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Chinese ice carvers bring holiday fun to Texas city
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TOWERING ice sculptures made by ice carvers from China made a rare debut to thousands of US holiday-goers on Saturday at a white-sand beach eyeing the Gulf of Mexico.
The holiday attraction "Ice Land" is staged in a huge insulated tent at Moody Garden in Galveston, a balmy, humid subtropical city in south Texas.
The ice-themed event, claimed to be the only of its kind along the Gulf, is expected to draw tens of thousands of visitors during the Christmas holiday season.
The 28,000 square-foot park took 900 tons of ice and almost a year's labor, said John Zendt, president and CEO of the tourist destination.
The sculptures depict an exquisitely detailed underwater-themed adventure featuring SpongeBob, his pals and his neighborhood.
"We are able to bring a team of 31 carvers from Harbin (Province), China here to help us carve." Zendt told Xinhua. "But we had challenges here unlike Harbin where they carve the ice blocks from the river. We had to make those (ice) blocks starting in February."
Zendt said they stored 6,000 ice blocks at food storage sites in Houston before transporting them to Galveston. And it took the Chinese team 45 days to finish the huge project.
Fan Yongqiang, one of the carvers, told Xinhua that unlike traditional Chinese ice sculptures which seldom add color to preserve the crystal-like quality of the ice, these sculptures in Galveston used a variety of colors.
"We have used more than 100 colors here." Fan said. "Like this starfish you see, I used more than 10 colors. It is the first time in my ice-carving career to use so many color ices. It is not easy, but we made it."
Fan said he was happy to bring his craftsmanship to Americans who may have never seen a Chinese ice sculpture.
The event, run by Moody Gardens and Nickelodeon, a TV network, targeted at children, runs through January 4.
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