So.... I looked at the photos and was wondering whether i would split the blog post into two! because its the first day of ice hotel. Well FINALLY FINALLY, mum's bucket list, the ICE. HOTEL. Funny thing is that i told mum about it!! but when i found out the price that we had to pay (Including the whole holiday) it was shocking alright! but after looking back at all the fun times i had during this trip, i do feel happy and sad! happy that the memories are good, sad that "those were the good times" i mean when you come back to Singapore, then that's when your everyday life hits back at ya, all the work, timings, fretting over future studies. There's so many things to worry about!! But Chinese New Year is into the third day! xD Frankly speaking, i had no idea CNY was coming THIS soon alright! i thought i still had a long while more to go, life seems pretty mysterious/messy now as i see it as a transitioning period. Though nothing is really transitioning. I'm weird!

Oops i nearly forgot, here is the mini van that we got! its pretty comfy, with wifi inside! so i could actually surf the net while the van just cruised along the snow. Though i took this time to catch 9999999999 winks, it's good to keep yourself healthy with sufficient sleep so that you can enjoy your holiday when it's the time to!






 I took this photo, extremely blur i know, to show you how's the sky like in the afternoon! the clock on my phone was following their time, not Singapore's time.

We had a pit stop at a cafe which was filled with IKEA furniture, moreover IKEA is from Sweden! too bad we didnt visit their outlets there, i think mum should have a photo of it...
 You can see how nicely done up the place is! and you really have a very christmas-y feel in there, partly because the decorations are pretty simple and traditional, should have taken more photos inside xD thought i did. Ah but even the toilet is very nicely decorated! it really shows the amount of effort they are willing to put in, although there's absolutely no one inside!

What was surprising is that after ordering some cooking and sorts of snack, she actually offered us her handmade cookies! so hospitable huh!! and she gave us more than what we ordered. I guess that's the difference between them and us. We instead, are so calculative and tend to be pretty defensive/selfish.

HEHEHEHE shuks i so love this photo!!! Because of the pink clouds and the colour resolution seems just right! :D moreover this is the exact contrast of how it was when i was there! pretty homey dont ya think so?? :D :D
 This is the reception area for the warm rooms, and this is where you book activities like ice sculpting,

 These are the warm rooms! It's really spacious inside :>  you'll get to see the interior in my next blog post for sure! because that's when we moved to the warm room.

 This is the entrance to the ice hotel! Past this wall on the right, you have the reception area :)

EH BRO, WHATcha looking at huh!





OkAY and this is the cold room reception area!
The ice block you see in front, is supposed to be as transparent as the block on top of it. That's the original ice block! however, on the night before, -40 degrees celcius, whereas when we reached, it was -20. So.... due to the drastic change in temperature, the ice actually became frosted!








This is the interesting part, Ice hotel ice is actually supposed to be totally transparent! like the one you see. This is due to the oxygen-hydrogen composition in the river water which makes it special when it freezes. This is unlike our ice cubes, that have a whitish layer above or at times, the entire ice cube becomes frosted! So that's how it's supposed to be like, everything transparent!
We soon checked in our luggage and all, there was some free time so we could roam around. Also, the people were kind enough to give us an introduction of the place! Even if there's only two of you, they will still give an introcution for ya!

This place actually became our home fot the night, until it was time to sleep! But i dont think i will blog till that far for now.... if not, the blog post is going to be pretty elongated.













We soon got our pass, we have to put this on throughout, especially in the night because they need to identify that you are someone sleeping there for the night, because during the day, they allow visitors into every room to explore. That is because not all the rooms are the same! Moreover, it's hard to get a room in the ice hotel, so you actually have to book quite far in advance!

Mum booked an arts suite for bro and I, and a normal cold room for herself and dad. Pricings... i think it was a thousand plus Sing dollars per night for the arts suite, so just one night is good enough. i forgot the actual pricing.... will find out from mum when she's somewhere around. Ah but the rooms are very nice, though the price isnt as nice! Every arts suite is different, while the other cold rooms are identical. Wonder how it's like to sculpt an entire room of ice O.o

You can read up about the ICE HOTEL here on their official website.
Online reviews have loads of people saying to simply visit there, because after all you can see all the cold rooms, but after having stayed there, i think it's really an experience that you won't want to miss. Plus if you're going all the way there already, might as well!

Lemme show ya around the reception area of the ice hotel! the cold portion has all these fully equipped bathing facilities for you, they have EVERYTHING. Well that's because you cant bathe in your own cold room! (obviouslyyyy)
Guess which side is male, which side is female! The reeptionist is really helpful and pretty! xD

 The storage rooms for the arts suites, along with an unimpressed bro. That's his usual expression anyway~!
As you can tell by the number of rooms that they have, that there are A LOT of arts suites. Also, every room has a mirror, a bench for two and a power plug with coat hanagrs and all, more than enough! And mind you this is only for storing your luggage okay! You can easily store a brother or two. Also, i used the room pretty often to charge my phones and all!
 And these are the storage areas for the normal cold rooms... As you can tell, it's not as impressive as the arts suite. A lot smaller, cant store a brother or two inside. A stark comparison from the arts suite storage places aye?


From the reception room, you can walk from this side door to enter the ice hotel, as you can tell, the ice is all frosted! imagine how it would look like if it was clear :P how cool~ that means i should make a second trip there!!
 This is what greeted us right after that door, its a mini bar with only alcoholic drinks, filled up in their very own special ice hotel cup! it looks like an ice cube, with a shot glass shape in the middle.... pity i didnt take a photo of it~
 Well.....they are actually not done building it yet! Which explains those tapes all around, even two of the expensive rooms arent done yet, and those rooms are more expensive than the arts suite O.o Scary huhhhh. The rooms even have sliding doors but that's all i saw alright. Its amazing how this hotel is totally built from scratch every year, with all the electiricty stuff running all around, it sure is amazing huh!!

