About 500km from the Russian border lies a small (by Chinese standards - it has a population of 4 million) city called Harbin. Apparently it's quite famous but I'd never heard of it before (not that you should use my lack of knowledge as a benchmark), especially the ice festival that they put on every year. Hannah and I thought it would be a great way to open the new year by travelling to Harbin, where in winter the temperature averages around -20 Centigrade, to enjoy the festival. We used a local company that specialises in tours around China for non-Chinese speaking people and were given an itinerary which involved travelling up to Harbin on a sleeper train, going to the ice festival, spending a night in a hotel, doing various other activities the next day and then flying back to Beijing in the evening.

The train cabin we would be sleeping in was of the highest quality, so we were told. A soft sleeper all the way there, which had a TV for each bunk, clean sheets and comfortable beds. For those people who wanted to see the new year in with a drink in hand, the dining car would be open for business. It all sounded most agreeably excellent so, with visions in our minds of a different way to see in the new year, we booked the trip and bought some suitable attire from the local market for freezing conditions.

New years eve arrived and we hastened to Beijing Railway Station to meet the tour guides and other passengers. A brief greeting later and we were called onto the train, which looked marvellously new, really confirming my already strong belief that the train journey would be a brilliant way to see in the new year; a small party in the dining car with a spot of food and some good beer and then retreating to our cabin for some much needed sleep before waking, fully refreshed and alert, in time to step into Arctic conditions ready to take on Harbin.

It all started off so well. As advertised, the cabin was small but clean and there was indeed a TV for each bunk. A quick test showed that it worked well but was of no use to us since there were only Chinese channels available (one of which was showing Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones. The acting was still worse than an overpaid Premiership footballer feigning injury but the dialogue had vastly improved). Never mind, we'd be spending time in the dining car anyway. We began unpacking, noting to ourselves that there were four bunks and two of us. We knew that we wouldn't be sharing with anyone else from the tour, since we were in a separate car, so a small feeling of unease began to creep into my mind. Sure enough, just after we'd finished putting everything away, a small Chinese man turned up and dumped his stuff on one of the top bunks, followed almost immediately by a second who did the exact same thing except he went immediately to sleep. Oh well, so we didn't have a private cabin, it didn't matter, we'd be in the dining car enjoying some beers and seeing in the new year in style.

Off we trundled, merrily waving at many people on our way to the bar and looking forward to a good party. The dining car was empty on arrival but no matter, it had only just opened so people were bound to turn up as the night wore on. We ordered some beer and got ready to settle in for the night. Two more people from our touring party turned up but didn't want to drink (ordering Coca Cola instead). We made some small talk despite this fairly large character flaw in them, although I tried to show my displeasure by exclaiming loudly every now and then how sweet and tasty the beer was. Unfortunately I got the feeling they only thought I was a crazed alcoholic fool rather than a dashing, witty and intelligent party go-er.

A few beers in and it soon became horribly clear that no one was going to come and see in the new year in the dining car. It didn't really help that the staff of the car had made themselves a massive dinner and were enjoying it safe in the knowledge that only Hannah and I would be badgering them and then only when we wanted another beer. So there was no party in the dining car, it didn't matter. Hannah and I had a good time and just after 2008 had found us, we wound our way back to our cabin (strange how after a few drinks the train seems to wobble more, making it a bit more difficult to keep a firm footing).

We arrived back to discover that the two Chinese men were fast asleep and that the heater in the room was set to a temperature actually written on the gauge called "Surface of the Sun" (probably - I had consumed my fair share of alcohol so I may have been seeing things). Not only that but one of them was snoring so loudly it was a wonder he hadn't woken himself up. I've never heard anything that loud, not a Formula 1 car or a fighter jet. It was like trying to sleep with your head right next to a construction worker operating a pneumatic drill. Only louder. A very bad nights sleep later and it was time to prepare ourselves for arrival in Harbin. Annoyingly, the man with The Snore looked and sounded very perky so in an attempt to get him back I wafted some of my drunken fumes in his direction, sadly to little effect.

Harbin is actually quite a pleasant and pretty city. We were told it had snowed the day before our arrival (although we later found out that the local authorities had made it snow by seeding the clouds - they rely so heavily on the success of the ice festival and the fact that it should be snowy that they can't do without it) and it had made the city look clean, new and enticing, like something you might see on a postcard. Ice sculptures were dotted everywhere, throughout town and in the ice park itself and because there is an abundance of ice, they use it for other, more practical things as well. For example, where a building is under construction, they separate it off not with a fence but with ice blocks! It all looks amazing, especially when the dark settles in, when all the lights get turned on, which glitter and reflect in the snow and ice. Harbin itself doesn't resemble a traditional Chinese city, instead being mainly influenced architecturally by Russia and Europe. Russians like to spend holidays in Harbin over new year and because there were so many Europeans wandering the streets it made it easy to forget we were still in China.

