With all the concerts coming up in China that I want to go to badly, and me still not anywhere close to achieving the big trip across the pond, let’s live vicariously and take a look at how China is celebrating her Christmas. China‘s northern city of Harbin is ambitious… not only is it mulling over a bid for the 2018 Winter Olympics, but for is annual world renowned ice festival where an entire small town is created out of blocks of ice with embedded lights, it’s also building the world’s largest snow Santa Claus.

The giant Father Christmas, 160 metres (525 ft) long and 24 metres high, centres on an enormous face of Father Christmas, complete with flowing beard and hat. The sculpture has attracted thousands of tourists from all over the country who want to enjoy a white Christmas despite worries over the economic downturn. Many said such tourism could help to boost the economy. The crowd-drawing ice festival of which the Santa is apart traditionally runs from mid-December to early February. Source

As for the Olympics, China is trying to bid to host the 2018 Winter Games in the frigid northern city of Harbin. Harbin, capital of northeastern Heilongjiang province, has spent 3 billion yuan ($440 million) on venues and facilities to host 4,000 athletes for the World University Winter Games in February, and would use the event as a dry run, the province’s governor Li Zhanshu told the China Daily.2010 Games awarded to Vancouver.

“If we fail again for the 2018 Games, we are determined to win the 2022 Winter Games. It’s our dream to host China‘s first Winter Olympics,” Li said, adding that final sign-off for the bid would come from China’s sports ministry. The bustling city of some five million people would face competition from Munich, which declared itself a candidate last December, and from France, where three towns — Annecy, Nice and Grenoble — have flagged interest. Source

This post was brought to you by Harbin’s tourism board. JK…I just am pathetically missing China. I haven’t been there in ages it seems, and the news reports on this has just given me another reason to and place to go whenever I do finally make that trip, along with the world’s largest skatepark in Shanghai and those Sanya beaches.