Brrrrr. The Harbin ice and snow sculpture festival opens in China
Visitors are dwarfed by a huge sculpture at the Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in Harbin, northeast China, on Jan. 6, 2014.
Lintao Zhang
Thousands of visitors are expected to brave brutally cold temperatures to attend the annual Harbin International Ice and Snow Sculpture Festival in a frigid corner of northeastern China.
The festival officially opened on Jan. 5, but work on the frozen winter wonderland began months ago.
More from GlobalPost: It's a cold, cold world: The lowest temperatures ever recorded on Earth
The sculptures, which are illuminated by lights at night, are made from tens of thousands of cubic feet of ice pulled from the Songhua river.
The result is nothing short of spectacular.
Sign up for our daily newsletter