The weekend before we would go to Sapporo's Snow Festival (the first week of Februari) it was 19 degrees in Tokyo. The next day it was snowing. It doesn't get much weirder weather-wise but at least it 'prepared' us for what was to come, we thought. Boy, were we wrong.

The Yuki Matsuri in February is a huge deal for Sapporo. More than two million people come to see it and hotels are full almost as soon as they can be booked. We looked for a flight and hotel around mid October and already we had a hard time finding something that was decent, affordeable and near the festival. Booking four months in advance was not early enough!

On february 5th we finally flew to Sapporo. A short flight of less than two hours. From there we went by train to Sapporo where we met the US Navy family again that had been sitting next to us in the plane as well. Nice family but we'll never understand the continuous drinking of alcohol the whole day.

In the train we could also enjoy the wonderful winter landscapes since there was snow aplenty. Meters of it. A taxi brought us to the hotel which was just 100 meters away from the Odori where the festival was. The Royton hotel was quite expensive due to the huge demand during the festival but it was roomy and conveniently located. A quick drop-off of luggage, preparing all the cameras and then straight into the cold.

And oh my, what was it cold. An extra layer of clothing was not enough to not turn us into icicles. We took our time though, and saw the entire Odori on the first evening. This part of the festival is a long stretch of small parks across 12 blocks, with each block about 100 meters. Each block contained snow sculptures, some blocks had many 'small' ones of only 2 meters high, while others had huge snow buildings up to 15 meters. The big ones were already finished but some of the smaller ones were still being made. We took pictures on several days to see how they made progress.

The big ones were awesome. Nicely build, in the evening changing lights everywhere and some have movie projections on them regularly to make it a real show. Every one had a theme like a tv series, the Olympic Games or a specific country. The big ones attracted more crowds of course but in general it was rather quiet.

There were many stalls selling Yuki Matsuri merchandise or selling all kinds of different snacks. Many of them were the typical Japanese ones like ramen (noodles), takoyaki and yakisoba, but there was a lot of variety as well with dishes from Russia, India and even Turkey. The chicken kebab was very nice.

Such a huge event is of course a boon for advertisements. They were not so prominent but could be found everywhere. One of the huge snow buildings e.g. looked like an asian castle or temple and was sponsored by Malaysia. Nearby was a tourist information centre for Malaysia and since it had heating inside, it was always crowded inside. Coca cola was there too of course with a snow polar bear outside and selling their (Limited to Sapporo festival) beverages in their heated building, but Panasonic was less obvious. They showed that their EcoNavi airconditioners could heat a room to 25 degrees in this cold by letting Hawaiian dancers belly-dance inside. They even placed a unit outside near a window where you could watch the show while enjoying the heated air. Audi did a very good job by making a snow version of their new A3 sedan and projecting a commercial on it where you could see the car driving in various environments.

After a while it started to snow and the cold was really getting to us. It had been a while since we had felt our toes and even the flash of the Canon camera was frozen closed, refusing to pop up. We made it to the end of the Odori though and went back to the hotel to warm up.