The day started like most others, I got dressed, and I went to work. But this day after work, I had to hit the ground running, because this was the day I left for my next big adventure, the Snow Festival in Sapporo, Hokkaido! I left my school and drove straight to the ferry terminal in Sendai, Miyagi Prefecture. I was the last person to arrive, but I made it in time. We boarded the ferry and settled in for a long night. Our entire group of gaijin were set to sleep in one large room with small futons on the floor, there were twenty three of us in that room. I didn’t mind. The first thing we did was eat a buffet-style dinner, and afterwards, our large group of gaijin sat in the common area of the ship, and socialized for many hours. We played games, explored the ship, and talked well into the wee hours of the morning. Throughout the night, I was constantly aware of the movement of the ship on the ocean waves. I wasn’t ever motion sick, but it was a strange feeling. Every now and then the engine would shudder and I would momentarily think it was an earthquake. I would then have to remind myself that I most likely wouldn’t feel an earthquake on the ocean, even if one were to happen.
I fell asleep on the ferry that night to the gentle rocking of the waves, it was super peaceful, for a while. Someone in our room was snoring like a bullhorn, and kept waking me up. And occasionally the waves would get so big and pitch the ship so far that I would wake up. It was the coolest thing, although I didn’t get much sleep.
The next morning 2/10/17 we ate another buffet-style breakfast and relaxed on the boat until it was time to dock in Tomakomai, Hokkaido. We went straight from the boat to a bus which took us to Sapporo. The bus ride was nearly 2 hours long, but it was fine.
We finally made it to Sapporo and walked to our hostel to put our things down. We then walked to the Odori Park just a block away from the hostel. The park itself is a long strip of land in the middle of the city. It is only one block wide but it is over 10 blocks long. Odori Park was full of snow sculptures and ice statues. Most of them were around 10 feet tall, (including the base) but there were a few that were as big as houses!
There were so many sculptures that I can’t possibly fit all of them on here with their own pictures, so I’ve made a few collages of the statues.
There were a bunch of snow sculptures that had been made by groups from different countries, like America and Vietnam and Thailand. They were so pretty!
There were also a handful of people that used the most talked bout topics in the 2016 year, that is: President Trump and PPAP:
That’s right, two different sculptures expanding on that theme. PPAP, Pikachu and Godzilla seemed to be the recurring theme at this festival.
At the festival I was able to try a whole bunch of interesting and delicious foods. I was able to try a deep fried pizza, which was definitely one of the best things I have ever had in my life, along with my first French Macaroon. The pink and green one is Raspberry and Pistachio, and the purple one was Black Cherry Currant. Both were fantastic and I didn’t know that the inside of a French Macaroon was so gooey! My friend, Cormac, and I shared split the two macaroons.
We kept walking down the park, passing snow sculpture after snow sculpture, until we came to the other end of the park. They were holding a fun competition in the park for skiers and snowboarders, I didn’t see a single participant over the age of 30. Before the participant slid down the hill to do their trick, their picture and a short bio was shown on a screen. Most of the participants were teenagers, the youngest was 9 years old. The kids were actually able to do the most impressive stunts, and the few twenty-somethings managed to wipe out every time. It was pretty entertaining to watch. Once the participant was at the bottom of the hill, they would climb the stairs in the back and circle around again for another go.
There was also an ice skating rink at this end of the park as well.
Here are a few pictures of some of the ice sculptures in the park. The sun was setting and they had colored lights behind and beneath them, so they are kind of hard to see, but they were pretty cool-looking in person. A few of the ice sculptures were sculpted after kids drawings, so I have included a few of those to give you an idea of what you are looking at.
Here is a picture of Sapporo tower at the very end of the park:
Here are a few of the mascots for different companies that were walking around.
There was this advertisement for an alcohol that was pretty interesting.
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| Those glasses were tragically empty. |
We then rendezvous'd with the rest of our group and then head out to the Sapporo Beer Hall!
We sat down at our tables where we were given the ingredients for a “Genghis Khan” style meal. A Genghis Khan is a traditional Hokkaido dish usually made with lamb and mutton that you eat after grilling it yourself on a dome-shaped grill. Sadly neither my friends nor myself thought to take a picture of this dinner, so please look at these ones I found on google images.
For our meal, we were served all you can eat and drink food and alcohol, all for about $40. It was quite a fun time.
After we were full of food and drink we walked to a large Ferris wheel a few blocks away that was located on the top of a gaming and entertainment center.
On the way we passed this building that showed you what temperature it was. The rainbow line in the middle was zero, so the red lines did not cross it. But we walked past it the next day and there were two red lines above the rainbow line, which meant it was 4 degrees Celsius, as each line means two degrees.
The view from the Ferris wheel was amazing! I loved seeing all the bright lights and buildings below me. It was amazing!
A lot of my pictures came out blurry and I deleted them, but here are a few that I thought were pretty anyways.
While walking back to the hotel we passed an old clock tower. This is famous in Sapporo because it is currently the oldest building standing in Sapporo, it was built in 1878. The clock still works and chimes every hour.
It is also featured on their manhole covers. We were all beat from our traveling, so we hit the hey and rested up for another adventurous day.
Here is a picture of Uesugi (first name unknown.) he is the lead singer of one of my favorite Japanese bands The Ton-Up Motors. He lives in Sapporo and hosts a television show there, so as a result he is featured on advertisements in the city. I had forgotten this at the time, and I was surprised to see his face smiling at me from the ceiling of the train (green poster.)
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