Otaru Lanterns

id heard about this place, its part of the sapporo snow festival, but its an hour outside sappuro, so i dragged everyone out to this place not knowing what to expect, or where to go. well, we pulled up at the train station and found 4 candles on the platform, i began to get a little worried that that was indeed 'it', anway, we followed a prescribed route, and nearly missed this small staircase down a small alley, when we got to the top of the stairs it was like 'WOW'! it was a path about a mile long, covered in snow, with all these lanterns. the lanterns were actually candles in snow, some in snow recesses in the wall, some in snowball lanterns....truly truly amazing, such a beautiful site...and hot red (gluwein) at the end...cold but perfect night.