This Winter Break to the Harbin Ice & Snow Festival Will Have You Coming Back Every Year!

Go and grab your snow boots because this winter we’re taking you to the Harbin Ice & Snow Festival in China. This experience will make you fall in love with the freezing cold!

Top tip: No beach vacations here so layer up on the clothing, it will get chilly... we’re talking –16.8°C kind of chilly.

Jump in Your Winter Dungarees & Let’s Party! When it comes to winter fun, you just can’t beat the Harbin Ice & Snow Festival, this place will have you literally frozen in admiration as you experience Harbin’s wonderful kingdom of ice and snow. You will see ice in a whole new light, because you will see it sculptured in hundreds of mesmerising designs; from castles, to bridges, buildings and figures, the Harbin Ice & Snow Festival doesn’t miss out on any details when creating this icy palace.

This festival will have you feeling like a child again as you surround yourself with what feels like a frozen wonderworld straight out of your childhood imagination, but it’s all real! Huge, breath-taking sculptures in all shapes and forms from every corner of your eye, each with a unique charm, illuminated by a rainbow of mesmerising colours. We wouldn’t be surprised if you’d want to pinch yourself with a thought ‘how is this real?’. But wait! There is more magic! Keep reading to find out more about this magical wonderland.

Experience Talents from All round the World This jaw-dropping festival first took place 1963 and has been a yearly tradition ever since. And despite being pretty new to the scene compared to China’s lifelong traditional festivals, it will definitely leave you the most astonished, and frosty. The festival opens in late December, and lasts for an impressive 3 months, until late February. Wait, can sculptures even last that long? Usually the answer is no, however, as the festival is located in Heilongjiang Province where the temperatures can reach extremely cold levels, it is an ideal location for crafting and sculpting the icy palace.

The theme of the palace changes every year as sculpture artists from Canada, America, Japan, Singapore, Russia, China, and other nations compete against each other every year to design the most captivating and mind blowing works of art. The designs are then brought to life by over ten thousand skilled workers in just 15 days,

pretty impressive for a 600,000 square metres kingdom from over 110,000 cubic metres of ice and 120,000 cubic metres of snow, right?

Let’s Get Frosty and Have Some Fun! The Harbin Ice & Snow Festival is not just an out-of-this-world sculpture exhibition, it is a place to experience winter from a whole new, magical perspective. The festival has many different attractions, from having lunch in the Ice Hot Pot restaurant, built only out of ice, to a variety of ice games and activities over the frozen Songhua River, traditional theatrical performances, fireworks and many more! And don't forget to stick around until the evening as the sculptures are illuminated and appear to come to life as a breath-taking city, creating a truly magical atmosphere.

Here some more attractions The Harbin Ice & Snow Festival has to offer: Songhua Ice Carnival Zhongyang Street Saint Sophia Cathedral Sun Iceland Snow Sculpture Exposition Zhaolin Park Ice Lantern Festival

With so many attractions and wow-factors, you definitely won’t run out of things to do on this magnificent trip!

There is simply no festival like The Harbin Ice & Snow Festival. With the amount of admiration, amusement, and enjoyment to experience we wouldn’t be surprised if you’ll want to revisit every winter break. But we can assure you one thing, prepare to be colder than ever before.