"Welcome to Harbin! This evening, I would like to show you the famous Ice Festival, the church of St Sophia, and Stalin Park by the frozen Songhua River!" The words did not come from a paid guide, but from a local college teacher, Mr Alex,our volunteer guide in freezing cold Harbin city.

The contrast of his warm welcome with the icy cold of Harbin turned out to be the popular saying of this four-day trip to Harbin.

Leaving the mild winter of Shanghai behind, a small group of four people set out to discover the beauty and true winter of Harbin,capital of China's northernmost province: Heilongjiang.

Harbin, a former fishing village turned million-dwelling city,cannot escape its Russian influence:Colorful babushka dolls are on sale in Russian handcraft stores throughout Harbin, just as the Russian past is exhibited in the museum of St Sophia church. At the time we arrived at St Sophia,though, the lights were on and the museum was closed, so we enjoyed the large Russian orthodox building from the exterior.

All through the city center the night was lit by colorful chains of neon lightbulbs on trees and ice blocks, at times beautifully,at times as kitsch as can be, contrasting the snow on the broad boulevards and the darkness with man-made warmth.

Harbin appears, at first sight, to be a lot less populated than Shanghai, though Mr Alex assures us that in summertime the sidewalks here are also crowded and streets are full of bikes. That Harbin strikes to have less construction work taking place and less skyscrapers really says more about Shanghai than Harbin.

Harbin sported a chilling minus 28 degrees that evening, turning even three layers of skiwear into useless clothing for keeping out the cold. We were warned about the weather before coming, and the locals, like Mr Alex, who wore a fine coat and nice shoes, appeared less affected.

Most famous of all in Harbin is the annual Ice Festival in which artists take large pieces of ice from the Songhua River and sculpt them into either figures or huge buildings. The sheer size of the park displaying these ice sculptures was overwhelming. The most sculpturelike pieces are lit from the outside whereas the many buildings, some up to eight meters tall, have colorful lighting built into them as part of the ice-construction.

For many visitors, the Ice Festival is what brings the crowds to Harbin. And the Ice Festival can be both too much and too little, meant in the way that it is quite difficult to catch the night-time atmosphere on camera, mostly because of the difficult light conditions and also because digital cameras tend to freeze under sub-zero temperatures. At the same time, it is somehow too much because of the challenging temperature, which makes it almost impossible to stroll around to enjoy all the sculptures. Aside from that, the neon lights sometimes makes the sculptures look like something out of Disneyland.

Afterwards a brisk walk led us to Stalin Park by the frozen Songhua River. For visitors who long for a more authentic Harbin, this is the place for sights of huge red lanterns blowing decoratively in the wind on the monument for survivors of Harbin's catastrophes of the flooding. At the promenade huge slides have been built in ice, on which children and grown-ups alike can be seen with big smiles screaming as they slide down towards the slopes of the frozen lake.

A trip to Harbin would not be complete if one does not try the local kitchen, so Mr Alex took our small group to what might look like a simple restaurant, but it specialized in delicious small dishes which are assembled in large thin pancakes. On the side was served a sour-sweet soup.

For visitors fascinated by skiing,China has a skiing resort about 200 kilometers east of Harbin, in Yabuli. On the second day of the trip our small group ventured to the Northeast Chinese piste, by train, from Harbin to Yabuli, a three-hour ride, and ended up in Wind Mill Ski Resort.

The beautiful Yabuli skiing resort in winter PHOTOS BY IDA RELSTED The first day of skiing left only a few hours on the slopes, but the blazing icy winds left even the biggest enthusiast content to start out this way. On the wildest wind we were unable to move even with our skis pointing downhill. The same slopes hosted the third Asian Winter Games in 1996.

On the second day of skiing the quality of snow had improved and the sun was up, giving some last hours of superb skiing in a country not widely known for this typeof tourist attraction. After this, it was time to leave the small village behind for a long journey by train and then airplane.

Back in Shanghai, which by now had reached almost spring-like temperatures, there was no mistake that Harbin is a true winter wonder-land for those who enjoy snow and ice, yet dur ing this season it is a destination for t he most resistant tourists. So it might be a winter wonderland, but only for the tough traveler.