A Rainbow-Colored Dream: Check out China’s International Ice & Snow Sculpture Festival

The thick snow and hard ice in a province in China are useful for tourism as they launched their 33rd Annual Harbin International Snow and Ice Festival which officially opened last January 5. Many tourists are arriving to witness gigantic ice sculptures with multi-colored lights.

Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang province, annually prepares for this winter wonderland event. The said festival has different themed zones but what catches the eyes of the people is the Harbin Ice and Snow World where they can take great selfies with buildings of ice. The sculptures look like huge glass structures in daylight and best at night since they are illuminated by Technicolor LED Lights.

The main attraction covers a land with 750,000 square meters and consists of up to 300,000 cubic meters of snow and ice. The blocks of ice came from the frozen Songhua River. Smithsonian Magazine reported that the preparation started in earlier months with 50 farmers who began to dig enormous blocks of ice using a saw for 20 days.

According to CNN, different ice sculptors are competing in creating the best ice masterpiece and they even traveled from different countries just to join the festival.  Most of the sculptures got their inspiration from China's fairy tales and known landmarks. One of these features 'Kuanyin', a Chinese goddess of mercy, which stands underneath a castle-like ice structure.

The Ice and Snow World was launched on January 5 but since they completed the construction in mid-December, the organizers decided to conduct a trial operation last December 21. It attracted hordes of tourists who took a lot of the pictures with the snow structures.

The Harbin Ice and Snow World began its annual festival last 1985. As the time went on, it attracted a huge number of people which makes it one of the biggest snow festival destinations in the world ranked together with Japan's Sapporo Snow Festival and Canada's Quebec Winter Carnival.

The temperature of the place was reported to be minus 13 to minus 24 Celsius. This makes the sculptures lasted until late February, depending on the weather.

TagsChina, Snow Sculpture