Wednesday, February 14, 2007

Sapporo Snow Festival

Last weekend was a bank holiday weekend, and to be honest, i had nothing planned. i really wanted to go to the sapporo snow festival, it was one of my big boxes that i wanted to tick, but id heard it was next weekend when the marathon was on. luckily i found out it was last weekend, however, with 1.9 million visitors over a week, and only 2 flights per day, and it being a 10 hour drive, the chances were slim, especially as it was tuesday when we decided we wanted to go, most people had booked months in advance, anyway, tomomi rang up and managed somehow to get us 6 seats on the flight out (the last 6 seats), i was v v v v excited. i went with my good buddies adam from work, his girlfriend hisa, tomomi my translator and friend and gareth...who brought his 'friend' yakuri, who he had me in a bar the week before (see last weeks blog entry). i didnt know what to expect really, id seen photos from the internet etc... but had no idea what it was. we landed saturday lunchtime, checked in and went into sapporo, we went straight to ramen alley for lunch which was brilliant, authentic sapporo ramen. late afternoon we decided to go to the winter sports museum. sapporo is in hokkaido, a large island in the north of japan. its an hour flight north of niigata, and is famous for being the snowiest and coldest place in japan, which is saying something. the 1972 winter olympics were held in sapporo. the museum was pretty cool, and we got to stand on top of the ski jump....mucho scary! never in a million years! after we discovered an outdoor ice skating rink, which was beautiful as the snow fell and were lit up by the floodlights. in the evening we went for dinner at the sapporo beer museum garden, all you could eat and drink. it was a lamb bbq, where you have a hotplate and much raw meat! and you cook your meal yourself. they had loads of igloos outside and was beautiful, it was still snowing, and v v v cold! we got a taxi into town to see the ice sculptures in town, which were pretty cool, and met up with a few schoolteacher friends of mine from niigata to go for beers. we rolled home about 1am and straight into the hotels onsen...see photos

sunday we went to see the main sculptures in town, man alive they were big!! bigger than houses, no structures, just pure snow sculptures (why is sculptures the hardest word to type? ...go on...try it) some were bigger than houses, incredible stuff. after we went on a train for about an hour to see the lanterns at otaru.its about a mile long path adorned with candles set in snow, so so so so pretty, the photos dont really do it justice, truly amazing. a sushi dinner followed (although i was aching for hot food!) it was such a cold night, about -3 but the windchill made it seem much colder.

we flew home monday morning v v v tired, but so glad we went, we didnt have a moments rest the while weekend, there was so much to see, and im always so afraid on these trips that ill miss something interesting!

(apologies, in retrospect, reading this sounds like a school 'what i did on my summer holiday' essay...."and then we did this, and then we did that...at band camp this, and at band camp that..." very poor writing, but to fit it all in would take pages and pages

many many many thanks to gareth, yakuri, adam and hisa, for a truly memorable weekend, and especially tomomi for booking the whole thing...to be honest, we were so surprised that we managed to get flights at the last minute that some of us actually thought tomomi had got the bookings wrong and were only convinced that she had got it right as the plane took off! (sorry) anyway guys, many thanks for the memories...photos follow...in some kind of chronological order

p.s. interesting fact...the flight from tokyo to sapporo (about 1 hour) is the most expensive flight per km in the entire world...fact

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