And now, the moment you've all been waiting for...

Yes, it's Harbin's only claim to world fame - the incredible Ice and Snow Festival!

As an early Chinese New Year celebration, we were taken yesterday on an office jolly - a grand day out, marred only slightly by the intervening meal which was somewhat strange (sliced pig's intestines or duck's tongues, anyone?) and conducted in near silence except for endless boring toasts in which everyone thanked everyone else and looked forward to prosperous business relationships, before it descended into the kind of corporate bonding games which I rate somewhere below root canal treatment in my list of preferred activities.

But the ice and snow sculptures were just FABULOUS. And as it was 'only' minus 13°C, I didn't even feel that cold - but then again I was wearing three thermal vests, two scarves and an indeterminate number of dead sheep. Not to mention the WMEMs, of course.

Simply uploading a few pictures to this blog wouldn't do the thing justice, so if you click below you can see the whole album - just hit 'Slideshow' for the full effect once you're there. I say 'full effect' but you'll have to imagine the (loudly) piped classical music which accompanied it all. Peter and I got some funny looks when they got to 'Bolero' and we started Torvill & Deaning-it on the ice.

Anyway, it's the Snow Festival first (which had a Finnish theme, hence the strong Father Christmas and Moomin motifs), then the Ice Festival - they take place in adjoining parks next to the (frozen) Songhua River, some views of which you can also see. Hard to comprehend, I know, but all the structures which look like the Blackpool Illuminations on acid are made entirely from ice blocks, hewn from that river.

Why? Who knows. Apparently it grew out of a local tradition for making ice lanterns by hollowing out blocks of ice and putting a candle inside. I suppose someone thought, 'Ooh, it might be pretty if we joined a few of these together and put coloured lightbulbs in them', and from there - in just ten years - Harbin's Ice Festival became one of the 'big four' ice sculpture festivals worldwide (the other three being Montreal, Sapporo in northern Japan, and somewhere in Finland). Mainly due to the proximity of the Songhua and its endless supply of ice, Harbin now boasts the biggest annual ice festival in the world.

I am now more convinced than ever that it's the most bonkers place on Earth.

Enjoy our pictures.