The Sapporo Snow Festival

This blog's adventure takes place in Sapporo, with a population of 1.85 million people weighing in as Japan's 5th largest city.

This history of Sapporo from Lonely Planet,
This bustling metropolis was once nothing but a quiet hunting and fishing town in the Ishikari Plain of Hokkaido, settled by the Ainu. They were left alone until 1821, when the Tokugawa Shogunate created an official trading post in what would eventually become Sapporo. The city was declared the capital of Hokkaido in 1868, and its growth was carefully planned. In 1880, Japan's third major railway was constructed which linked Sapporo and the port city of Otaru.
In the 20th century, Sapporo emerged as a major producer of agricultural products. Sapporo Beer, the country's first, was founded in 1876 and quickly became synonymous with the city itself. In 1972 Sapporo hosted the Winter Olympics, and it continues to attract visitors from around the world.


Welcome to the 58th Annual Sapporo Snow Festival!

A few weekends ago, myself and a massive amount of teachers invaded the Northern island of Japan, Hokkaido and most noteably - the city of Sapporo. The reason? HUGE snow statues.
This trip was sponsored by our prefectural social network.

After work on Thursday, Akira, Brian, Meg & I headed to Sendai for a nomihodai - that is - an all you can drink for two hours deal. There were 48 teachers in all who went on this trip. Most of us met up before the overnight bus ride to help the ride go by a bit faster by having an all you can drink for two hours.


Following the nomihodai, we all headed onto the bus that would take us up North. I didn't fall asleep on the bus - as I am unskilled in that "sleeping in moving things" area. Following the 5 hour bus ride, we had to sit around in a ferry terminal that would transport us from tohoku - the northern area of Japan - to Hokkaido. I fell asleep on the hard floor for a few hours before we actually got onto the ferry.

Our scary amount of foreigners were given this large area split up into four spots to call home for the next 8 hours. At first, I explored with Dave & Hashmatt before taking my place on the ground and sleeping some more. The exploration was not much - finding a pathetic game room, seeing off the mainland, finding the vending machines of food, and not too much more after that. After getting in a few more hours of sleep, I helped pass the time by reading and playing some catch phrase - a game that made me think of my freshmen year of college. Eventually, we reached Hokkaido. After reaching dry land - we were now on the island of Hokkaido; but not quite yet to Sapporo. It was less than two hours on another bus and we finally reached Sapporo! A rushed getting ready time before our first night out. The first dinner was paid for - and lucky for me! it was a lamb grilling event called Ghengis Khan BBQ held at the Sapporo Beer Factory. I only ate vegetables but still had a good time as it was all you could drink as well. I think the fun part of this lamb eating event was wearing bibs and playing janken or "rock, paper, scissors" to see who drinks.

After dinner and drinking, it was time to go to the bars! We went to a place called, yes, no lie - Club Booty. I have to tell you now - that Japan has a lot of different beers - but my favorite beer is definitely Sapporo beer. I was pretty excited to be drinking my favorite beer in the city that brews it. Unfortuntely, in this night - I ended up with stitches.




But no worries! I am a trooper! I still went to go see the Snow Festival! Okay! Onto the history of the snow festival!

The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan's largest winter events, is attracting a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad. Over two million people came to the annual event last year (2006) to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures which lined Odori Park, the main street in susukino and Satorando. The figures, large and small, turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal and white for seven days every February.

The festival began in 1950 when senior high school students of the city made six snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Self Defense Force joined in and built massive snow statues as well. The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become the biggest and most well-known of Hokkaido's winter events and a snow festival of international caliber. I am a "city overlook" kind of traveler. When my Australia travel buddy - Ferris & I would travel in Australia and New Zealand it seemed every city had that "must see" view spot. Well, so does Japan. Before viewing any type of Snow Statues we decided to go up the Sapporo TV Tower that vaguely represents what the Eiffel tower looks likes. You can get 90 meter panoramic views from the top (that's 295 feet) . Below is a shot of what Sapporo looks like.


I loved Sapporo. It had a really good vibe to it. The whole area reminded me a lot and I mean ALOT of home. The city reminded me of Montreal - and I LOVE Montreal, the mountainous terrain reminded me of the Adirondack Mountains. The city seemed more "Western" than that of any other city I've been to in Japan (that's not speaking for a lot at the moment). There was just something about Sapporo.

Then it was onto the Snow Festival! We got back down from the TV tower and began our walk. It was really crowded but still quite awe inspiring. I posted some of the larger snow statues below. We walked around the main street - Odori Street to view the sculptures. Since I don't feel like thinking - let's just say it was "pretty cool".




Following the couple hour stroll to view these statues, we went to the shopping district. We checked out the Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade and walked a bit through the Pole Town & Aurora Town underground shopping mall. It was a full day outdoors and it was great to be outdoors.

Sapporo is on the same latitude line as New York(NY) basically. Imagine Sapporo weather to be the same as NY weather. Along with the rest of the world, the weather in Sapporo has been strange. That means, we still got to see the snow statues - but there wasn't too much snow on the ground and it made for decent walking weather - I don't think I was ever too cold walking. That evening - since I was in no condition to go drinking again - Meg & I went to see Marie Antoinette.

The next day - we rented a car to get out of the city and see some of the wilderness that Hokkaido is probably best known for. Akira, being the awesome man that he is - took care of it for us - we rented a huge, white 9 person van to go out and see Hokkaido! You're probably thinking we're crazy for wanting to be out in a car again after how much traveling it took for us to actually get into Sapporo.

Once we left the city, we finally got to see SNOW again.
I love mountains! I love snow covered mountains!
It was great and relieving to be amongst snow again. The crunchity crunch of packing snow underneath my feet. The first time I have worn boots this year! Bundling up to stay warm! Blasting heat in the car. Again, mountains made me very nostalgic of the Adirondacks. We made a pit stop to take some pictures, whereby, Akira and drunk Brian played in the snow. (I don't think Brian was sober at all this whole day).



Our final destination was a small quaint town called Otaru. We had lunch there, where Brian was dared the equivalent of about $10 USD to snort curry powder. Maybe it was because he had been drunk all day or just really wanted the money - but he did it. We all had curry for lunch. After that we walked around on the snow fallen ground being refreshed by new snow that was falling, stopping only briefly into some Japanese culture shops to warm up our cold bodies. Otaru is known for it's glass blowing - and the last of our time in Otaru was spent watching Akira make Katie a bead at a very crowded glass shop. On the way back, we tried finding an onsen but it was too late.

Instead, we went to Moiwa -yama Ropeway. This ropeway offers panoramic views of Sapporo at 531m (1742 feet). You first take a gondola up to almost the top, then you get into this really cool caterpillar - car thing. Lucky for us, we got the inside car and weren't stuck on the sled seats that were attached to the back of it. It seemed really romantic; but WAY too cold to be on the top of the mountain, moving at night in winter.
We reached the top where we had the opportunity to view the Sapporo view by night. It was frigid but well worth the coldness endured to see. None of my pictures turned out though, sorry.



The next morning we headed back to the reality - by ending our travels - and going back to Miyagi via busses, ferries and a car ride back home.

I intend to live in Sapporo during the summer for a Japanese language school. I hope so, it looks like there is some good hiking there.

All the pictures from this trip.


Dave's take on this trip