A 'Place for Drying Fishing Nets' is the original meaning of the Manchu word 'Harbin.' Today Harbin is the capital and largest city - 5.9Mio inhabitants in 2010 - of China's northeastern Heilongjiang Province.

In winter, it's siberian climate makes it one of the coldest cities in China. So it is the ideal place for the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival where lobal sides are rebuilt in ice each January.
Ice blocks are taken from the frozen surface of the Songhua River, then sawn and chiseled into lavishly illuminated buildings and large sculptures. It is an unreal, spectacular and singularly cold world to be discovered at minus 25 deg.