The Ice Festival

Entry to Zhao Lin park cost 20RMB (£1.30) but this doubled to 40RMB at 4pm. Being the cheapskate I am, I went in at 3:30pm, prepared to tough out the cold for a couple of hours.

As I entered a literal army of cleaners had just finished cleaning. As I watched, they formed up, saluted their leader, and chanted some militaristic slogans. Then they shouldered their brushes and mops, and marched out! I've heard that ex-army coats are a good buy here, but these guys were kitted out with the whole kit - fluffy hat, soldier boots and all!

The park was virtually deserted at that time, even though the surrounding streets were heaving with shoppers. It could be that the Festival has already been going on for over a month and it's no longer tourist season, OR it could be that more people come after sunset when the sculptures are lit up from within by neon tubes. It has to be said that by the time I got there, a lot of the sculptures looked a little worse for wear, some of the finer detailing yielding to the sun. Whatever the reasons, I got the run of the park to myself apart from staff, a family group, and an Aussie guy with a big SLR.

For the sake of bandwidth, I won't post all my pictures up on here, but some of the pieces were breathtaking. It's not just the workmanship and design, but also the way ice catches the light, and the camera, for the most part, can't do the art justice.

A Chairman Mao sculpture was captioned 万岁 or 10,000 years (of age) - much like saying "Long Live the Queen (or King)" in English.

Elsewhere a delicately carved dragon stood on a plinth threaded with the Olympic colours and the words "Bei Jing".
Apart from the smaller pieces which were all pretty much a uniform size, there were some huge structures too.

There was a series of arches using that keystone construction we used to have to study in physics or something, giant castles and slides, a couple of igloos, and even a life-size woolly mammoth!

I wanted to hang around for the lights to come on, but after just over an hour, my extremities were beginning to freeze. The exposed parts of my face felt like they were on fire, although saying that, the weather *has* given my face a ruddy, healthy look.

It being the Year of the Pig coming up, there were naturally a whole bunch of pigs too. I'm being a child but I couldn't help laughing at this one. This guy thinks he's a butt-sniffing dog!