China's magical ice festival

The Harbin Ice Festival's made a triumphant return following the lifting of Covid restrictions last year.

Having previously attracted 18,500 visitors per day in 2018, the current year's daily footfall has soared to 30,000. Local TV station reports indicate that an influx of 163,200 visitors over the New Year's holidays brought the local economy a $6.45 million boost.

Ice renderings of traditional Chinese buildings, bridges and fairytale castles all feature in the displays, alongside ice slides to amuse younger visitors and a newly unveiled ice facsimile of the cathedral of Notre Dame in Paris. As the light dims, the sculptures are bathed in bright colours and fireworks shimmer in the darkness above, delighting student Zhao Ying.

Zhao Ying: "Even though it's a bit cold, I think the ice sculptures are really beautiful. Also we just saw a fireworks show. I was very shocked because I've never seen fireworks like that before. It was really worth it."

The festival's proven a boon for the province, Heilongjiang, located at the country's northernmost border with Russia. Tourist authorities have hailed this an "ice and snow miracle" which has delivered over 3 million visitors to the city throughout the festival, many travelling from the balmy south despite the icy conditions and temperatures dipping to minus 24 degrees celsius.

These visitors, bundled up against the cold and donning woolly hats with furry ears, have been given the moniker "the Southern Little Potatoes", with the hashtag quickly trending across social media leveraging further interest in the province's wintery weather as well as the festival itself. These university friends felt compelled to make the trip.

Fu: "Also I think going through the cold and preparing for it is part of the fun experience of coming to Harbin, everybody preparing together, and sharing how to prepare how to get through the cold."

Lin: "Yes, but even though we prepared a lot, my feet still can't handle it. I need to go indoors."

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