We had a beautiful day today! It was sunny and warm, about 4 degrees. Very dry so it did not feel too cold. Thank goodness for the Marine Uniform Shop. I bought all kinds of cold weather gear before the trip. I got great hand and toes warmers so we were not cold at all.
Sapporo is located in the northernmost prefecture of Japan, called Hokkaido.
We had about a 15 minute walk to the first site of the festival. Actually, it does not officially open until tomorrow but we knew we would get a glimpse of the sculptures. We had not seen snow in three years so it was exciting. I have not seen this much snow since I left New York in 1998.
Patrick stayed behind and just relaxed today which was fine, a very relaxed vacation.
I was wondering how long it would be before someone got that "I am going to pelt you with a snowball" look in their eyes
Again, we have not seen snow in awhile so we stopped every 10 seconds to throw snowballs.
A view from the walk.
They are known for the crab in Northern Japan, so I decided that we are eating at this place tonight. The crab actually moves around on the building. In fact, as I write this, my gang are hungry and itching to eat. I am the only seafood eater so, lots of luck because this is where we are going.
The smaller Susukino Festival is on the way to the larger one so we stopped and watched the ice carvers at work.
Here you can see how many sculptures are there.
The sculpture below is actually emerging from the pages of a story book.
The sculpture below is going to be an Ice Bar serving hot wine and cold beer for the festival. They spent a lot of time with laying the ice bricks exactly perfect.
I thought the side street was interesting too.
We still had a bit of a walk to get to the big festival but luckily we walked underground through the large metro station. Bill never, ever passes a bakery without going in. The Japanese have great bakeries. Not too sweet. You won't too much in the sweet area, but much in the fresh area.
Side note: Dunkin' Donuts as a business failed in Japan and flourishes in the U.S. It is too sweet for the Japanese. Mr. Donut (who?) failed in the U.S. and flourishes here. The donuts are not sweet at Mr. Donut. Japanese will tell you that Dunkin Donuts is too sweet.
On a later post, I will explain the fascination with Kentucky Fried Chicken--everywhere....
They look sweet but are not really that sweet. I have to say that the chocolate tastes like chocolate here. In the U.S. it tastes more like a sugar taste. The ice cream is very different. Much more flavorful and less sugary tasting. We do prefer the Japanese ice cream.
We settled on this one. A huge Coffee Boss Cafe au Lait (our favorite) and a honey bread.
OK, so we made it to the large Ice Festival, in Japanese, "Yuki Matsui."
I don't need much description here so I will just show pictures as I normally do. Remember that the festival doesn't start until tomorrow so we just are previewing.
The food was incredible...as always.
Japanese sweet potatoes...
Bill was telling me to stop taking pictures of the food and start taking pictures of the sculptures.
I loved this one, I thought of my sister Ruth. She loves wildlife and sea turtles always make me think of her.
I will show some up close and some far away so you can see the scale of some of the sculptures. Amazing. We had a great day.
The whiskers on the sea lion and walrus were ice.
More food shots...
Check out the food on the menu...
These are the sea snails and huge clams. I have to try this... Maybe tomorrow after some wine or local Sapporo beer.
There were many children, so cute. The Japanese word for "cute" is "kowaii" but don't mispronounce when you tell someone their child is cute. If say "kowai" that means "scary." I am told that they are very forgiving, but I don't chance it.
 |
| Brrrr!! |
This one honors the Japanese women's soccer team that just won the championship.
Every time that we thought we saw the most amazing sculpture, there was another one.
This boy posed for me.
I think these guys just wanted Caroline's attention. She does draw a lot of stares over here. Very funny.
Since they were so nice and funny, I had to buy a chocolate covered banana.
I have NO IDEA what this next one is about... We spent a lot of time laughing thinking about what my son Jerry would say (and do) with this one. We miss you Jerry!
I love this one, again, I thought of my sister Ruth. This is still in progress. It will be great when finished. I loved the theme, all of the woodland creatures gathering around the flower. I can't to see what it looks like tomorrow.
This one was massive.
Caroline found a snowboarding exhibition just before we left.
We had a light snowfall the last hour to make it go from perfect to **m*a*g*i*c*a*l**
A great day!!
No comments:
Post a Comment