Sapporo 62nd Snow Festival

Making the full use of my Japan Rail Pass I booked a train to Sapporo overnight (this cost an extra 9500Y/~£65 as a fee for the sleeper berth - The berth turns out to be a bed in a shared cabin area with three other people, but there is a little more privacy than on Indian/Chinese trains in that there is a curtain to fully enclose you within your sleeping space and you are provided with a blanket, pillow and sheet). The train takes 14hours to make the journey, but what a 14 hours, you fall asleep to the gentle movement of the train on the tracks heading north and wake to find several feet of snow piled up either side of the train and a fine spray of sleet passing the window. We arrive in Sapporo 5 mins late!! I am stunned but on the journey of this distance I would like to see BR match it ;)

Sapporo is a wonderfully snow covered scene with roofs heaving with the weight of snow and icicles hanging from their ledges. Exiting the station you are struck by how well everything is running despite the snow - buses, cars, trains, walkways are all cleared and gritted and the people are at ease with the piles of snow flanking the walkways. The temperature is a mere -5 degrees (comfortable in comparison with Beijing) and there is a gentle fall of snow J I have arrive on the second to last day of the 62nd snow festival and only have ½ day before I return by train to Tokyo!! So I made the most of it - first stop was to the Sapporo Capsule Hotel where I could rid myself of my bags and then off to see what all the fuss was about concerning he giant snow sculptures… Well - the snow and ice sculptures were in a range of sizes from human sized to HUGE… Each sculpture was a masterpiece and had been completed by artists completing the work with nothing more than drills and shaping tools, Amazing to see the detail on each piece and how it reflected with the different lights that were positioned onto each one. My personal favourite was the ‘Lion King’ stage sculpture which allowed the future cast of the Sapporo Lion King stage show to perform some of the upcoming songs from the musical - wonderful in the evening standing on the snow and hearing the melodious notes of the Japanese take on the famous Disney story. Other examples carved into ice/snow were cartoon characters, famous buildings and some dinosaurs. The smaller snow sculptures were spread over a wide area and had been judged on detail - I was particularly impressed with Hong Kong’s ’Dragon Dance’ but many had excellent details which cannot be undervalued. Finally the ice sculpture street had a range of amazing defrosting pieces of artwork some of which contained frozen fish!! While one area had a demonstration of how the sculptures were made - Overall, well worth the effort to get to Sapporo and the second festival that I have attended in Japan.