I’ll cut right to the point. I’ve been thinking long and hard about this, and there are two Asian festivals I’m keen to check out in 2015:
Harbin Ice Festival
The Harbin Ice Festival is the world’s largest ice and snow festival, whereby basically an entire city is created out of ice sculptures. In 2015 it runs from January 5 through February 28.
Here are a couple of videos:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QLLrkWwRemM
Ordinarily I hate the cold and can’t say I love flying within China, though I’ll do everything in my power to attend. I’ll have to take a brief break in international travel so that I can get a Chinese visa, since all my recent visits to China have been using a 72 hour transit without visa.
I have a limited range of dates during which I can attend, given the US Airways award to Australia I have planned over that time period, via Europe and the Middle East.
Kanamara Matsuri
Kanamara Matsuri is held in Kawasaki, Japan, not far outside of Tokyo. It’s held the first Sunday in April, so in 2015 will be held on April 5, 2015.
I’ll let the video speak for itself:
Call me nuts, but I have to attend this one. For a culture as high context, reserved, and sensitive as Japan, this one just fascinates me.
Anyone have experiences?
Has anyone attended either the Harbin Ice Festival or Kanamara Matsuri? Any tips (obviously there are “tips” at the latter, but that’s not what I’m referring to)? And if you haven’t been, anyone else interested in attending either of these? Or am I just freaking weird (which isn’t mutually exclusive — you can call me nuts and still agree with me)? 😉
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