Step-by-step guide to Harbin's best sights

When snow birds flock to warmer climes in Hainan, bolder travelers head to the spectacular Harbin Ice and Snow Festival, in northeastern Heilongjiang province.

Think Beijing is cold? Think again. There is a place where not blinking fast enough can make your eyelashes seal together with frost. Here, people don ski masks not to rob a bank, but to keep the tips of their noses and the apples of their cheeks warm.

Travelers arriving by plane (a mere 90-minute flight from Beijing) or by the comfortable "Z" overnight train can start acclimating themselves to the cold with a daytime stroll down Zhongyang Dajie (Central Street). East meets West along these cobblestone pedestrian walks where shoppers can browse through a vast array of trendy goods housed in century-old buildings. Harbin's residents are known as much for their exuberant hospitality as for their excessive drinking and liberal fashion sense.