Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 1

SAPPORO SNOW FESTIVAL! This festival is world famous, 2-2.5 million people go to it each year. Not bad for something started in 1950 when high school students built some snow sculptures, huh? That first year 50,000 people visited the sculptures and the festival has been growing ever since. This year there were 199 snow and ice sculptures! The sculptures range in size from the littlest snowman on up to the “massive sculptures” that can be more than 25m wide and 15m tall (80ft wide x 50ft tall)! The Japanese Self Defense Force (military) builds the massive ones and they are all sponsored by either broadcasting companies or newspapers. You can read more about the festival’s interesting history HERE. To read a short step by step explanation along with pictures of how they build the giant ones click HERE. 

Me in front of the Mausoleum of Itmad-Ud-Daulah sculpture.

We began planning our trip to Sapporo back in September…5 months in advance! Luckily we did start that early because we got one of the last hotel rooms within reasonable distance/price of the main festival site. There were others available, but we weren’t looking to spend $1000/night! Sapporo is on the island to our north and we had a few options to get there...overnight ferry, I think that was something like 10 hours on a boat; train, but not the bullet train, so something like 9 hours on a train; OR fly, and be there in 1 hour. For us the choice was easy, it was more expensive but we didn't have to waste 2 days on travel. We flew from Aomori instead of Misawa, there were several reasons why we chose to do so, I won’t bore everyone with those details here but if you are trying to plan a trip and want to know just contact me and I’ll be glad to answer your questions! 

On our way to Aomori airport!

Lots of snow!

View from the plane during take off.

Misawa is barely north of Hachinohe. Sapporo is where
all the blue markers are at...

Ignore the blue lines. Our hotel was the point on the left
side, Odori Park is the long green park in the center.
Susukino, is the lower right of the map.

This year's festival was February 5-11th, we got there early afternoon on the 6th and our flight home was the evening of the 8th. That gave us about 2 ½ days which was about the perfect amount of time to see everything we planned to see. There are three festival sites, Odori Park, Susukino and Tsudome. We visited Odori and Susukino, but not Tsudome because we were told that it was more oriented to families and kids.

After we dropped off our luggage at the hotel we ventured out to Odori Park which is the main site of the festival. We started at the west side since it was closest to the hotel. 

Had to get some lunch so we could actually
focus on our adventure! Kebabs! Yum!

Odori Park is separated into 12 sections, each about the size of a block. We started in section 12, "Citizen's Square." All the sculptures in this area were created by the citizens of Sapporo.These were the smaller snow sculptures. I believe there were around 100 of them throughout Odori Park. 

Section 11 was the "International Square," home of the 41st International Snow Sculpture Contest. I will post the pictures of the contest in progress as well as the finished sculptures in another blog entry (Part 4). This section was also the site of International Exchange Food Corner...where we found the kebabs! Lots of other food options from around the world also available.

Section 10 was "UHB Family Square," this is where we saw our first "massive" sculpture. The sculpture is of a popular children's show "Hirake! Ponkikki" which was celebrating its 40th anniversary of being on television.

More of Japan's super cute road blockades. These are
characters from the cartoon "Hirake! Ponkikki".

"Hirake! Ponkikki" themed snow sculpture.

Section 9 was another "Citizen's Square," with smaller sculptures.

Section 8, "HTB Snow Square," had a sculpture of Mausoleum of Itmad-Ud-Daulah, which is located in India. The picture at the top of this post is of me in front of this sculpture.

"Here the snow sculpture, Mausoleum of Itmad-Ud-Daulah
measures 12 meters high, 21 meters wide and 23 meters in depth.
Approximately 2.250 tons of snow."

"HBC Malaysia Square" was section 7. It had a sculpture of Sultan Abdul Samad Building located in Kuala Lumpur.

"Love for the people, love for the animals and love for the environment.
We face various types of love in our daily lives.
The only way to build a bright future is to find what true love is.
“Love for all”"

Section 6 was another "Citizen's Square," and it featured the Hokkaido Food Park which had local foods that are famous/exclusive to the island of Hokkaido.

"STV Square" was the name of section 5. It had a sculpture in tribute to the Japanese athletes that are about to compete in the 2014 Winter Olympics in Sochi.

"Winter Sports Paradise, Hokkaido!"

The detail was just crazy!

Warming up with a milk tea. One of my new
favorites since moving here!

Section 4, "Mainichi Ice Square," featured a Taiwanese themed ice sculpture. 

"Taiwan ~ Tradition and Modern"
Left - Taipei 101
Center - The National Palace Museum
Right - Taiwan High Speed Rail

"HTB Park Air Square" was section 3 and was home to Shiroi Koibito PARK AIR Jumping Platform where skiers and snowboarders performed air shows.

If you look closely you can see the snow boarder in the air.

There were people everywhere!
The walkways were very crowded.

Section 2, "Hokkaido Shimbun, Ice Square," contained the Palace of Heart ice sculpture. 

 

The Palace of Heart

It felt so much colder in Sapporo than in Misawa! Definitely not the coldest weather we'd ever experienced, but colder than we'd experienced this year, and it didn't help we were wandering around outside all day! I think the temperature was around 15-20°F. Even with multiple layers and hand warmers we were still looking for places to warm up. Luckily this fancy beer igloo was near the end of our walk through Odori Park. I probably would have caught fire had I gotten much closer to the space heaters...

I will never understand the young Japanese women that wear leggings, heels and no hat. Brrrr, guess I don't care enough about fashion, plus I'd likely trip and hurt myself, it was hard enough walking on the uneven, sometimes icy snow while wearing my snow boots!

Taking a break to check out the beer dome!

This is a new beer called Rich Malt...its slogan is
"Enjoy Rich Taste in Relaxing Time".

Section 1 was the skating rink. "J:COM Square". It was directly beneath the Sapporo TV Tower (that looks similar to the Eiffel Tower).

From Odori Park we headed to Susukino Blvd where about 60 ice sculptures were displayed. Susukino is also Sapporo's entertainment/nightlife district...check out our adventures there in Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 2!