Ice Ice Baby.....have I used that title before?

Today is the day that we visit Harbins 27th annual Snow and Ice Festival! Whoop whoop!

The festival covers 3 sites, Sun Island hosts both the Snow Sculpture exhibition and the 'World of Snow and Ice'. Zhaolin Park hosts the Disney Winter Wonderland. For the sake of time, cost and circulation, we decide to visit only two, the two on Sun Island (a decision we were glad we made seeing as there was plenty of Disney to go around at the other two).

We were training home the next day, so we decided to hit up the snow sculptures in the morning with the light, and then visit the Snow and Ice World in the evening with the hostel, saving us the inevitable getting-the-wrong-bus-and-freezing-to-death scenario that would be involved in transporting ourselves.

After bundling ourselves up in all our finery (everything in our bags) once again, we set off once more across the icy Songhua River Tundra and arrived on the doorstep of snow world, where we were greeted by 'Joy Bunnies Greet Guest'. After posing for a couple of photos for a nice Chinese lady we met, we wandered into the festival.

Sara prepares for -30!

Apparently this years theme is 'Merry Snow and Ice Festival. Passionate Country', which I guess leaves it open for just about anything and everything. It doesn't really matter, some of the sculptures we saw were stunning, many of them were easily recognisable internationally, others were more abstract, illustrating concepts rather than actual objects or people.

Kung Fu Panda (that's for you Dad :D)

Represents evolution I believe

There was also what appeared to be a competition going on, lots of people were still working on their entries, people come from all over the world to enter the competition, here are some of the entries we saw.

At one point I was wandering around and heard a thump, looked back to see Sara laying on her side in the snow. No one laughed...it was quite amazing really. I managed to keep my mirth under control seeing as you never know when you're next going to fall over yourself! Bless her, shes got a painy hip and shoulder thanks to that one.

Some of those sculptures were absolutely beautiful, but we had no idea what was about to greet us this evening as we wandered back to the hostel to warm up.

At 5pm that evening we all bundled onto a minibus to head to the World of Snow and Ice. I'm not sure there's an awful lot I can say that does justice to this place. I'm going to let the pictures talk for themselves (and then inevitably burble on about it for a while afterwards anyway!).

The entrance to the Festival

It was something quite incredible, people work from November onwards to achieve this, in significantly sub-zero temperatures! It's not even like they can keep the bulk of it up all year, as Harbin can reach 36ish degrees in the summer months. All the ice is taken from the Songhua River.'

The slides were fun too, Sara and I didn't go on the biggest, which had a huge queue and looked of questionable safety, but we had some fun on the smaller ones. Especially the moment when I was sat down ready to slide, and I heard a familiar thump from behind me. I turned around to see Sara laid flat out on her back, groaning. There she lay for about 20 seconds. During these few seconds, I could be seen from the bottom of the slide trying to scrabble myself backwards on my arse away from the top of the slide without slipping and shooting straight down in a flurry of limbs and iced tea (which kept falling out of my pocket) whilst shouting 'Sara! Are you ok Sara??' She turned out to be fine, but had a bruised arse and head to go with her hip and shoulder.

One thing I have to mention is the tea I had here. Sara and I stopped in a warm little café for a sausage on a stick and a warm drink. I was enjoying my very sweet milk tea when suddenly something solid shot up the straw.

As you can imagine. It was rapidly ejected back into the tea as I mildly freaked out regarding the unidentified floating object in my beverage. It turns out that (for fun I imagine...as I can see no other possible reason) the Chinese like to put jelly in their tea. Apparently it's also common in soft drinks and fruity drinks across Asia. Unlike the trains...I'd like to encourage the UK NOT to take up this practice. It's chewy and it's weird! Jelly tea is made of wrong and fail.

Safe to say, jelly tea aside, Harbin Snow and Ice Festival lived up to and beyond my expectations. The pictures really don't do it justice. To top off a great day, we spent the evening getting a bit tipsy with Severin (spelling? Correct me if I'm wrong!) and Andrea, a lovely Austrian couple that we met at the hostel *big waves to you if you're reading this*.

Thank you Harbin. Back to Beijing now where it's a bit warmer (only -7 degrees)...whoop!