The temperature in Harbin, China reaches forty below zero, and stays below freezing nearly half of the year! The city is actually farther north than notoriously cold Vladivostok, Russia, just 300 miles away. So what does one do here every winter? Hold an outdoor festival, of course! Rather than suffer the cold, the residents of Harbin celebrate it with the Harbin International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival.
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The ice festival, a few miles away from the snow festival, is anything but dull and colorless. Crowds flocking to the entrance are greeted by dance music booming in the distance, as if at an outdoor pop concert. And bright neon colors shine everywhere, buried within huge blocks of ice forming structures as high as thirty meters. The great green wall, pictured below, doubles as a long ice slide; just sit and go! You can pick up some serious speed and wipe out spectacularly at the bottom if you're wearing a slick coat. Making it to the top of this structure is an accomplishment in itself - imagine walking up a stairway of solid ice for two floors with no handrails. Most structures have no internal support system - just ice.
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It's like Disneyland, with multiple attractions, food, kids running around, and people lined up for the bathrooms. The only difference is the temperature is more than 100 degrees colder than the average trip to Disneyland, and slipping & falling here doesn't result in tremendous lawsuits. Hundreds of years ago, during the Manchu days of ice lantern art, the sculptures were lit only by candles.
5 comments:
yah, so stop complaing carrie. :)
WOW if it weren't for the cold it would be a place I would want to go.
I think I get the general idea from the pictures. (Now I don't have to go.)
that's ridiculous.
Wow, I love how pretty it looks all lit up with the colored lights. I think it would be so much fun to go and see it in real life!
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