THE CHINA FUXIN RIVER FROZE so we ice skated on it

so fascinating to me, this ice on a river. 
The kids ice skated on that same river out there sparkling blue, once it froze!
I was so nervous to even set foot on it. It took some trust but Christa talked me into it a couple of weeks ago when we first tried and went and talked to the locals down on the ice. Its thicker now than it was then. There are some large cracks now because the temperature has fluctuated a bit lately, but they run deep and are huge and don't show any separation. Indeed, it can't separate because its locked together like this puzzle of huge pieces. Weird to think that there is this deep column of water RUNNING below us. its not some static lake. 

An amazing event of nature here!

What if the ice breaks?That's a good question!  Something to think about… two weeks ago when I first went to visit the river to see how it looked being frozen, I saw some people down on the ice walking on it even ice skating on it, and I thought about how they were brave enough to do that or stupid enough… I happen to be with my wife at the time. She wanted to go down on the ice and of course I was thinking what happens if this ice breaks and I fall in the river in the current sweeps me away under the ice? I don't remember exactly what we said but I do know that she didn't think anything would happen. I reminded her that I probably weighed almost 100 pounds more than her and maybe the ice would break for me, so when I first stepped onto the edge of the ice from the bank of the river I was very nervous.

But soon my nervousness turned to fascination as I looked down and studied the bubbles and cracks and layers in the ice that was somewhat cloudy to transparent below me. I could see it seemed to be at least 4 to 6 inches thick at that time, and I thought about how rigid a piece of ice that thick would actually be… rock hard actually.
The kids want to go ice-skatingwe had some friends come to town yesterday, the Fraziers who are friends from church in a faraway city called ShenYang (3 hours by car).  They have four young kids and so we all had our ice skates from Christmas gifts and we're ready to go.
A nice pair of ice skates here costs 15 bucks is all...They had a car so we jammed everybody in from our apartment and went down to the river.  Here's some more photos from that experience:
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