Weekend in Sapporo

Wow!

What a trip!

Sapporo was so amazing. If Tokyo is like Paris or New York, Sapporo is like Provo. Smaller town, open spaces, and the perfect amount of snow. It snowed every day we were there, for most of the day in big fat flakes that didn't seem to get you wet just add atmosphere to the festival. The snow and ice sculptures were amazing. Many more photos than I could ever hope to post here. There were several sculptures (including the lit building above) that were over 40 feet tall and easily 150 feet wide. Incredible. The picture of the leopard above is just a small part of another of the large sculptures. Some of the smaller ice sculptures were just as impressive, and we have pictures of a snowboard ramp that had been setup in a very small area. Kirk and I were amazed by the tricks the snowboarders were accomplishing on such a steep slope with only about 20 feet to stop at the bottom.

The second day we were there we went to another town, Otaru, which is right on the northern coast of Japan. They say that on clear days you can see Russian freighters off the coast, but it was snowing and cloudy when we were there. Unfortunately because of the salt on the train windows we couldn't get any pictures but incredibly there were parts of the ocean that if you just looked at the water could have been in the Carribean. Absolutely the most gorgeous shade of tourquoise blue. Very unexpected.

Otaru has an ice candle festival that we were there to see, people create ice and snow candles which are lit at night along a canal district. It was pretty to see but unfortunately as soon as the sun went down the temps dropped to about 20 degrees and Sarah lasted about 3 minutes before telling us it was time to go.

I actually felt like a bad mommy at several points over the weekend since she was without a doubt the littlest one we saw out and about. In 3 days we only saw 2 other strollers. Apparently the Japanese are too smart to drag babies out into the cold. Oh well, she enjoyed everything except the night in Otaru and I see no signs of frostbite so I guess she'll forgive me. lol

The one funny thing about having the littlest one at the festival is that the Japanese were even more in love with her than ever, we had people stopping us all weekend wanting to take her picture. She may be the most photographed American in Japan. lol

Not to be outdone, Kirk and I were also stopped several times but not for photos. Apparently the English teachers have figured out the festival brings out foreigners and they had their classes there politely asking if they could ask us question in English. We were stopped a half dozen times, which could have gotten old but thankfully everyone seemed to have different questions so at least they kept it interesting.