In pictures: Harbin ice festival

BBC ^ | Saturday, January 6, 2007

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

The annual Ice and Snow Festival has opened in Harbin, capital of Heilongjiang province in northeast China. The festival is one of the largest of its kind in the world.

Thousands of tourists from China and elsewhere brave the sub-zero temperatures to admire the ice sculptures, some of them large enough to walk through.

Some of the structures are created by piling ice blocks up to make huge models of buildings. Lights are frozen in the middle of the blocks.

Other sculptures are gigantic creations of snow made to resemble geographic features such as Canada's Niagara Falls.

Smaller sculptures are carved from blocks of ice with chain saws and chisels.

The festival covers 400,000 square metres and uses 120,000 cubic metres of ice and snow on Sun Island on the Songhua River in Harbin.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

Russia has something similar.

[Jedi Master Pikachu]

And the United States also has part of Niagara Falls.

[SquirrelKing]

But...but...Global Warming! How can this be?

[martin_fierro]

Other sculptures are gigantic creations of snow made to resemble geographic features such as Canada's Niagara Falls.

They buried the lede. 

The real story here is the Skating Human Narwals.