January 24, 2008

Harbin Ice Festival

Archway to Chapel

The Harbin Ice Festival is an annual event held in Harbin, the capital city of Heilongjiang Province. Usually falling on January 5 and lasting a month, the festival exerts a strong draw on both local residents and visitors.


With 190-day freezing season, the northeastern city of Harbin is known as a "City of Ice" and a cradle of the ice-and-snow culture in the world. The long and frigid winter, and the high plasticity and hardness of ice blocks quarried from the Songhua River, furnish favorable conditions for ice and snow sculpture. On January 5, 1985, the first Harbin Ice and Snow Festival was unveiled. Since then it has become an annual event, which is highly acclaimed around the world. Harbin was also the venue of the Third Asian Winter Sports Tournament.





I would LOVE to visit the ice festival. It's so beautiful! I'm not so sure I could handle the temperatures, though!

1 comment:

  1. Wow, that is lovely isn't it? I've never seen it before.

    ReplyDelete