More stuff from Day 1

After we returned from the onsen, the seven of us went exploring downtown Sapporo. It was still two days before the festival, so many of the main snow sculptures were closed to the public, but we did get to see a few half-finished projects. Many people say that arriving a few days before the beginning of the matsuri is best because then you can watch the artists making the sculptures; we took that advice to heart and were able to watch some groups of men working on the smaller figures.


This is a picture of us in front of the Sapporo TV Tower, which looks a great deal like Tokyo Tower but with a clock on it. During our final day in Hokkaido, we went up to the observation deck, but because there was a veritable blizzard outside, we could barely see anything on the ground.

That evening, we wandered around looking at the local shops and exploring a roofed shopping arcade that ran parallel to the matsuri park. For dinner, the boys of our group insisted we find this famous ramen shop, reportedly the best miso ramen restaurant in Hokkaido. We waited for 45 minutes in the bitter cold- it was torture! But I gotta say, that miso ramen was one of the best meals I've had so far in Japan! I don't even like ramen usually, but this stuff was awesome! And exactly what you need after standing in the cold for nearly an hour.

















It wasn't until around 9pm that we finally checked into our hotel, the Sapporo Sheraton. For only paying $300, we got placed in a super nice hotel! The employees were all bilingual (though we tried to keep the conversations in Japanese for practice) and very polite, as expected at a Japanese establishment. They even put two extra beds in our double room so none of us had to share ^^. The next day when we were exploring the ground floor, we were extremely surprised to find a chapel inside the hotel; apparently it is a popular place for couples to tie the knot!


























Allow me to take this opportunity to point out that, while most of these photos are mine, many of them were taken by my fellow travellers: Maggie Chan, Melanie Bise, Jeff James, Nicole Bigler, JC Sun, and Diago Takayama. I can't remember which photos belong to which friends, but thanks, guys!

Hot Water vs. Frozen Water: The Snowdown!

Konnichiwa! I am back from my trip to the Yuki Matsuri, or Snow Festival of Sapporo in Hokkaido! To be honest, I've been back for a few days now, but my toes are still defrosting! There's a reason all the water is frozen up there.

Just as everyone instructed, I took TONS of photos, so many in fact that in order to share with you all four of my wonderful days in Hokkaido, it very well may take me four or more separate postings. I thought the festival itself would take up all of our time, but we ended up spending most of our time outside of Sapporo visiting famous locations.

For this post, I'll tell you about our first day there. Our plane from Tokyo to Sapporo was at 7am, so we arrived at about 8am, giving us the whole day to enjoy. By a happy coincidence, two of our dormmates and their friend were on almost the same trip as us (we booked through the same travel agency) and their seats were right next to ours on the plane. They asked us if we would like to go with them to a sacred onsen, or hot springs, nestled in the snowy mountains outside of the city. We agreed, and then it was a literal race against time to catch the bus to the mountains! We just made it in time!

It's a good thing we did, because the onsen was AMAZING! They seriously weren't kidding when they said it was "nestled in the mountains"! I had never seen a real mountain range before, so I was very excited. By the way, that strange guy in the pic is Jeff, another American ^^.

Before enjoying the hot springs, we all had lunch, which turned out to be in an igloo! Move over Eskimos, it seems the Japanese are the igloo experts, at least in Hokkaido. The walls were ten feet of packed snow, and the ceiling was stabilized with wooden polls and bamboo mats to keep the snow above the grill from dripping on us. We had jengis khan (sp?) mutton, a specialty of Hokkaido. It's basically fatty lamb and veggies that you grill yourself. It was really fun, but we kept putting on too much food and burning it! Hence the black stuff caked to the grill in the photo ^^;;;

After lunch, we ladies separated from the guys and went into the onsen. Unfortunately, cameras aren't allowed, but I'll do my best to describe it:

Like many onsen, this one had two parts: artificial pools inside and natural pools outside. We all immediately went outside to sit in the natural hot spring bath. The water was nice and warm, perfect for the cold climate. Imagine being in a giant hot tub made of stone outside, surrounded by snow-laden trees and mountains. All you can hear is the quiet chatter of a couple of other guests in the far section of the pool. A few minutes later, it starts to snow lightly, covering everything around you in a fresh layer of fluffy whiteness, while you sit safe and warm in the water. Almost makes you want to hop on a plane right now, huh?

Stay tuned for the next Hokkaido post!