Obviously, it's a seasonal thing. Every winter I get swept away by ice sculptures. In the summer, it's sand sculptures. In the fall it's food stuff, like butter and pumpkins. And this year when a friend sent me the pix of the Harbin, Manchuria winter festival's ice sculptures, it all began again!
Harbin, it seems, is pretty far north on the icy tundra scale, 300
miles away from Valdivostok, and farther north, which by my lights,
ought to send it slipping down the opposite side of the globe into
south. But they have this ice and snow sculpture festival that
produces works that oughta be bronzed. They set everything out on Sun
Island, an unlikely name for such a spot, but from what I can see the
ice just grabs and glints the sun that shows through.
 (photo from the bbc.co.uk website)
Teams from all over the world (including South Africa, go figure)
compete in this fest. In the snow arena, each team is given a 9 foot
square cube to make its masterpiece and they go at it tooth and nail.
They focus on figures, elaborate, exotic, and white. In the ice
section, everyone's given huge blocks of ice cut from the river and if
their piece is too big (most work here is architectural rather than
sculptural) they can fuse them together. Those structures are
eye-popping and best seen at night, when they're lit up with colored
lights that stain the entire area. Looks like a fairyland (or
something from Trump's inner child) then.
From someone who has trouble making a round snowball, you guys have my
sincerest tip of the halo hat!
11:18:03 AM 
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