SNOW FESTIVAL 2014!

The Sapporo snow festival, Sapporo yuki matsuri, is one of the largest festivals in all of Japan. It lasts for about a week, and I was fortunate enough to have a long weekend so I could catch the second half. Hokkaido is a place I've always wanted to see during my many times in Japan. The island is huge, representing about 1/5th of the country's land mass, and while Sapporo is the 5th largest city in all of Japan, the population of the whole island makes up only about 4% for all of Japan. Why all the stats, Posey? It's to give you a sense that while Japan has a reputation for being very congested with everyone living on top of each other, that is not the case up in Hokkaido.

Alright enough of that, onto the real reason I wrote this entry. We hardly ever get snow in Yakage, and if it does snow, it won't last very long on the ground, so I was pumped to be in Hokkaido where it snowed every day during my stay there.

Yes, that tube is my room

It might sound a little weird, but another reason I was excited about this trip, besides there being a huge festival devoted to the awesomeness of snow, was the experience of staying at a capsule hotel. I was expecting something like a sarcophagus, but you had decent room to move around inside of them. There were even TVs mounted inside.

 After checking in, it was time to hit the streets and see some artistic displays. There are several sites around Sapporo featuring different things depending on what you'd like to see. My hotel happened to be located in Susukino, the entertainment district, and where you'd find ice sculptures of all varieties.

A famous alleyway packed with ramen shops

Every city and region of Japan has it's signature food item. Sometimes it's just being the best place to eat a particular food, like fried octopus in Osaka, while other times it's a well-known food that has been slightly tweaked and embraced by Japanese people. Sapporo is one of the top cities for all the ramen noodle lovers out there. Sapporo's claim to fame is using miso, fermented soybeans, as its soup base but on top of all that, you have great local seafood being thrown in like crabs and shellfish. And a whole wad of butter to top it all off doesn't hurt either. Truly a great meal to enjoy after being out in the cold.

Besides Suskino, another site is Odori, a large park in the middle of the city that has all the snow sculptures. Teams came from all over the world for this competition. The USA team's wasn't too impressive in my opinion but others were incredibly detailed.

Besides those that were entered into the contest, there were many others that were just made by locals wanting to show off some famous characters from Japanese culture. I was happy to see a fight scene from the story of Momotarou the Peach Boy. And then there were just these jaw-dropping constructions that make me wish I had been able to come sooner to document the day to day progression and see how long it took to create one such as the Sochi Olympics at the top of the page.

An old brewery that is now a museum

It would have been wrong to visit Sapporo and not pay my respects to its delicious beer, so I went on a pilgrimage. Even though all Americans I've talked to say they like Sapporo beer the best, it only ranks number 3 here in Japan! Come on, son.

My last full day was originally going to be a sports day as I wanted to get some skiing done for the first time in like 6 years. Instead, I decided to go out into the wilderness to some remote town with a famous hot spring. Baths are so popular here, so having an onsen at your inn is a huge tourism draw. Walking into the adjoining bath house and smelling that rotten egg smell...Mmm...Yeah it was worth the hour bus ride. On top of that, this place Hoheikyo onsen was great because you could bathe outdoors, men and women in separate locations of course. So yeah, sitting in a volcanic hot tub with the snow falling down on you was awesome to say the least.

This is not my photo, as you would not be allowed to bring a camera in, but I wanted to show you all what I got to see

Relaxing vacation, but there was more I would have liked to do, so I guess I'll just have to go back another year.