Harbin, HOLIDAYS, Uncategorized HARBIN: SNOW SCULPTURES 3 February 2010

Harbin’s Snow Sculpture Festival has been around since 1985, and I’d wager that it gets better and better every year. It’s also home to a Guinness Record of the largest snow sculpture: 250 metres long, 28 feet (8.5 m) high, using over 13,000 cubic metres of snow. Hard to appreciate it by just reading those words, or even to see the photos below. The photos just can’t capture the IMMENSE looming sculptures and the jaw-dropping knowledge that they’re built entirely out of snow… in just a few weeks (working day & night nonstop). It’s truly an incredible sight.

White, white, white everywhere! Ice and snow on the ground, huge snow sculptures everywhere you look. Wonderful to behold but OMGGGG it was freezing. We could only survive 1 hour out there. My fingers went numb and my toes actually HURT like hell – so painful it was like they were burning and I couldn’t walk without limping. So then we ran into an ice hut which housed a little cafe selling (heavily overpriced) beverages and with lots of heater inside to warm up. It took us a good 30 mins to warm back up, before we headed back outside for another 1 hour round of sight-seeing the snow sculptures.

An awesome experience. We loved it!


Entering the Snow Sculptures

EVERYTHING is made of snow, snow and more snow

Freezing snow, everywhere!

Video of the snow sculptures (that’s Chris talking.. and me waving!)

(link for China visitors)

A snow cabin

A mini ice slide

Video of Chris zoooming down the mini ice slide

(link for China visitors)

Another huge snow sculpture

WOW

Scurrying into one of those snow-covered huts, for a hot beverage

Dusk – when the temperatures drop a further 10 degrees


Let’s Chat!




Let's Chat!

The sculptures are so awesome!! I love the photos from Harbin, I’d like to visit too but I think I’ll have to gear up for the cold… for a couple of years… haha πŸ™‚

Harbin looks like such an amazing place, and those sculptures look awesome!

Also, all of these photos are making me cold just LOOKING at them, I couldn’t imagine what -30 feels like! I don’t think I could handle it anyway, 15C is too cold for me πŸ˜›

it was just incredible in real life, it’s a shame we couldn’t quite capture how amazing they were in photos, doh. still , not too bad

The sculptures are so awesome!! I love the photos from Harbin, I’d like to visit too but I think I’ll have to gear up for the cold… for a couple of years… haha πŸ™‚

Harbin looks like such an amazing place, and those sculptures look awesome!

Also, all of these photos are making me cold just LOOKING at them, I couldn’t imagine what -30 feels like! I don’t think I could handle it anyway, 15C is too cold for me πŸ˜›

Yeah it was kind of a shocking freezing.. and so painful on the skin! I wouldn’t wanna live there, that’s for sure πŸ˜‰

it was just incredible in real life, it’s a shame we couldn’t quite capture how amazing they were in photos, doh. still , not too bad

Wow. These sculptures are incredible and to be able to have seen this in person would be worth any price. Very, very cool. πŸ™‚

Yeah it was kind of a shocking freezing.. and so painful on the skin! I wouldn’t wanna live there, that’s for sure πŸ˜‰

Wow. These sculptures are incredible and to be able to have seen this in person would be worth any price. Very, very cool. πŸ™‚