This is the event that causes otherwise sane people to go to one of the coldest places in China at the coldest time of the year. And yes, it is worth the trip! They build this "city of ice", and build lighting into the ice. As engineers, our guys were amused by the total lack of safety precautions with how the electrical wiring and lighting were constructed. Dorothy, we're not in Kansas any more! 
As you walk through the gate, one is reminded of coming into the entrance of Disneyland at night, as your breath is taken away facing Cinderella's castle. AND, they even have a costumed Mickey mouse right inside the entrance - just like at Disneyland. Well, kind of. He's what we called "almost Mickey". The Chinese will knock off anything. To someone who's never "met" Mickey, this was Mickey. To those of us who have, this was Mickey's Chinese cousin.
Once inside the gate, your first glimpse of this ice town takes your breath away. It is SO beautiful! You can just walk around and take it all in, duck into a little building with warm drinks to thaw out, or play.
There are various size ice slides that would best be described as the luge. They are ice slides with ice walls just high enough to contain you in your "lane". One is very small for young
children. The next size is a series of slides in groups of 3 that radiate out from a beautiful ice building. You climb the steps and head for whichever slide you want. There's hardly any line, so not a lot of waiting if you are in a playful mood. We went to the festival with the couple we shared a car with, and our first run the men went down, then it was the ladies turn. You just slide down on your butt, and it's SO fun. After a couple runs we decided to all go at the same time and "race".
That was pretty fun. Later, we found "the big slide". Adventurous men in our group even passed on that one. But Rob and I decided we were going to go for it. I'm at a point in my life where I'm really challenging myself and pushing myself to do things I didn't even have the guts to do when I was a teenager. I am finding it very rewarding to push myself. So, "the big slide" is a really long, much more steep slide you go down on this cheap plastic toboggan. We had to wait in line for over an hour, but it was worth it. When we got to the top there was no instruction and they rushed us to hop on and go. I, being a desert girl, had never been on a toboggan, and didn't even know which way to face the thing! But the guy threw it down, threw me on, and gave me a shove. At that point there's not a lot of skill or strategy involved - unless you count breathing, screaming or praying as strategy. You have an ice wall on each side of you, so there's no real steering involved, and there's no ability to contol the speed. Then comes the fun part. Some of our friends had looked over the wall while we were in line and described what sounded like a freeway sand run away truck ramp as the ending. As you're flying down this thing it's lighted and you can see the slide ahead of you. But the end isn't lighted. So you can just see that your slide ends, but dark at the end. So as you're coming to the end, you can just see that your slide ends, but you have no idea what you're coming into or how to brace. ok, I wouldn't describe it as a powdered snow ramp like my friends did. It was a powdered snow WALL that you kind of plant into. When I planted into it, I was pelted with snow in my face, into my hood, down my coat, etc. Then you are swarmed by Chinese men yelling at you to get out of there. I was stunned and needed a second to gather myself and try to figure out how to get up. Finally I convinced one of them to give me a hand up and steer me to the "exit". I took my gloves off to try to re-adjust and get the snow out of my hood and off of my face, and my hand was so frozen I couldn't even get my glove back on. Thankfully there was a Nestle warm drink building right next to the slide and Rob whisked me into there where I could re-group, and thaw out over a cup of hot chocolate. A little stunned and frozen, that was a great idea for my recovery. Having said that, I'm glad I went for it.
Later that night I noticed a tender spot on my elbow. Upon closer examination, I had a monster bruise. I don't remember getting it, but I'm guessing the big slide had something to do with it. A little commemorative trophy as a reminder of my brave adventure.
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