Bitacoreando

R Todd King: China Photos 2003 - Northeast Winter

Harbin Snow and Ice Festival The temperature in Harbin reaches forty below zero, both farenheit and centigrade, and stays below freezing nearly half the year. This Chinese city is actually further 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 an annual festival of snow and ice sculptures and competitions. The festival officially runs from January 5 through February 15, but often opens a week early and runs into March, since it’s usually still cold enough. This is the amazing sculpture made of snow greeting visitors to the snow festival in 2003.

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An overview of the ice festival from atop the Great Wall of ice.  It’s like a Disney theme park, with multiple attractions and food hawkers and kids running around and people lined up for bathrooms.  The only differences are that the temperature is about a hundred degrees colder than the typical Disney park, and all the structures are made out of ice rather than plastic - and slipping and falling here doesn’t result in tremendous lawsuits.

(Vía StumbleUpon)