Hokkaido & The 63rd Sapporo Snow Festival (DAY 2)

Our second day in Sapporo found us on our own. We slept in a little after the previous day's long schedule, then we headed downstairs to the hotel's dining room for breakfast. The hotel was kind enough to offer both Japanese and Western breakfast fare.

The Sapporo Snow Festival is made up of three separate sites: The main Odori site, the Susukino site, and the Tsudome site. We decided to head to the Tsudome site first since it was the farthest away, a 30 minute bus ride.

Even though we were on our own this day, one of our tour guides (thank you Norie Muramatsu!!!) was kind enough to accompany us to the Tsudome site. We walked a few blocks past the Odori site to the shuttle buses that drove us to Tsudome. "A" was still a little under the weather and fell asleep on the bus ride.

The Tsudome site is the more family friendly of the three festival sites, offering up a variety of activities such as snow slides, snow rafting, snow man building, and bamboo skiing.

Here are some large slides made of both snow...

And ice...

You could also learn how to do a dance/game of hopping over sticks while the other person taps them on the ground.  If anyone knows the name of this, could you please send me a message and I will update my info.  Thanks!

"A" also tried her hand...um foot... at old fashioned ice skates, which were basically two pieces of bamboo you had to step on and shuffle around on the ice.  It was challenging, to say the least.

Then, "A" and Doug went on a "sled" ride while being pulled by a snow mobile.  Let's just say it was not as enjoyable as being pulled by slow trotting horses through a winter wonderland.  They practically froze their faces off and refused to go a second time.

You could also practice making your own tiny snowmen.  Perhaps they were hoping they would find future snow sculptors for next year's festival.  Side note:  Japanese snowmen are usually made with only two balls as opposed to the traditional American snowmen that are made of three balls of snow.

The Tsudome site did have quite a few of its own snow sculptures, nothing on the grand scale of the main site, but they were still nicely done.

Finally, we got ready to head back to the main festival site, but not before taking a photo with another random Japanese cartoon character.  

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After Tsudome, we caught the shuttle back to the hotel and took a nap, especially "A" who was still under the weather a little.  

After the nap, she felt 100% better.  See?

We started walking around the main venue, the Odori site.  Here is "A" and I taking a photo with the Sapporo TV Tower in the back ground.

Like any good Japanese event, there were tons of food vendors selling delicious Japanese cuisine.  "A" & I especially liked the grilled corn, so warm and yummy.  

FOOD!!!

MORE FOOD!!!

However, my absolute favorite thing was this drink in the photo below.  It was a very light coffee & milk drink, served steaming hot with mochi (rice) dumplings.  I don't know what it was called and have not been able to find it since.  If you have ANY idea what it is, please let me know.  I will be forever in your favor.  I loved it so much, and even with it costing 500 yen, I went back later that night to get one more cup.  Oh, how I miss you and dream of you.

By nightfall, "A" was back to her smiling, happy self and ready to explore the festival and enjoy the entertainment and food.  What a little trooper!

She especially enjoyed watching the singers perform on the snow stages built by the huge snow buildings.  This palace was carved from ice...

The Taj Mahal was carved from snow. 

It was a beautiful night and the city was gorgeous with the snow falling and the twinkling street lights.

 And it was peaceful at times, even with it being so crowded.

However, the main attraction at the Sapporo snow festival are the snow and ice sculptures.  So with that, I will leave you with photos of some of our favorite ice sculptures.  Some were only about 10 feet tall, others were two stories high.  However, the details on some of these sculptures were truly amazing.  Remember this was SNOW not ice.

The sculpture down below was from a Hawaii team.  Some geckos surfing waves, the perfect winter theme.

Random, at least to me, cartoon-like characters.

And some not so random...

Here is a large snow sculpture depicting underwater sea life.  You can compare the size of the sculpture to the people in the foreground.  This is no small snow carving.

 And here is a detail of the dolphin found to the right of the sculpture.

The following are a few of the largest of the snow sculptures.  Each measuring at least a few stories high.

This one was truly breathtaking.  The detail of the palace was amazing.

A few shots of the large sculptures earlier that day.  M...I...C...

The Taj Mahal

On a sad and serious note, this year the weather was warmer than usual.  A few days before we arrived to the Sapporo Snow Festival, some of the smaller sculptures collapsed, one on top of an older women, hurting her pretty seriously.  After that, officials went through the sculptures and knocked down those that were weakened by over melting.  Here is "A" by one of the casualties.

Overall, I give this trip an A++.  It was the perfect extended trip for our first adventure outside of the immediate Tokyo area.  I don't know if we will be able to attend another Sapporo Snow Festival (even though I would love to) but we took some great photos, ate some great food, saw some great art, and had a wonderful family vacation.