Snowshoeing in the Hakkoda's...one of the snowiest places on Earth!

The weather was looking great so we set off for a little snowshoeing adventure. We started off the day in Aomori and then headed to the Hakkoda Mountains. Our plan was to take the rope way to the top of the mountains and snowshoe to see the "snow monsters" (evergreen trees that get COMPLETELY coated in snow/ice). Plans changed a bit once we reached the base of the rope way and it was snowing pretty hard. Didn't feel like a good idea for rookie snowshoers to go up to the top of a mountain in a blizzard...

No one knows for sure how much snow the Hakkoda Mountains get each year but estimates I've found range from 14-20 meters...ummm that's crazy...46-66 feet!

A very short, interesting read published last week: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/02/13/the-snowiest-place-on-ear_n_4776260.html

See anything unusual about this picture??
Hint: It's in Japan not USA!

Cute hedgehogs at a bakery!

And whatever these are supposed to be...

This is a great mystery to us...a parking garage. You park just inside the garage door, they put a sensor thing on the car, you get out and lock the doors. Then the car disappears to somewhere. When you are ready to leave you give the attendant your receipt, they push some buttons and a couple minutes later the car shows back up ready to go. But where do they go? How do they get parked with out a driver???

These are pictures of our drive from Aomori through the mountains. Absolutely AMAZING! The snow was so beautiful and insanely deep! Glad we didn't meet many other cars, it was pretty much one lane, icy in places, but I don't think we were gonna go far if we hit the snow wall!

Let it snow (some more) & Lake Towada Winter Story

Wow! It's been snowing here...A LOT! Here's the latest updates...

We got back from Sapporo on Saturday, February 8th, luckily the storm rolling in didn't hit til after we'd driven home from the Aomori airport. By late Sunday night we had 15.7 inches of new snow. Bringing our season total to 96.9 inches! That put us above average (81 inches)...and that was just the beginning...

The following Friday the Misawa Weather Flight started predicting another snowstorm that would roll through over the weekend, initial predictions called for 15-18 inches over the weekend. The Blizzard Watch and Damaging Wind Watch turned into a Blizzard Warning, Damaging Wind Warning (58+ mph) and Heavy Snowfall Warning and the predicted snowfall just kept climbing. By mid-morning on Sunday the sky had cleared and we were left with a brand new 27.6 inches of snow. A new 24 hour snowfall record for the month of February. It still hasn't been very cold (unless you were out during the heavy winds), we were able to scoop snow in just long-sleeved shirts, no jackets required, it was in the upper 30's and sunny when the sky cleared. We are fortunate that a lot of the snow melts between storms!

View out of our kitchen window.

We have no where to push/pile the snow except
 for right in front of our building.
That means even the snow behind our cars has to
be carried and then tossed on the pile.
Not so bad when it's a light dry snow,
awful when it's a heavy wet snow,
especially when the top of the pile is above my head!

Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 4

Parts 1, 2 & 3 are at the following links if you missed them!

Sapporo Snow Festival - Part 1

Sapporo Snow Festival - Part 2

Sapporo Snow Festival - Part 3

Day 3 of our adventures in Sapporo! We started off the day revisiting Odori Park, specifically the "International Square." The winners of the 41st International Snow Sculpture Contest were announced this morning. We'd watched the sculptors for a while on Thursday and wanted to see the finished sculptures and which one had won. If you'd like to know the meaning of each sculpture they are located HERE.

Daejeon Metropolitan City, Korea's work in progress

1st Place
Daejeon Metropolitan City, Korea - "Mobius Glove"
Created by 3 professional sculptors.

Hong Kong's work in progress.

2nd Place
Hong Kong - "The Jumping Qilin"
Created by a Director of Food&Beverage and 2 Kitchen Artists.

Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 3

This is part 3 of our Sapporo trip. Links to Part 1 and Part 2 if you missed them:

Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 1

Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 2

Day 2 of our Sapporo adventure started out with a traditional Japanese breakfast at the hotel. I don't know much about the food other than it wasn't anything much like a breakfast we'd be used to. I had pasta salad, veggies/roots, fruit with yogurt...I also had some rice and they had eggs, miso soup, some sort of sausages and salad as other options. After breakfast we headed to the train station to find our way to Otaru. Otaru has a few sites to see including its blown glass factories, a canal, a music box museum, and a brewery. They also have a festival every winter called the Otaru Snow Light Path Festival which overlaps with the Sapporo Snow Festival. It happened to be going on when we visited but we didn't know it at the time. We just thought they put beautiful lights out along the streets and in the canal every day! Once we arrived in Otaru it was lunch time and there was a Burger King right in the train station, we hadn't eaten at a Japanese BK yet so we checked it out. They had a couple limited edition items which I took pictures of. I had one of the regular Japanese menu items, a teriyaki chicken sandwich...it was good, but nothing special.

Breakfast...

Special NY Whopper or BK Ringo
with apple slices and other stuff...

How about a highball (whiskey drink)
or Heineken with your meal???

From lunch we went out to explore Otaru. I had found a few places online that I wanted to check out (antiques/kimonos), but unfortunately the directions were vague and we weren't able to find them. We also weren't able to find the music box museum. Part of the problem was that it was too cold to have my gloves off for long to use my phone and continue to google so we just let it go. (Later realized the problem with the directions were that they were written for someone walking from Minamiotaru Station, but whoever wrote them said Otaru Station...2 different places!) We did find the famous canal and also the district of glass shops. I was really set on trying to blow glass because I'd read that there were several locations that allowed tourist to try it. Another failure...we couldn't find a single place that advertised it. Couldn't even find a place where we could watch someone do it! We ended up wandering the streets up and down through different stores (some more than once) trying to find the perfect glass souvenir to take home. Ended up with something I don't love and a few wasted hours...sigh. I know Keenan was frustrated, as was I. We made our way back from the glass district toward the canal and found the Otaru Brewery, again after having to do some wandering first. I felt like all the directions I found to places in Otaru were horrible! Usually we don't have so many problems finding places.

Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 2

This is Part 2 of our Sapporo adventures. If you missed it....Sapporo Snow Festival 2014 - Part 1

Susukino Blvd was the site of the Sapporo Snow Festival with a display of about 60 ice sculptures. They were fantastic! We got to see them lit up at night which really made them look even more amazing! Unfortunately taking pictures of them was not the easiest thing to do with so many bright billboards and buildings behind them. Susukino is Sapporo's nightlife and entertainment district. Known as the "largest entertainment district north of Tokyo." We definitely had to check it out!

300¥ drinks? Done.

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.

Iwate Snow Festival 2014

February is here! Before I get to talking about the festival let me give an update on weather stats... (from Misawa AB Weather Flight)

As of January 28th our snowfall total for the season was 64.6" which is very close to the average. They haven't done another update since the month ended, but that makes at least 45.4" in January! Average for January is 40.1".

February averages 33.2" of snow and the average high/low temperatures are 36°/25°. We've been hearing a lot about how this year's snow is nothing compared to the last couple of years which were both in the top 5 for all time highest snowfall. Not complaining! Lots of mornings there's an inch or two on the sidewalk but we don't even bother scooping because the sun is out and it melts right away. The sun seems to be out a majority of days, some days it snows while the sky is clear and sun is shining. Haven't really had any big storms...yet...

At the Iwate Snow Festival.