If you’ve ever wondered what Santa’s village in the North Pole would look like (if it were real), this is probably it.
Last weekend, the 33rd annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival opened in Harbin in China’s Heilongjiang province. It’s stunning and unique and just…beautiful. Each year artists from all over the world come together to make amazing ice sculptures (including an entire ice city!). Towering ice versions of castles and famous buildings spread over the city in a way that’s genuinely magical.
Even if you hate the cold (and it is COLD there with temperatures expected to be as low -27 degrees Celsius), it’s hard not to marvel at these stunning images of ice-carved art pieces that take over the city every year and draw over a million tourists.
Some of the ice buildings are up to 50 meters tall!
The festival draws winter enthusiasts of all kinds with activities such as skiing, ice skating, hockey, and various competitions like a polar swimming contest, and sillier events like a freezing bikini contest. People even line up to get married there in a mass public group wedding.
So take a visual tour of the sculptures and buildings they created this year entirely out of ice. And know that you still have time to visit! The festival lasts (weather permitting) until the end of February!
(Don’t tell the global warming deniers.)
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