Hokkaido Part Two: Snow festival, snow slide and beer hall.

Saturday, February 9th Part 2: Snow Festival, Snow Slide & Beer Hall

The youth hostel was so very warm. I slept in until about 9am, while poor Marina left around 7am to go skiing with KAJET (an association of JETs from our prefecture). I have no interest in falling off a mountain on wooden sticks and moreover, I didn’t want to wake up at 6am. So, I enjoyed my lie-in and eventually met Megan and her friend Kyle (female) in Susukino.

Susukino is in fact a red-light entertainment district. However, for the amounts of small children that pass through it during the snow festival, perhaps the prostitutes go on a skiing trip for that week. By which I mean, we did not see any ladies of the evening. We did, however, see a lot of ice sculptures! The ice sculptures ranged from cartoon characters to more elaborate designs with things inside of the ice. One such sculpture showcased crabs, fish and squid (dead, I think). Another had Bailey’s Irish cream bottles inside of the ice. If you went inside the little ice stand, you were allowed a cup of hot Bailey’s with coffee or cream. Not too shabby!

The three of us then went back over to Odori Park to see the snow festival sculptures once more. They were very different in the daytime, and the weather was absolutely perfect for it. There were a lot of families with small, adorable children wrapped up in snow suits and blankets. There were some game show type performances on stage (probably for television) and we even saw some jumping snowboarders on one of the stages! The snow sculptures included massive architectural feats (castles, bulidings etc), cartoon characters, and weird things such as the head of Al Gore. There is certainly something for everyone! After feet were partially frozen and bellies were hungry, we looked around a shopping mall for a famous ‘ramen village’, as ramen is very famous in Sapporo! However, everyone else’s thoughts had already found them at ramen village. So, we settled for Japanese style dim-sum with a nice view of the station. We sat for a long while and sipped tea before setting off again.

A huge ice sculpture including two MAMMOTHS! So cool!

In the evening, we hopped a bus to the Sapporo Beer Hall and Museum outside of the city area. The museum was all in Japanese, so I didn’t learn anything about beer… however, it was warm! We met Kyle’s friend Andrew (also from Shiga prefecture) and his friend Vanessa, who is a Hokkaido JET. The lot of us went to the beer hall for a lamb dinner! All you can eat lamb with veggies (you cook it yourself sukiyaki style) and all you can drink delicious dark beer. Marina joined us too, after her ill-fated ski trip. After much drinking, some falling out of chairs, and a brief interaction with a man dressed as a bear, we found an outdoor slide made of snow and made some use of it.

Drunk and covered in snow, we decided to head back to Susukino to look at the pretty lights and to find some karaoke. We did just that! Karaoke lasted at least 3 hours into the night (and we were joined by Desriae, a Kyoto JET). Drunk and all songed out, we stumbled home to our various hotels and hostels. However, when Marina and I got to our room, we found that some strange girl had taken Marina’s bed! So, Marina and I shared my roomy bunk and slept well into the morning.

Some information on The Snow Festival (taken from Wikipedia)

The Snow Festival began in 1950, when six local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Japan Self-Defense Forces from the nearby Makomanai base joined in and built the first massive snow sculptures, for which the Snow Festival has now become famous.

- The snow festival is still fairly new! This year (2008) marked it's 58th anniversary. The year's theme seemed to be 'global awareness'.

Hokkaido Part One: The Journey North

Friday, February 8th : Part 1: The Journey North

After spending the evening at Amy’s apartment in Kameoka, I met Marina in the morning. Together, we walked to the train station where we’d catch an early train into Kyoto Station, and from there to Kansai International Airport. Marina, the previous evening, had discovered that she had left something rather important at home. That being, her coat. She had fortunately borrowed a coat from Paulette (another girl in Kameoka who had hosted Marina for the evening). Coat drama aside, we made it to the airport without too much hassle. We caught our flight to the airport in Sapporo (New Chisate Airport). We were off to Hokkaido at long last!

We reached the airport in the early afternoon and took a train ride into the city of Sapporo. The subway system and grid system made Sapporo extremely easy to navigate. Using a map Marina had brought, we found our youth hostel with little to no trouble (although I managed to get us fairly turned around). We dressed for the falling snow, dropped off our bags and explored Sapporo Station to find some lunch. We feasted on okonomiyake (ironically a famous cuisine in Osaka, which we had just come from).

We then visited Odori Park, which is the main venue for the Snow Festival (雪祭り) or Yuki Matsuri. It was getting dark by then, so we were able to see the snow sculptures lit up with coloured lights! There were a few performances going on atop of a few of the stages in front of the mammoth ice sculptures as well. Some better than others. The pair of us were privy to a ‘light show’ sponsored by Disney. The sculpture was for the upcoming film Prince Caspian, which is the second of the Chronicles of Narnia. They had a Japanese narration with sound track music and crazy coloured lights. I assume they were depicting the story. By the time we had walked up and down the twelve blocks of Odori park, we were frozen. A quick subway trip back to the station was rewarded with hot chocolates at Starbucks and we then made it an early night and hung out in the youth hostel until morning.

The Prince Caspian light show

The scultpures sponsored by Egyptian Air

Some history on Sapporo:

- The city itself was largely inhabited by the Ainu people (the indigenous people of Hokkaido who appear more Caucasian than Asian). In the mid 1860’s, Japanese settlers began to migrate to the lower areas of Hokkaido and establish their own culture there. However, the name Sapporo is from the Ainu language and means ‘large river running through a plain’.

-In the 1870’s, the city of Sapporo was built with the advice from the American government and borrowed the American-style grid system to lay out the city itself (the city even uses street cars). Sapporo remains a sister city with Portland, Oregon.

-In the city, you can visit the nightlife center of Susukino, the huge bisecting park named Odori Park (odori meaning a large road or avenue), or you can visit the Sapporo beer hall or museum!

-Outside of the city is fantastic skiing and some of the most beautiful and well-preserved natural parks in all of the country. (I will definitely be going back to see some of that in the spring)