一月二十七日，我从北京去哈尔滨，中国北方黑龙江省的省城。由于黑龙 江从俄罗斯很近, 哈尔滨还有很独特混合两国家的文化。我去看 聖索菲亞教堂，亚洲最大东正教教堂。教堂的架构非常漂亮。 虽然聖索菲亞教堂现在不是在服务的教堂，但是里面有摄影馆。摄影馆给我很有意思关于城市历史的一瞥。还有，我去哈尔滨国际冰雪节。我以前看到很多照片可是我还没明白真的规模。
整个村庄被修建了冰，包括酒吧，饭馆，教堂和邮局。我最终决定加入很长的排队。我不知道为什么我们都排队但是这个地方明显很流行。过了一会独自在寒冷站，我跟我的中国排队邻居开始谈话，我问他们为什么我们排队。答案是三百米的冰滑。这个冰滑听起来有点吓人但是我全神贯注于谈话所以我不担心太多。排队是非常好为了有效地花时间练习汉语的机会。滑冰实际上很痛苦因为滑冰结束的时候，人民被扔到雪墙上。
虽然大部分我的同学们回国，我跟有些朋友住在北京来过春节。二月十八日以前，我觉得春节庆典大概跟西方除夕庆典有相似。最大的区别是城市成为非常安静。北京成为鬼城因为大家回家来跟家人过春节。焰火的使用也比较有声有色。从晚上八点到早晨三点，北京不断有焰火。从我窗户的风景很漂亮，城市非常丰富多彩。十九日，我们去看地坛的庙会。庙会的气氛很激动：大量人群，很吵音乐和很多食品。而且，我们观看了舞狮表演。我们那天经历很多中国文化！我们的假期很快结束但是我盼望不久再上课。
ENGLISH TRANSLATION
On the 27th January, I set out from Beijing for Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province in Northern China. Due to its proximity to Russia, Harbin retains a distinct character that blends two different countries’ cultures. I visited St Sophia’s Cathedral, the largest Orthodox church in Asia. The church’s architecture was fantastic. Although St Sofia’s is no longer an active church, it houses a photography museum which provided an interesting insight into the city’s history. I also went to the Harbin Ice and Snow Festival. I had seen a number of photos but I did not truly appreciate the scale of it until I entered.
An entire village including bars, restaurants, a mock church and even a post office had been constructed entirely out of ice. I eventually chose to join a queue for an attraction that was evidently extremely popular although I did not know exactly what it was. After a while standing alone in the cold, I decided to strike up conversation with my Chinese neighbours about what we were queueing for. The answer was a 300m long ice slide which sounded quite worrying but I was too engrossed in conversation with my Chinese neighbours to think too much about it. The queue was a great opportunity to make productive use of my time by practising my Mandarin. The ice slide in the end ended up being rather painful, especially as the slide came to a rapid end in the form of a wall of snow that riders were flung into.
Although most of my classmates had returned home, I stayed in Beijing with a few friends to celebrate Spring Festival. Before February 18th, I thought that Spring Festival celebrations would be similar to Western New Year celebrations. The biggest difference was how quiet the city became: Beijing became a ghost town as people returned home to celebrate Spring Festival with their families. The use of fireworks was also more impressive. From about 8pm until 3am, there were constant fireworks. The view from my window was wonderful; the city was extremely colourful. The next day, we went to the Temple of Earth to explore the temple fair. The temple atmosphere was very exciting: large crowds, loud music and lots of food. We also saw a lion dancing performance.We experienced a lot of Chinese culture that day! Holidays are now coming to an end but I look forward to starting class again before long.