next, visit The Eight Ministries of Puppet Manchuguo Regime from the outside, which were established as a way for the Japanese to legitimize their claim to the territory of Northeast China.

After that, moving on to Shenyang for 4 hours and check in Hotel.

Day 6 Shenyang & Dalian ( B,L )

Today, you will first go to Shenyang Imperial Palace, the most ancient imperial architectural complex of Qing Dynasty next to the Forbidden City in Beijing. Then, visit the Former Residence of General Zhang Xueliang nearby the Imperial Palace.

Then, take a walk in Beiling Park, the largest park in the downtown of Shenyang, which is the tomb garden of the second emperor of the Qing Dynasty.

After today's tour, transfer to Dalian, a vibrant economic center and tourist city of Liaoning Province.

Day 7 Dalian ( B,L )

After breakfast, you will first visit the Xinghai Square, the landmark of Dalian City. Here you can enjoy an awesome view of the city as well as the sea. Then move on to Tiger Beach Scenic Park (Laohutan Scenic Park), the biggest modern lido in China with four parts: the Tiger Park, Singing Birds Woods, Tiger Square and an Aquarium.

After that, you will visit Dalian Harbor, which is reputed as the Bright Pearl of Northern China, and Russian Street to experience the exotic culture of this city.

Day 8 Dalian Departure ( B )

Today, you are free till our guide takes you to the airport for the flight for your next destination.

The quotation for this trip is from Request Per Person

1. This price is for one person, based on a group of 2 adults sharing one standard double-bed room in 4-star hotel and traveling with our private tour in low seasons.
2. This price is subject to change according your traveling season, group size, hotel class, change of activities in your itinerary and possible fluctuation of currency exchange rate. If you want a lower price, you can get more people to join you, or use economy class hotels.
3. This price is only valid to March 31, 2022.
4. Reference exchange rate of USD 1= RMB 6.65. The final quote is based on current exchange rate. It may change according to the currency fluctuation, while the RMB quotation will be remained the same.

How Our Teams Serve you at China Discovery

"Highest Standards of Quality and Honesty" is the core value of each specialized team at China Discovery.

Eveyone in our company is working hard for only one goal, which is to ensure the highest level of service, luxury, and attention to detail from the minute you begin planning your trip, to the day you return home.

Check What our Customers Say...

Hello Johnson,

Thanks for asking. Overall it was a very nice experience. And Jerry did a fine job. It’s nice to be taken care of someone who is enthusiastic about showing strangers around in his country.

Well I don’t know if he is but we learned a lot from him.

Later more, when I have more time, we may want to do another mountain tour somewhere else later on

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Rene - 2021.01.28‚ Germany, January 28, 2021

Me and my Wife (both of us living in Shanghai) wanted to get away from the city during Christmas, but due to Covid-19, options was limited. After talking to Johnson on China discovery, we had booked a fantastic 10 days trip through the yellow mountains and Guilin.

Johnson was fantastic with helping us, both when we changed our minds on elements of the trip, and when we forgot our passport at home before leaving for the trip. Everything was well planned and we felt safe and taken care of the whole trip.

Especially our “local mountain guide” April was fantastic, even introducing us to friends and tea tasting on Christmas Eve!

We are already planning two more trips with China discovery!

/Andreas & Joanna

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Andreas - 2021.01.28‚ Sweden, January 28, 2021

Hi Zeva,

Lijiang was lovely.

The driver is wonderful and extremely knowledgeable, so after I checked in he brought me to Songzanlin Monastery.

I'm enjoying the Monastery.

Nancy - 2021.01.27‚ USA, January 27, 2021

Hi Wonder,

Here is our feedback.

1. Is your travel consultant of our company fast enough to answer your E-mail and patient enough to answer your questions?

Yes. He is very fast in response and helped us a lot.

2. How do you comment your tour arrangements?

Very Good. Can consider 8.5 in a scale of 1 to 10.

3. Are you willing to recommend our service to your people who also have an interest to visit China?

Yes. Definitely.

4. Your general opinion on us?

The guidance of your company is enough to decide for a package.

5. Do you have any suggestions on improving our services?

So far this small tour, I found this is okay. But after a big tour I will suggest on this.

6. Can we use your comments of our service, the photos or other images that you took on the tour for our websites, brochures, marketing and publicity? If yes, could you please send us some of your photos by E-mail?

Yes. I will send some photo in wechat.

7. We sometimes have requests from potential customers who would like to inquire from or our ex-customers. May they contact you for advice?

No issue.

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Anirban - 2021.01.03‚ India, January 3, 2021

Hi Wendy,

Helen is INCREDIBLE! Love her energy and enthusiasm. Tour has been very good so far; now we are on our way to Yabuli. Oh it has been an absolute blast so far. Helen was a lifesaver in Ya Bu Li!

Ada was also very nice, but there was, unfortunately, a very big language barrier, as she had difficulty with English.

Thank you Wendy. Just finished the tour today; was a great trip overall.

Varun - 2021.01.18‚ India, January 18, 2021

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