Sapporo is one of our favorite Japanese cities so we were happy to get a chance to return for the annual snow festival. Hachinohe is a 9 hour ferry ride from Sapporo (about an hour outside the city). On the way there, we took the overnight ferry which has lots of space to sleep on the floor. We went for a long weekend with our friends Adam and Renae. We had a great time seeing the snow festival sculptures, visiting a chocolate factory and a nearby town called Otaru and then SHOPPING (Renae and I ditched the boys).
We arrived in Sapporo on Thursday morning and spent the day exploring the festival. The large snow sculptures, festival food stalls, snowboard jump and ice slides are in a long park in the center of the city. We wandered and enjoyed the sculptures, people watching and food.
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| A little Japanese fashion and festival food - soy sauce roasted Hokkaido corn. |
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| This snow aquarium was pretty impressive! |
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| A sculpture of the Japanese women's soccer team captain. |
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| The Taj Mahal and the character from "One Piece," a very popular manga with my Japanese students. |
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| My favorite part of the snow sculptures was this section of themed sculptures sponsored by "sister" countries and U.S. cities. The above right is from Portland. |
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| This one is for our dragon baby. |
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| The sphere was my favorite, I like how minimal yet complex it is. | | | | | | | | | | | | | | |
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After a nap in our hotel room we enjoyed an Italian dinner and the ice sculptures in another part of the city. It was neat to see the sculptures and city by night.
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| Another dragon for our little tatsu たつ. Couldn't pass up a seat in the ice car. |
On Friday we spent the morning at Ishiya Chocolate Factory, they specialize in making a white chocolate cookie that they call the "Langue du Chat." We got to see the workings of the factory and taste the cookies. They are one of the most famous omiyage to give in Japan.
Then we took a train an hour northwest up the coast to Otaru. It is known for blown glass, music boxes and a brewery. It also has a small snow festival along the river. It snowed all day while we were there. We warmed up with some delicious ramen for lunch and attempted to shop and walk around the town but freezing toes got the best of us so we spent most of the early afternoon and evening at the Otaru brewery.
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| Otaru beer and fresh pretzels! Yummy. |
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| We took a COLD snowy walk through the snow lanterns along the river and then returned to the brewery for dinner before taking the train back to Sapporo. |
Saturday Renae and I shopped all morning/afternoon. We got lost in the maze of shops under Sapporo. I found a few cute momo outfits and a diaper bag. The boys went to warm up at an onsen (Japanese bath) and enjoy fresh sashimi at the Sapporo fish market.
That evening we went to the snow festival to see the big snow sculptures all lit up at night. We caught a few Japanese performances including AKB48 wannabes (AKB48 is a VERY popular, only in Japan, girl band). We also attempted to go up the Sapporo tower to view the festival from above but we opted not to wait in the LONG line. Instead we had dinner in the restaurant and toasted to Sapporo.
Kanpai かんぱい
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