isanntots: Harbin day 2

Ice sculptures are everywhere, we saw plenty of them on the shopping street, 金源大街

These are made from big ice blocks. Ice blocks are saw out from a nearby river, transported by lorry, stuck together using water, sculpted by experienced sculptors, then polished to achieve a smooth, shiny surface. It's a lot of work

Ice sphinx

We went to 太阳岛 in the afternoon to see the Snow World. Everything is made out of artificial snow

Yes, this is still afternoon at about 3pm

This snow hut looks lovely

We don't have much time to explore everything, I took all pictures from a distance without knowing what I am taking

It was only 4+pm

Next we headed to the Ice World, the biggest in Asia. Everything is made of ice. Can u believe it?

The theme this year is world's architecture. This is some chinese architecture

Again these building are stacked up with ice blocks

Every theme park had ice slides, the kids (and their mothers) really enjoyed sliding down on high speed. Don't wear jeans to the slide, you'll get stuck. My smooth fabric coat allowed me and Ryo to slide down on high speed. The white specks on this photos showed the artificial snow that a snow maker was spurting

Some church building, the lights changes colour every now and then

The Harbin beer also has its place here

The lights are lovely, the whole place is damn huge

The ticket sales alone is not enough to cover the whole Harbin's ice and snow investment, however, the receipts from the hotels and the food industry made up the difference, barely.

This reminds me of Thailand

This buddha sculpture is my favourite. It's only an ice sculpture, it'll be destroy when winter is over, but if you are there in person, you could feel a godly feeling. In the backgound the 大悲咒　music was playing, many people were offering incense and even praying kneeling down.