Video: Ice City

The city of Harbin in Northern China hosts an ice festival every winter in which giant sculptures of buildings are built and lit up.  The video below, by Paul Tauger, shows activities that go on during the day and night.  The whole thing's pretty interesting, but if you only want to see the night shots jump to the 2:40 mark or check out some photos on Trip Adviser.



One thing I really liked about the video is the snapshot of how people in China celebrate winter.  The ice chairs(?) people were skating with, for example, and the different foods at the booths were cool to see.

I've been thinking lately how festivals were (and still are) a big part of life, and yet a lot of fantasy (and other) books fail to account for this.  Even if the festivals aren't shown, they'd still be talked about and anticipated by the people.  Perhaps they'd even be used as motivation for working hard.