Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival - 2024

 

Feb 8 to 11, 2024 - Our long weekend trip to the Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival was amazing! 

We flew to Sapporo on Thursday evening, took a 45 min train ride from the airport to the JR Inn South Sapporo, near the Sapporo station, dropped off our luggage and then headed out to see the ice sculptures. The venue had night lighting and was open until 11pm, which gave us about 90 minutes to walk through the sculptures. The streets of Sapporo were so pretty that night. But it was very cold.

It's hard to get good pictures of the ice sculptures because they are clear...but in person it was incredible to see the details on each piece.

Friday morning we walked/bused/trained through snowy streets to get to the Sapporo Olympic Park Museum and the Okurayama Ski Jump hill. 

The Olympic Park Museum was my favorite spot on our trip! The ski jump hill is impressive. I just keep thinking..."never, in a million years, for a million dollars, would I ever...."

We lucked out and there were ski jumpers having a practice session while we were there. If you zoom in, you can see in the background of the pictures (its very tiny, look for the shadow) the jumper takes off, flying, flying, flying, lands!

After watching for a while...we decided what the heck, let's ride up and give it shot!

 

Ok, ok, I didn't really jump! But they did have an awesome interactive section in the museum where you can "try out" some of the Olympic sports on virtual equipment.

They had cross country ski racing and bob sledding - we did both but couldn't take pictures of ourselves because we did them together. The speed skating was hard - I could not get the hang of it. But dad was great! There was also a simulator for an ice hockey goalie. I had NO saves. Dad had 3 out of 5 saves!

 

This is my favorite set of pictures - dad's faces crack me up!

After the Olympic museum, we grabbed some lunch and headed to the snow sculptures. They were very different from the ice sculptures. Huge range in sizes, styles, and detail level - but lots and lots of anime characters! Dad tells me it's very cool for anime to have scars on their faces (notice in the giant snow sculpture, the main guy has scars)  

The firsts picture is NOT a snow sculpture - just an interesting colorful inflatable display?? We couldn't understand what it was or why it was there, but people seemed to LOVE it.

Unfortunately, somehow we got turned around and lost on our way back to the hotel from the snow sculptures. We walked for about an hour before we figured out where we were and got back on track. So exhausted and frozen by the time we made it back!! We went to the hotel's onsen to get warm and then went straight to sleep! 

Saturday morning we got up early so we could go skiing! But first I wanted to share this video of the robot thing that brought us breakfast each morning.

I ordered the Salmon breakfast all three mornings and it was so good. I miss having someone make my breakfast!

There are several ski resorts within 30 to 40 minutes of downtown Sapporo. We decided to go to Moiwayama. It is exclusively for skiing (no snowboards allowed). It's a small resort with 10 runs, but we had a great time and the views were really nice. At first it wasn't crowded at all, but once ski school got started, it was a little crazy on some runs. Oh well, we still loved it. But that evening and the next day....I was so stinkin sore!! (2 years since we last skied)

There was a great restaurant at the lodge where we had some soba and curry and then on to our next activity. 

We took the train to the small coastal town of Otaru about an hour away. It is on Sea of Japan and I think because of that, it gets lots of precipitation. It was snowing pretty good the whole time we were there. Dad was prepared and brought microspikes for our shoes. That made a huge difference when walking around the town. 

As we walked through the streets, heading to the canal area, we passed several very pretty buildings. One had a sign in the front that said it was built at the turn of the century and was designed by the same person who designed Tokyo Station. I can totally see the style is the same! Love the long icicles on the warehouse - it was a restaurant inside.

The main reason for going to Otaru is that they have a lantern festival at the same time as the Sapporo Snow and Ice Festival. The Otaru lantern festival bills itself as NOT being commercial like the Sapporo festival. It is supposed to be spiritual and give people time to reflect on the past and plan for the future. They have lanterns that float in the canal and they have small snow sculpture with candles inside. Kind of different...crews were working all the time to keep the little candles lit haha. 

 At the end of the path there are some food vendors. Dad got the karaage chicken which was fried right in front of us- piping hot! And they sold the ingredients to make smores around small fires. There was also a huge warehouse building that had light all over it that seemed to flicker and change with the music.  It was a nice "mood".

Sunday was our last day in Sapporo and we had a little time in the morning before we had to head to the airport so we walked through a park. It snowed during the night and the walkways in the park had just been plowed. Tons of snow on the trees. 

There was a new mall near the park. We stopped in to take a look. It was indoors, but it had an outdoor feel. Maybe that is how people in Sapporo can cope with all the snow! Very pretty building. Loved the trip!