(This post has been updated to include more details on delays at the Kunming airport.)

For some in China, the unexpected advent of snow meant the chance to make tiny, fanciful inch-high snowmen.

For others, it meant massive pile-ups and a delay in travel -- one that unluckily coincides with the run-up to China's annual Lunar New Year festival, a time during which the government estimates billions of trips will be made around the country as people return home.

As the U.S. East Coast has been paralyzed by one of its worst-ever snowstorms, China is currently hunkered down under some of its coldest weather in decades, with the mercury expected to continue dropping through Monday night in locations, according to the National Meteorological Center. In China’s eastern Zhejiang province, for example, temperatures dropped as low as -4 degrees Fahrenheit over the weekend.

Some residents of regions more typically found sweltering were delighted by the novelty: In subtropical Hong Kong, residents eager to see frost had to be rescued by government personnel after they found themselves stranded on a local mountain peak.