A winter wonderland

The fun heats up when the mercury drops for people living in Heilongjiang, Jilin, and Liaoning provinces. Those who snuggle up in the warm indoors miss out on the skiing, snowboarding, dogsledding, winter swimming, ice and snow sculpture viewing - not to mention enjoying such novelties as slurping a bubbling hotpot in an eatery made of ice.

The region's winter temperatures average -14 C in the northernmost province of Heilongjiang.

"Even though my friends said Harbin's ice lanterns were a must-see, I didn't believe them until I saw the lanterns with my own eyes," says Shanghai native Sun Xuemei.