The ice park is worth the trip alone and completely made up for the disappointment of the train journey. The locals take water from the river and when it freezes they create unbelievable sculptures from it in all shapes and sizes; castles (actual life size ones that you can walk into and climb up to the battlements), cars (which you can sit in - we saw someone posing in a Porsche 911), famous people, dragons, slides (which you can slide down - great fun), enormous murals and an advertisement for the Beijing Olympic games. Almost every building in the ice park is made of ice - even cafe's and souvenir shops. Even better, each structure has had neon lights built into its walls so everything can be seen from miles away and looks like an amusement park. It really is amazing. There isn't really a colour scheme, just a massive hodge-podge of every conceivable neon colour - but this doesn't detract in the slightest from the spectacle, on the contrary, it gives the place a childlike charm that is eye-wateringly appealing.

After the delights of the festival a few of us didn't want to go to bed immediately, so we made our way to the ice bar in the centre of town. The Chinese don't really have a drinking culture in the way that westerners do so the bar was almost empty. And when they say ice bar, they mean it. Everything is made of ice, the building itself, the tables, chairs (although they have a fur cover so that customers don't get too cold), the bar and the drinking glasses. Being so close to Russia, we thought it would be downright rude not to sample some local vodka and ordered a couple of shots. The first thing we discovered is that there are no laws on the measurement of one shot. In the UK it means 25ml, in China it means whenever you ask the bar man to stop pouring or the glass overflows. That wasn't the only surprise; the vodka was yellow. Instantly that age old phrase "never eat yellow snow" sprang to mind and I wondered if the same applied to drinking yellow vodka. Still, I had paid for it so I might as well drink it and it tasted amazing. Nothing like the rubbish that people buy in supermarkets in the west, it was clean and refreshingly cold and was very drinkable indeed (again unlike the supermarket vodka, which is often diluted with orange juice or Coca Cola through necessity because it tastes awful by itself). We stayed in the bar until we were almost forcibly ejected and decamped back to the hotel. Interestingly, both Hannah and I awoke without a trace of a hangover, that's how clean the vodka was. Or it really was the liquid equivalent of yellow snow.

The next day came and with it a trip to the Siberian Tiger zoo. They are the biggest type of Tiger in the world and are on the endangered species list, so getting to see them would be a privilege that we did not want to miss. There are two parts to the tour round the zoo; one in a minibus that actually takes passengers into the tigers enclosure and one on foot past caged tigers that are not yet big enough to be released into the enclosures for fear that they'll get mauled by the bigger cats. Brilliantly, visitors can buy various live animals for the tigers to eat so that when the minibus arrives at a certain point, a man in a van throws out the live animal to be slaughtered and eaten by the tigers. There is a menu with a price for each animal available to be tiger food. I can imagine that a lot of people find it somewhat distasteful, even completely grotesque and wrong, but I was very intrigued by this and, frankly, couldn't wait to see a tiger eat. Sadly, our tour guides only bought a couple of live chickens, which didn't take the tigers long to kill and consume. Apparently the tour used to listen to what the punters wanted until last year when things went a little awry. Every member of the tour agreed that a live cow (only 1500 RMB - about £100) should be put in to the tigers enclosure to see how the tigers would go about killing such a big animal. Well, it turns out very messily. As soon as the cow was in there, the tigers pounced and tore the poor beast to shreds. People in the bus weren't expecting it to be so gruesome, and with blood and cow parts flying everywhere and spattering on the bus, some poor folks reverse ate their breakfast and the minibus had to exit quickly from the park because people wanted to get out, which is a bad idea when there are hungry tigers about. Still, it was amazing to see these huge cats wander around the park as though they owned it (which, I suppose, they do. After all, would you walk up to a Siberian Tiger and tell it to get off your land?) and it's sad to think that in a few years, there will likely be no more of these magnificent creatures left in the wild.

The remainder of the day was spent wandering around Harbin, taking in the bizarre Chinese-Euro culture, before we made our way to the airport and back home to Beijing. The trip hadn't started off as well as we'd hoped, but everything else had surpassed all our expectations, with the possible exception of not being allowed to watch a pack of bloodthirsty tigers ravish a cow.