the sapporo snow festival
Another spontaneous trip with Jesse from the US, whom I met at the Couchsurfing bar in Otsuka.
Turns out she also wanted to go to Sapporo’s Snow Festival and I had already planned on going as well so she tagged along, just like that.
Luckily, we had a host in Sapporo, someone who hosted both Jacob and Anders, my two Danish couchsurfers from way back when we did Mt. Fuji, Jacob put us in touch. It was awesome because the rates in Sapporo were sky-rocketing due to the Snow Festival festivities and yet here we were, having a free place to stay.
Jesse went to Hokkaido first and I arrived a bit later the same night.
As I got out of the mainstation, excitement started to hit, seeing the snow covered city was definitely something new in Japan.
The roads were icey and a bit slippery but I pushed on til I arrived at the Odori Park where giant snow sculpures towered above everything else, the long park was subdivided into several sections and each zone had its own giant snow sculpture.
It also started to snow heavily at this point as we went around half of the plaza before deciding to head back to not keep our host waiting.
meeting uz
He picked us up near a snow covered parking lot, his name was Yuji or Uz for short.
His house was a bit of a ways from the main city but dang, he had one of the biggest houses I have ever seen.
A giant wooden cabin, with a fireplace and a couple of floors and even an attic. He had a dog, Shiro and we got along immediately.
I usually only get a couch or a bed if I am lucky but this time around we had the whole floor all to ourselves, it felt like royalty.
He prepared a bath for us as well with essential oils and everything. It was awesome.
I talked with him throughout the night while Jesse went ahead to take a bath, then I went after while she got to know him more before we retired to our beds for the next day feeling absolulely refreshed.
the asahikawa snow festival
We woke up the next day to head to Asahikawa, we had to brave the snow so early in the morning. It was both magical and brutal as the walk towards the train station was quite a way.
We had to make a quick pitstop at one of the supermarkets to get some breakfast.
Eventually, we made it to the main bus terminal back in Sapporo station where we got our tickets and got ready for the long bus ride to Asahikawa.
Jesse played some Pokemon Mystery Dungeons on her 3DS while I enjoyed watching the scenery unfolding before me as our bus headed into the city outskirts where we could see nothing but white all the way, trees were covered almost all the way in snow and at times blizzards would come in obstructing absolutely everything.
After a long bus ride, we finally made it to Asahikawa. We took a bus going towards the river where Asahikawa’s own Snow Festival was being held.
They had their own snow sculptures, the largest one being quite reminiscent of a giant snow fortress.
There were a lot more activities in this snow festival, we slid down an ice slide, rode on a friggin’ banana boat that drifted on the slippery icey snow and enjoyed going in and out of the various snow houses that were used by ethnic Ainu people.
animals of asahiyama
We went back to the station afterwards and had some buttercorn ramen, one of Hokkaido’s specialty foods. I wanted to go to another Snow Festival further beyond Asahikawa but it didn’t seem like we had the time therefore we opted to go to the famous Asahiyama Zoo instead.
Which proved to be a wise choice, as Jesse absolutely adored animals, and we were able to see a lot of wildlife that were native to this part of Japan including wolves, tanuki, penguins and bears.
As the sunset, the cold became increasingly sharp, my hands and cheeks were becoming quite unbearably uncomfortable.
We finally got on our bus to Asahikawa and switched to another one going back to Sapporo where we were able to rest for a bit.
Yuji was waiting for us back in Sapporo and he took us to a curry soup restaurant, another of Sapporo’s interesting delicacies.
We treated him as thanks for hosting us as we shared some lively and fun conversations. He took us back to his place where we were able to get another awesome night routine with his wonderful bath and comfy futons.
susukino ice sculptures
Today was a bit more chill as we didn’t have to catch another bus to a far away place. We walked Shiro with Yuji around the snow covered parks and back.
He gave us a ride to the train stations which saved us a lot of time and we said our goodbyes then and there as we probably would not be able to see each other again for the rest of the day.
In Sapporo, we first went to a Pokemon Center and then back to the Odori Park, to finish the rest of the Sapporo’s snow festival that we missed out on. It took a good chunk of time to go around the whole park, seeing all the unique snow sculptures, some were really good, some were funny and some were just plain weird but all were cool nevertheless.
We grabbed something to eat and took a train to Susukino next, here another part of the snow festival was happening with an emphasis on ice sculptures and ice craftsmanship. They were extremely detailed and well done.
otaru snow light path festival
After this Susukino, we got on a train going to Otaru. The train ride was one of the most beautiful rides in Japan that really reminded me of Spirited Away as our train coasted next to the ocean and the otherside were mountains, it was absolutely enchanting.
Otaru was already snowing when we got there, we took a bus going to an onsen first. Nothing as grand as Noboribetsu but it always hits the spot.
Jesse was already feeling quite tired and I was hoping the onsen would help, and it certainly did as afterwards as she regained much of her composure.
It was already dark when we got out and we stumbled our way around the dimy lit streets of Otaru, looking for the snow festival.
We went inside a shop and asked where it was and were pointed to the right direction. We finally caught sight of the Otaru canals, and on point as we started to see candles.
Otaru’s snow festival focused a lot on the romantic side of the snow and its canals and candle-lit snowladen street did executed it perfectly.
We walked along the path and saw a lot of small snow sculptures with candles inside. This continued all around Otaru but we were also running out of time as our flight was in a few hours.
We started to rush back to the station and caught one train going to Sapporo. We rushed to the lockers to get our stuff only to realize we didn’t have the keys with us, this caused a lot of panic and some heightened emotions and the guy standing near the lockers just watched it all happen despite having the key in question.
Kinda annoying as we missed another train and this set us back a lot of minutes, this made Jesse really anxious but I was still confident we would make it.
We got on our train and made it just fine at the airport, add this to the growing list of airport close calls.
