Yuki Matsuri

I finally made it to the Sapporo Snow Festival! I heard that, along with a snow festival in Norway, it's one of the largest snow festivals in the world. It was certainly impressive! The festival has nearly 200 snow and ice sculptures at three sites, plus ice skating, snow boarding and ski jumping, sledding, slides, etc. I managed to take nearly 600 pictures during my 2 1/2 days there, so needless to say, this post will have a few more than my usual 10 pictures. But I tried to contain myself! If you want to see some other pictures, CNN has a gallery of pics from the festival.  

part of Odori Park, as seen from the tv tower

"Momotaru" (medium sculpture)

The main site is Odori Park, where snow and ice sculptures, plus food vendors and all sorts of other fun stuff, take up 12 blocks. The snow festival started on Wednesday, February 5. I arrived Monday evening, and although the large sculptures were blocked off, two of the four medium sculptures and all of the small sculptures could be viewed. Some people were putting finishing touches on a few of the small sculptures, which was interesting to see. 

Detail from Momotaru

By the following day, almost all of the sculptures were available for viewing, and tons of small children were going around in their school groups to see everything. The sculptures were all very impressive, with amazing detail. In addition to a bust of Masahiro Tanaka, the pitcher for the Rakuten Eagles (the baseball team that won the Japan League last Fall) who has now been signed by the Yankees for a huge amount of money, there were famous and beloved cartoon characters and various other cute, fun and inspiring things.

Did I mention that it snowed most of the time I was in Sapporo?  A lovely powdery snow, but it meant that after a while, the sculptures looked like this (below) and had to be swept off.

There were various and assorted characters scattered throughout the festival…

And there were even special cans of Coke in the vending machines!

We certainly can't forget the LARGE snow sculptures, including this one celebrating the 2014 Olympics!

"Winter Sports Paradise, Hokkaido!"

"be Ponkickies" (a tv show that has run for 40 years) 

"Sultan Abdul Samad Building"

And of course, everything gets lit up at night!

"Tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula (India)"

…And sometimes they have illumination shows!

…Or concerts!

"Traditional and Modern Taiwan" ice sculpture

In addition to the large ice sculpture above, there were also a few more ice sculptures in Odori Park, including these:

"Palace of the Heart"

But the main site for ice sculptures was a few blocks away at the Susukino Ice Festival, where ice sculptures were displayed for several blocks down the middle of the street.

At the recommendation of a colleague who grew up in Sapporo, I took a train out to the port town of Otaru for an afternoon. When the port was functioning, there was a whole industry associated with making glass floats. However, when the port shut down, they redirected their efforts towards stained glass and such. So now the town has developed the area around the canal, and it is full of places to buy beautiful glass work, plus a lovely clock/music box place, a Venetian glass museum and other fun stuff. 

And just for kicks, one final picture - this one with the NHK character holding an Olympic medal near the tv tower (and ice skating rink).  Happy Yuki Matsuri!