Today was a HUGE day for us as we went to the 61st Snow & Ice Festival in Sapporo.
It was up early to catch the bus into Sapporo approx 3hrs travelling but the scenery was interesting...Ice Fishing Huts on a Dam, all different types of Japanese houses.
When we arrived in Sapporo it was snowing small pellets of ice as it was quite warm around 1deg but over the course of the day it was sunny, snowing fluffy flakes then pellets again and more fluffy stuff..almost like Melbourne's four seasons in one day.
Once we located the "mall" that the festival was in - this was interesting as we had a rough idea where it was but couldn't quite work it out and being good tourists we didn't have our passports with us if we got into trouble but it all worked out well by finding a hotel and an English speaking concierge who kindly gave us a map with clear directions.
Here area few of the sculptures that lined the mall which went on for about 8 city blocks and each of the statues took about a month to complete and the army were brought in to build them all.
Most have a steel skeleton which the snow is packed into and around, some huge amount of snow is used for each one.
Japanese Temple
Me in front of Local Zoo's Statue
Local Zoo Statue with band playing in front of them
Ice wall covered in carvings - bit hard to see in the photo
After we had a look at all the sculptures, and after we had enough of walking in the snow in all its forms, we headed underground to a shopping centre. This is a sight to be seen...walking down a subway staircase into a strip mall was quite an experience.
We were both hungry and looking for a feed and couldn't really see anything that interested us so we opted for McDonald's instead as at least we knew exactly what we were getting..he he
Once we had our order taken we went to get a seat when promptly our tray was taken from us by one of the workers and we were shown to a table inside the restaurant...what GREAT service!!!
After lunch we did a bit of shopping and picked up bits & pieces and made our way towards the JR Station (JR = Japan Rail) and did some window shopping along the way.
Once we arrived at JR station we had to find where our bus was going to pick up from which sounds easy enough but when you can't read all the signs it makes for interesting times. So once again armed with our trusty little guide book and a bit of pointing we found the number stand that our bus was leaving and I think we were a whole 30secs too late for the bus as it had gone and the next one wouldn't be along for another hour.
Tom & I decided to go up the flight of stairs directly up from our stop to have a look in the Electronics Store and were instantly assaulted by lights, music and staff members calling out god knows what as we walked by...it was total insanity. No wonder the Japanese are such big consumers of everything and make so much of this stuff as people are buying anything and everything at 530pm on a Sunday night!!!
I think there were 6 floors like this but we only checked out 3...that was enough!! We headed back to where we think we entered the shop but we got this wrong and ended up inside the shopping complex inside of JR Station and just walked in circles until we had no idea of where we had been or going to....also trying to find something to take on the bus to have for dinner was a nightmare and it just took us further into the abyss of the shopping centre.
So we stopped and looked for a door outside and headed for that to find the bus terminal...mind you just making it onto a very full bus and I had to sit most of the trip on the little dickie seat in the aisle.
The bus dropped us off at JR Furano Station and we then went to Okonimyaki Sanya for dinner which is a Teppenyaki Restaurant that we went to on the last trip so we knew we would get a decent feed as we were both very hungry after the bus trip.
This is my dinner of Chicken, Omelette & Rice with a Gravy like sauce....it was so yummy and hit the spot perfectly...even if it doesn't look like much!
After a filling dinner we caught a taxi back to the B&B and crashed into bed as we were both exhausted.
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