Article by Lola Adewoyin

Even though China is well known for its historical, cultural and architectural heritage, tourists still get to enjoy the best of China even in winter. A number of tourist operators in China organize winter tours for tourists who love experiencing the ice and snow festival which China celebrates. Harbin’s Ice and Snow festival is one of the greatest tourist attractions in northern China as the multicolored lanterns and snow carvings and sculptures are a major sight to see during a typical Ice festival in Harbin. Harbin, the capital of Heilongjiang Province is a quiet village in the North of China, which is popular for celebrating the Ice and Snow festival. Walking on the streets of Harbin gives you a warm feeling because the people love talking about the chilliness of city.The Ice Lantern festival normally takes place between early January and mid February. If you plan to tour China during this time of the year, this is a great time to take pleasure in great fruits and wisdom. The city exhibits its neat ice and snow sculptures and carvings on the frozen rivers. During the festival, famous monuments like cathedrals, pyramids, legendary figures and animals are carved out of ice in enormous sizes. The cold yet warm festival is a grand celebration of Peace and Friendship. The festival is described as warm even in the cold because its natives say the colder it gets, the happier they become. Ice Lantern Park touring activities includes the ice lantern exhibition held in Zhaolin Park, the Yabuli alpine skiing as well as winter swimming in Songhua River. The Harbin Ice and Snow World continue to showcase large buildings and structures but ice carvings like life-sized horses are sometimes displayed. A typical ice carving of a life sized horse is carved out from a single block of ice, which is a fusion of many ice blocks. These structures when sculptured are lit by exterior spotlights below the sculptures.Attending the ice festival on its opening night is an event to remember because the explosion of the fireworks over the ice sculptures is a wonderful sight to see. An interesting thing about the fireworks in the ice festival is that unlike most fireworks which rise to a climax, the fireworks is displayed on a foreground with four flights of ice stairs leading to another ice stairs of about ten to twelve meters high serving as the centerpiece to the festival grounds.Some previous key attractions of the ice festival in Harbin was an ice sculpture of the Great Wall of China which doubled as a long ice slide. As the event progressed from year to year, the tourists and enthusiasts developed and created more enormous ice sculptures of popular landmarks and monuments in China.One of the public attractions during the Harbin Ice festival is the wall of ice that people try to climb during the events but as years go by, the number of people who were able to perform this activity decreased as the sculpted wall of ice became steeper. This winter season will be something to look forward to, as Harbin welcomes tourists and ice sculptors around to experience its annual ice lantern festival.

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About the Author

Lola writes for Passport to China. An inbound tour operating company serving as your gateway to Tours in China

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