"The Big World of Ice and Snow"

As promised this post will include my photos from the trip to the Harbin 7th Annual Ice and Snow Festival. It is nearly impossible to describe the magnitude of the festival. Not only were the sculptures themselves huge, but the number and expanse of different sculptures also took on a massive scale. You enter through a huge ice archway after paying the 110 Yuan to enter ($13.75 US). The park is filled with ice buildings, monuments and sculptures, including a huge sculplture of Buddha, Snoopy and the peanuts gang, a clock tower, a battleship and many others. All of the ice buildings are built at a scale that you can enter them and/or walk up their stairs. They had many ice activities for adults and children alike including skating, snowmobiling, tubing, luging, ice bumper cars, and my personal favorite the wind parachute plane which nearly runs down many people on each take off and landing, but allows the rider a view of the park from above. Keep in mind that we went at night and all these activities went on undeterred. However, the evening viewing was important as you can see below all the ice sculptures are internally lit. All in all it is an amazing and spectacular experience. Below are my photos:









































More and Bigger Ice Festival Photos

You can also see some professional photos of last year’s festival along with how the sculptures are made and some Harbin history at this website: http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2005_hb_if.htm

Coming soon to the blog... The family trip to the Northern Forest Zoo and the Gondola ride over the Songhua...

I am off again to Jia Mu Si tomorrow, goodnight from Harbin.