The 13 National and 12th International Snow Sculpture Competitions, Harbin, China (01-01-07 till 15-01-07)

( The BBC Radio Nottingham web report, radio interview and our BBC TV interview can be found here:http://www.bbc.co.uk/nottingham/content/articles/2006/12/12/international_snow_sculpture_competition_feature.shtml )

When you are asked if you want to go to China, for free, you just have to say yes don't you? OK so maybe not, how about if you have the chance to build a sculpture out of a 3m x 3m x 3m block of snow in an international competition against teams from all over the world? What could possibly go wrong....

We flew out on the 29th December 2006 not knowing what to expect and with not an ounce of snow sculpting experience between the four of us. Two days later we were in a park, chisel in hand, carving for the reputation of the UK. It wasn't perfect, we never thought it would be, but we didn't come last.

After four days of studio time we had a second go, this time against the world. Teams from 11 countries battling it out to see who could make the most of a 4m x 3m x 3m block of snow. Malaysians, Russians (8 teams of them), Poles, Spaniards, Americans and the Chinese all chipping away for 10 hours a day, for 4 days in temperatures of around -10 in the Sunshine.

Unbelievable experience, met some fantastic people and generally had a good time. Don't think I'll ever get used to being pointed at and photographed in the street though.

Enjoy the photos and if you have any questions, maybe you'd like to compete next year? Just drop me a line using the contact page.

Above Left: Our entry in the International competition

Above Right: Me, Does my face look cold in this?

 Above Left: The Harbin University Team and the UK team having tea in the studio

Above Right: The start of the National Competition. We were taken to our block and told to get on with it. This is what is known as "in at the deep end".

Above Left: At the end of Day 2

Above Right: The eventual winner and well deserved

Above : This is how they make the blocks, although this one was a little bigger than ours.

Above: This was the face of the National Competition sculpture that I was responsible for

Above Left: Elaine gets a bag of goodies from the Mayor of Harbin

Above Right: The "Baby birds". Their lecturer, Mr Du, described them like this and it stuck.

Above: I can't put what we said when we discovered that the block was a meter higher than we were expecting. We'd already competed in one competition, were tired, cold and on the wrong side of the planet.

Above: Our difficulties over we could relax, smile and have our picture taken.That's Seong on the left, Neil on the right and Elaine in the Centre.

Above: The winner of the International Competition. They were Russian & Professional Snow Sculptors!

Above:About 30 mins before we went home one night, at around 6.30 pm, after 3 days in sub zero temperatures, one of the heads fell of this sculpture. I dont speak Mongolian....but they weren't happy. One bottle of water and some nifty chisel work later they 'glued' a new bit on and recarved it, a skill to be filed away for later I think.

Above: My favourite, from whatever angle you viewed this the detail was fantastic .

This was by no means all of the photos, I took 3GB of them, but these convey the general event. If you want to know more e-mail me and I'd be more than happy to bore you rigid