Monday, February 23, 2009

Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Fesitval)


This year I attended the 60th anniversary of the Sapporo Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival). Each year, generally around the first week of February (for future dates, you'll want to check here http://www.snowfes.com/english/ next winter), Sapporo hosts it's annual Yuki Matsuri.

I was able to see the sites in Oodori Park and Susukino. In Oodori park, a park which streches around 10 city blocks, you'll see a variety of snow sculptures. There are smaller man sized snow sculptures on the other parts of the park, and as you get closer to Oodori station, you'll see large magnificent structures such as the 1/8th scale Osaka Castle and the large Disney Display.




At night the large snow scupltures are lighted and night time concerts are performed on the stages of some of the large snow sculptures.



There also a variety of food stands in the Odori park site offering a wide selection of good eats. I especially loved the fresh grilled sea food.



In Susukino, you'll find a lot of the ice carvings. This site is fairly small, about 2 or 3 city blocks long along the center of the street. But the ice carvings are very detailed and look like crystals under the night time city lights. Susukino being where the night life in Sapporo lives, you can also enjoy some good Ramen at the Ramen Yokocho and have a drink at one of the many bars in this part of town.



There is a 3rd site which I didn't get a chance to see. It's suppose to be mostly composed of more fun activities such as mazes, slides, and various igloos housing different stores and good eats.

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