Ice and Snow World, Harbin

The Harbin International Ice and Snow festival is an annual winter festival that takes place with a theme in Harbin, Heilongjiang, China. Officially, the festival starts on January 5 and lasts till late February. However, exhibits often open earlier and stay longer, weather permitting. Each year the park has to be rebuilt with newly designed ice buildings and snow and ice sculptures. In recent years, the park has been as large as 80 hectares. Swing saws are used to carve ice into blocks, taken from the frozen surface of the Songhua River. Chisels, ice picks and various types of saws are then used by ice sculptors to carve out large scaled ice sculptures, many of them intricately designed and worked on all day and night prior to the commencement of the festival. Multicoloured lights are also used to give colour to ice, creating variations on sculptured spectacles when lit up especially at night. Some ice sculptures made in previous years include: buildings and monuments of different architectural types and styles, figures including animals people and mythical creatures, slippery dips or ice slides and lanterns. It was incredible and amazing hardwork seeing those ice sculptures. Beautiful lights reflect the ice sculptures magically. Indeed, a great experience. #tripinspired #tripmoments #tripcom #harbin #iceandsnowworld #wintergetaway #icesculptures #chinalife #chinatravel