BellaOnline Forums Travel and Culture Chinese Culture Harbin Ice Sculpture Festival

Hi Caroline! I found some wonderful photos of the Harbin Ice Sculpture Festival on the BBC website (see below). Please tell me more about this festival.

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Sarah,

Thanks for the reminder on this. I had completely forgotten about this Festival this year. This festival normally happens around Janauary-February timeframe (depending on how long it stays cold). Harbin is in the northern most part of China, the Heilongjiang Provience, right on the border of Russia. It's not uncommon for that region to get below zero and stay there for most of winter. People from all over the world come to participate in the competition and build those ice sculptures. And at night it's WAY impressive. They light up all the ice with neon lights. I'll go do some research and see if I can find some pictures from this year's competition.

Back already.

This is a site with some images from this year I think: http://www.rtoddking.com/chinawin2005_hb_if.htm

It's amazing to think that ALL of it is made out of ice and snow, even that whole Summer Palace recreation.

Amazing to think they have people walking all over the sculptures. Thanks for the info and the link. Gorgeous photos on that website. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" />

Yeah. That slide looks like fun. <img src="/images/graemlins/smile.gif" alt="" /> I'd love to go there one day as I've never been to the festival but I'm not sure I could stand the cold. I'm a bit timid when it comes to extreme weathers.

Of course, having said that, my avatar picture has me in just my Tai Chi uniform outside in the snow. It wasn't below zero but it was pretty cold.