Harbin’s Winter Ice Festival
It has been particularly cold in Harbin this year with winter temperatures reaching 30 degrees below zero. Our guide told us that Harbin maintains more than 190 days each year at below freezing temperatures, enabling the city’s festival of ice. We felt lucky that it was only 10 below F when we visited the ice sculptures at 4:30 in the afternoon. It was dark and the lights were brilliant. We appreciated our hand and foot warms and were able to spend nearly an hour and a half enjoying the spectacle.
Some say beautiful and some kitschy, but the ice festival, launched in 1963, is a delight. Most of the structures are copies of favorite sights, illuminated with brilliant colored lights. For example, this year we saw the Coliseum, St. Basil’s Cathedral, a spire from Iraq, Borobudur (Indonesia), St. Paul’s facade (Macau), and the Sphinx. We chuckled as we entered the ice version of the Grand Palace in Bangkok, having visited the real thing only a week before in sweltering hot temperatures. And of course our daughter enjoyed the many ice slides throughout the complex of structures.
Would I go back? Nah. The Harbin Winter Ice Festival is definitely worth a visit – once. Maybe more for those who embrace the cold.
2 comments
Thanks so much for your great posts about Harbin! For the upcoming Chinese New Year holiday, my husband and I had thought we would go to Laos. Then we found out that we don’t have as much time as we previously thought. Travel takes up so much time. Then we thought – why not check out the Harbin Ice Festival? Are we crazy? Will it be ridiculously cold and crowded!? We’re probably going to do it – I’ll need to stock up on long johns, though! I live in Shandong Province and so far have not needed thermal underwear. We’ve been in China for 4 years and always talk about visiting Harbin. Maybe this is the year.
I think it will be crowded (you know better than I that this is one of the biggest travel time for Chinese), but it will also be fun. They sell tickets to the festival so perhaps they limit attendance. I was surprised that though our hotel was at capacity, the actual festival did not feel crowded. As for the cold, i highly recommend hand and foot warmers! Have fun – it’s great!