Snow Festival in Hokkaido!
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2009
1
21
47
Trip End
Jun 25, 2011
Sapporo, Hokkaido,
Japan
Tuesday, February 13, 2007
The JET's in Hokkaido (the Northern most Island in Japan) organize a package trip every year for other JET's to attend their famous Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival) held every February. I had heard a little bit about it and really wanted to go, thank you HAJET's!
**The Snow Festival began in 1950 when six local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Japan Self-Defense Forces from the nearby Makomanai base joined in and built the first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has now become famous. In years when the accumulated snowfall is low, the Self-Defense Force, for whom participation is considered a training exercise, brings in snow from outside Sapporo. **
There were 4 different flights offered from various airports around Japan, and I think something like 80 or so JET's went with the Hokkaido JET trip
01 pay at the vending machine for your food!
! Our plane from Osaka was lots of fun, we met other JET's from the Kansai area and had fun exchanging teaching stories, etc..Oh-and battling on our Nintendo DS!! The plane was 2 hours long and when we landed in Sapporo we were greeted by Bailey, the 'Social Coordinator' for the Hokkaido JET's. He gave us our train tickets and we set out to Sapporo-shi (city). There was so much snow as we were walking to the hotel, and so many people slipped and fell! At the airport convenience store I noticed they sold these clips for your shoes that you attach to give some tread when walking in the snow. Although it is an unusually warm winter throughout Japan (it gets up to about 55 where I live during the day!), Sapporo was an average of about 2 degrees while we were there. During the days it got a little warmer which was too bad, because some of the ice sculptures were a little melty. There were signs all over of a snowman apologizing for the warm weather.
Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido and Japan's fifth largest city. Sapporo is also one of the nation's youngest major cities. Sapporo is a relatively new city by Japanese standards. I read that the population was only 7 people in 1857! 10 years later Sapporo was chosen to become the administrative center of Hokkaido and was developed quickly thereafter
02 all the JET's playing Nintendo DS on the plane
. Foreign advisor's recommended the city streets be designed according to North American style rectangular street system and thus is one of the easiest cities to navigate in Japan! Sapporo became world famous in 1972 when the Olympic Winter Games were held there. Today, the city is well known for its ramen, beer, and the annual snow festival!Day #1: We walked around Odori Park (large park that separates the North and South of the city) where the huge snow sculptures were, and some of the ice sculptures. There were also singers and musicians performing. There was even a huge snowboarding hill/jump set up in the middle of the city for people to watch the boarders to tricks off the jump. As usual when we visit a big city we take the opportunity to have foreign food, and chose an Italian place to have dinner. We met up with 2 other JET's from Wakayama - Mercedes and Rich and had a great time hanging out with them throughout the weekend. (They live about 3 hours away up north and unfortunately because of the distance we had only been introduced to them briefly in August when we first arrived.)
Day #2: Up early for a delicious buffet breakfast in the hotel, and then caught the train with a ton of other JET's to go SKIING!!! It's always exciting to ski, but especially in Japan!
03 cute Japanese flight attnds Tony loved, haha
! I had read the conditions were great, a ton of snow, all packed powder. Lily had never skied before so once we got all set up I tried to teach her some of the basics on the bunny slope. She caught on really quickly and did a great job the whole day (despite a slight mishap on a snowboarding jump!! haha) Those of you who know Lily will understand how hilarious it was to ski with her, because from the bottom of the mountain you could hear her screaming :) The runs were nice and long and I even got to go in my first gondola. The mountain was beautiful and while you were skiing there was another large mountain in view that we called the mini-Mt.Fuji. We skied on Niseko, one of 3 resorts on the mountain - but that had plenty of runs to keep us busy all day. Instead of a sticky lift ticket like in the States they give you a credit card type card and you keep it in your pocket, when you approach the lift they have turnstiles and it senses your card and lets you through, that was really cool! We caught the bus back late afternoon and were all sore from skiing. Had fun hanging out with some 3rd year Hokkaido JET's on the train back, too. They recommended a delicious Indian restaurant for dinner, and we all stuffed ourselves full of authentic curry, naan bread, samosa, and Indian beer. Day #3: We slept in a little bit and after another delicious breakfast we headed out to Odori Park to see the rest of the snow and ice sculptures
04
. The Yuki Matsuri is one of the largest winter events in Japan. Teams from outside Japan come to participate, and the festival is thought to be an opportunity for promoting international relations. About two million people come to see the enormous beautiful snow statues on display! There were 17 teams participating in the Snow Statue Contest: United States of America, India, Australia, Canada, Guam, Shanghai city, Portland, Oregon (the sister city), Singapore, Republic of Korea, Thailand, People's Republic of China, Germany, Hawaii, Finland, Hong Kong, Malaysia, and Lithuania. Teams consisted of 3 people who could work for 3 days on their statue after which the Judges decided the winners. This year Hong Kong won. The subject of the statues vary and often feature an event or famous person from the past year. This year some of the ice sculptures were: a Japanese castle, the Grand palace in Thailand, Whale, Manta Ray from the aquarium in Okinawa, Mickey Mouse and Stitch (from the movie Lilo and Stitch), a famous Japanese comedian, the Japanese Imperial Palace, Milk Land Hokkaido (apparently there are a lot of cows in Hokkaido) and one symbolizing Freedom. There were also long ice slides, ice bars, and a snow maze!
We had fun walking around looking at everything, and just being in a new awesome city, with lots of snow
05 right off the plane, snowball fights begin!
. We had the famous "Hokkaido Ramen" which, shockingly, tasted just like any other ramen I've had, haha oh Japan - everything has to be "the best" or the "top 3." We spent the afternoon at the Chocolate Factory a bit outside the city center. It looked just like a German city, complete with Tudor buildings,etc..The Japanese prefer to stay in their own country rather than travel outside of it and they LOVE organized tour groups that ride on nice cushy buses (they do it even in their own country!) So you will often find a replica of a city/place outside Japan scaled down so that the Japanese can feel like they are visiting that city. In the next prefecture over from mine there is Spain World, and my supervisor told me there is Holland World which actually has real bricks imported from Holland! The Chocolate Factory was cool but we had the most fun snow tubing with some Japanese kids. I think all Japanese people think we are officially insane.
We headed back to the city, did a little shopping then got ready for the JET enkai (party) at the Kirin (famous Japanese beer) Beer Garden! It was so much fun to hang out with new JET's and we had a 100 minutes of all you can eat (grill your own Hokkaido lamb) and all you can drink! We challenged the Hokkaido JET table to a drink-off in our quest to "put Wakayama (our little known prefecture) on the map." Let's just say they will never forget Wakayama now!! We all headed to a couple of bars afterwards which were also fun, I arrived back at the hotel in blizzard like conditions around 6:45am!! Traveling home was not so much fun :(
Yet another great weekend in Japan - I'm excited I'm staying next year because we are already talking about things we want to do next year when we go back!
Comments
Had a blast!
Hey Kate,
Thanks for sharing your blog with us. You have some great photos and you also write really well. I didn't know some of the facts that you quoted. Hope that we can get together soon. We really had a fun time with you all. Maybe sometime this next month we can plan a night out in Osaka??? Think about it.
Mercedes