This is one of the many walkways that you will see, and at the sides are all of the cold rooms! we first explored the normal cold rooms before the suites. As you can see, there is no door, but they give you curtains! There is a timing to sleep, whereby that timing onwards will mean that no stranger can walk into your room, which is... i think 7.30pm? something like that. I forgot. All i remember is that they have an indoor tour which starts at 5pm, by their really friendly peeps! AND THEIR JACKETS ARE SOOOOO NICE. they look like silver in colour robin hoods ^^

Here are the pics of the cold room..


 Along with the new smoke alarms that was required by law....
fyi last year, the ice hotel was nearly forced to shut down if they couldn't implement this law. Although frankly speaking what's gonna catch fire here?

Let's move on to the arts suite shall we! :D This is how the arts suite walkway looks like, something different from the normal cold rooms because they have the names of the designers engraved unto them! i have a photo of it, no worries (y)

 This is the room that we initially got, though mum didnt like it because it looked scary. I liked the room! but not mum and bro so by the grace of God, someone cancelled their reservation so there was a spare room to swop with! :D

HEHE photos of the rooms later on in another post kay!!

HERE ARE THE PHOTOS OF THE ARTS SUITES


Works are still on going, with all the sculptors busy carving their way through ice with ultra sharp chisels. trust me they are ULTRA sharp. I later learnt that these chisels are sharpened over a few steps, with the last one being the same as sharpening a samurai blade. Yeap they adopt the same sharpening techniques.


 I was seriously wondering if the contents inside the fire extinguisher is actually frozen! I mean like hard to say rightttt :P

 More works being done to the ice bar and ice church! yea you heard it, ice CHURCH. lets gets married people!!!! :D :D The ice bar is supposed to be pretty huge, but they aren't done yet! apparently we were a week early. sadly.

Above is a shot of the entrance to the ice hotel! Mind you we only went in for about an hour tops and boomz SO DARK. In case you're wondering, those are reindeer skins on the door and horns as the handles. lets call it a reindeer door kay? now i want a reindeer door!! >:))

That's the bed, ice, followed by ANOTHER layer of ice, then that mattress on top, which get's kinda damp-y when you step on it with your socks and a reindeer skin. You're given a sleeping bag anyway!

Hehe after that i started playing around with shutter speed xD playful mood kicked in~!




Soon, night descended and we went to seek refuge in the reception area! at times, i wonder where everybody went. Like surely there are more people! The reception area was slightly packed in the night :)

This is the reception area....which soon became more crowded than this! every chair was taken, EVERY MAN FOR HIS OWN CHAIR

 Here, you see bro  and i playing cards! 2 person dai dee. and you see bro trying to sweet talk a plastic cup. JKJK. hmmm once again, the receptionists are EXTREMELY helpful, when we requested for hot water, they bothered to suit up and go to the main building to fetch hot water for us! and they did it TWICE, with a smile okay!! The service was really really good, they always ensure that you are properly taken care of and in the best of moods! They are as polite and well mannered as the japanese, just that they don't bow. That's all, which isn't a big deal. I was really touched by their service standards, bravo bravo!!

At the reception area, you have people watching sitcoms on their ipads, or listening to music, or reading books, or like us playing cards! it was a really really pleasant experience with a lively ambience in the area! One of the most memorable places out of the entire trip of mine i would say :) a MUST GO TO place indeed!! You see people piling up the wall sockets, you have a really warm fireplace (not that teeny fire in my photo, that is fake btw) really comfy place to be in! and everyone really treats that place like its their home. That's what i like about it! you can walk around in socks, etc etc. nobody cares.
OH YES i forgot to mention! you know when the receptionist "suits up" (trying not to think of iron man but yea) in this kind of extreme cold weather, one does not simply put on a jacket and walk out the door okay. All the layers that they have to put on as well as the boots and all, its really a hassle, but they bother to! and they continuously offered to refill for us if need be :)

here are the photos before we tucked ourselves to sleep!! They gave us a change of boots to theirs instead, so that during the next morning, we wouldnt wake up with FREEZING boots because we have to remove them when we sleep! theres a tutorial and all on the layers we put on before going to bed. boots is an optional thing, BETTER TAKE IT. because during the next morning when we woke up, my boots were chillingly cold thanks to the -5 degrees inside! its really like sleeping in a freezer. seriously.  Especially when you're having activities for the next day, please go get their boots instead, keep yours warmly locked up in your locker!
 I wore my earmuffs to sleep for that extra comfy warmness, it got REALLY cold in the night as i tried to fall asleep!! its a wonder that bro fell asleep by the time i reached my room xD that's how long i took. but anyway, he woke up half way during the night and continued his sleep in the reception area because it was too cold. LOL same thing for dad.
 Bloop! my face sinks into the sleeping bag! i stored my camera bag along with my camera into the sleeping bag, phone i left it to charge in the storage rooms provided :) well in this kind of weather, you wouldnt know when your phone will konk out on ya so charge it to maaaaaximum!
 HMMMM soon, i used the blue blanket that they provided to cover my mouth. Reason being when i sleep, i breathe through my mouth instead of nose. So in order to make it not dry up so fast, cover cover!

oh oh i nearly forgot the robin hood looking jackey did i!! SILVER ROBIN HOOD

THATS ALL FOR THE FIRST DAY HOOOOO LONG POST YEEEEEEEAARRRRHHHH
photos. as usual.