Lost in Ogawa

This past weekend had been one of my most favorite weekends since I’ve started living in Japan. It was also the coldest weekend I have ever experienced. Since Friday was a holiday (thank you Japan for a holiday once a month), I decided to leave Ogawa and for once, take a break from Tokyo and go somewhere a little farther. Along with 7 other ALT friends, we headed to Hokkaido, what I like to call snow country! Japan is primarily made up of 4 main islands. Hokkaido is the northern most island right on top of the banana shaped island where all the major Japanese cities that you’ve heard of are located: Tokyo, Osaka, Kyoto, Hiroshima, etc. To get a better association of Hokkaido, anybody ever drank Sapporo Beer? Well, Sapporo is the biggest, and the main city in Hokkaido. Seems quite obvious Sapporo beer is made there huh?! Sapporo is not as large as Tokyo of course but it’s the largest city there. From what I’ve heard, the rest of Hokkaido is mainly countryside but I’ve also heard from friends, family, and (believe it or not) Chinese soap operas, Hokkaido is famous for its beautiful sceneries. During the winter time when it snows, Hokkaido is a piece of white carpet that stretches endlessly in all directions. Survey from my Taiwanese family members and family friends tells me Hokkaido is one of the most popular destinations for Taiwanese tourist.

So why would I venture out to Sapporo to freeze my butt off when I can do that right in my apartment? Once a year, Sapporo is host to one of the most popular and widely attended festival in Japan. It is called the “Snow Festival” or “Yuki Matsuri” in Japanese. This year was the 56th annual Snow Festival in Sapporo. Tons of Japanese people come from all over Japan and not to mention different parts of the world to see this festival. It was estimated that over the course of the festival, 2 million people will have came to the festival. That means, hotels prices are high and hard to find, and airfare was double the usual price. However, if there was a reason to go to Hokkaido, the snow festival was the best reason to go. It’s not worth discussing how much the trip cost because it’ll just make me cry! It’s disgustingly outrageous for 2 nights and maybe 2 full days. From Tokyo to Sapporo, the flight was about 1.5 hours. I couldn’t believe my eyes how much snow there was, it was everywhere! I can safely say I have never seen so much snow in my life. Part of me was excited to see the snow, the other part of me was going numb from the cold! On the news, I would always see the temperature to be in the minuses but you really don’t’ know what that means until you experience it for yourself. When we were there, the high was maybe -5 degree Celsius for the day and at night, minuses in the double digits. Ouch! So what’s so special about the snow festival? These amazingly carved snow sculptures and ice sculptures of ridiculous sizes. Most of them are bigger than me and some of them are as big as my house or bigger. Everything was so beautiful, I couldn’t stop taking pictures. At night it’s even prettier with the different colored lights giving life to the sculptures. The only problem with viewing at night was that it was freaking FREEZING outside. Every 30 mins. or so, I would loose feeling in my toes and fingers and we would have to enter rest stations to warm up by the portable gas heaters.

The main site for the snow sculpture was located at Sapporo’s Odori Park. It was a pretty big park, lengthwise. There had to be at least 100 or more snow sculptures. There were Japanese anime characters, Disney characters, Korean drama stars, you name it, they’ve got it. Being in Hokkaido with all that snow, it would be such a shame if I didn’t go snowboarding and snowboarding I did!! The snow was amazing! It was beautiful with the soft powder snow. I crashed and burned quite a few times but it didn’t really hurt…….at first =) I haven’t touched a snowboard in almost two years and once I got on the board once more, it all came back like riding a bike. It was bliss! From my research and what my Japanese friends and teachers have told me, the best snow is February in Hokkaido. I just couldn’t miss it no matter how hung over I was from the night before x) All my friends out there who enjoy skiing or snowboarding, you should ski/snowboard in Hokkaido at least once in your lifetime, if not more. Ok that’s all I’m going to say about Hokkaido, you’ll just have to see it for yourself or just look at my pictures and use your imagination!

http://pg.photos.yahoo.com/ph/tonykao0627/album?.dir=/ea5a

Tags: Travel

This entry was posted on Friday, February 18th, 2005 at 1:38 am and is filed under Travel. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.