Sapporo Snow Festival

Last weekend, Mike and I headed up to Sapporo for the annual snow festival or as they say it "yuki matsuri" (literal translation). The Riess family hopped on over from Korea to join Us and what a fun time we had. It was super cold on some days, but then tolerable on other days.

We went the weekend before it started so that we could see some of the sculptures being built. Turns out all the massive ones were already built, but we still got to see them making smaller ones. Here's some cool pictures of the process.

There were clearly 100+ sculptures made of either ice or snow in all three of the areas. The main festival site was 12 blocks of sculptures, food stalls, slides, and of course attractions! During the weekend, we all checked out the main festival park, found bars to warm up in, and headed over to the Sapporo Beer Museum. Here is our group shot

The festival officially opened on Monday, so we headed back out see everything. It was really cool. Here are some of our favorites:

In the evening we headed back to see the different light displays and different they looked at night. On Tuesday, we headed over to the Tsudome area, which is where all the cool snow activities were. Here we are on the tube slide
Amanda

Mike

As you can see, it was extremely cold with all the snow, so we headed inside for lunch and some warmth... What says warm better than ramen, beer, and churros

We headed back to Tokyo on Tuesday evening and were ready to get back to warmer weather. We had such an amazing time and were so happy the Riess family came to join us. As for more pictures, well, we do have plenty more and if you have some time, check out the next post for the link. Skim through to see the sculptures because they are amazing!!!
Another check off on the Japan list before we leave.