A friend e-mailed pictures he had received from the 2003 Snow and Ice Festival in Harbin. I pulled some of our slides from 1991 and scanned them to send back. I still had the document around, so here it is. Enjoy.

	It was minus 14 degrees Farenheit when we arrived. I'm a skinny guy, but had on so many layers under my coat that it looked like I had gained about 50 pounds. All of the ice structures had colored electric lights inside them, but the visual effect was lost when a flash was used.
	There was frost an inch thick on the inside of the public bus we took from our guesthouse to the festival.
	Even though I used very slow shutter speeds, the figure standing in the army coat happened to stand still long enough to be captured.
	All of the castles are built by stone masons using ice hewn from the frozen Heilongjiang (Black Dragon) River. Colored electric lights are fitted inside as the courses of blocks are added in construction.
	This is a slide that begins in the upper center of the picture, continues down to the left, curves, and finishes on the downward slant in the foreground. People can be seen gathered at the top of the slide.
	This shutter speed was fast enough to capture images of people passing through, with a rather ethereal effect. I liked the Roman arch. I had to take my gloves off every time I set up a shot, and the camera and tripod were so cold that my fingers were sticking to them. I was worred the camera would stop working.
	Here is a row of local entries in the ice carving contest. Note the uncarved blocks between the two trees and at the far end. Since I had to use a much higher f stop for the whole depth of field to be in focus, I had to slow the shutter even more. There were throngs of people passing by, but in the picture the place looks deserted!
	This was a winning international entry by an artist from Japan (note the Japanese flag on the sign--the top two characters spell "Japan" in Chinese). Fish, seaweed and bubbles. I've seen a hotel chef in the U.S. making ice sculptures for a banquet using a small chain saw--I think this is in another league altogether.
	It was a hard 18-hour train ride back home. We were ordered out of our berths in the wee hours and ended up waiting at Beijing Station until the earliest public transport began; thus began our intercontinental tradition of snapping a self-portrait whenever developing-world travel left us looking rough. Compare to the first photo.