We had an earlier start today since we wanted to go to the special Snow Hatsune Miku shop that was open for only one day. But we first took a look again at the snow sculptures the contestants had finished since they would be judged today. 'Our' favourite still looked the best to us.

Onwards to the Sapporo Factory Hall for Miku. We had visited the location before but then it was still empty. Now however, we were joining the Japanese favourite pass-time: standing in queue. First there was a very long queue for entering the site that almost surrounded the large building. Since it was outside with a temperature of -15 everyone was freezing before stepping inside. Once inside (and paying an unexpected entrance fee of 500 yen but receiving a nice Miku pin for it) there was another queue for getting to the sales stands for the special goods they sold. The queue was so long that it was partly outside via side entrance. Again freezing over. The one item Michelle wanted, the special Snow Festival nendoroid figure, turned out to bé there (boxes full of them) but nót for sale. The only way for getting that item had been to pre-order it in November or December and exchange the reservation ticket here. So after one and a half hours and just before getting to the zig-zag line inside, we stepped out of the queue. Not the best way to start the day, but it had been a nice experience. And we got a special Hatsune Miku pin for all the trouble!

It is always amazing to see what kind of customers are attracted. Since Miku is a virtual singer (music is made by mixing samples and the visuals are 3D renderings), it is more main stream than anime or manga. Thus the diversity in crowds it attracts. Ranging from the to be expected young girls to the stern looking business men, from cheery housewives to hardcore otaku and from timid husbands to lolita girls. The Hatsune Miku fans are so different in style, age, family arrangement and amount of fan crazyness that they are impossible to stereotype. In the Factory Atrium in the opposite building e.g. there was a large Miku air cushion clearly for young kids to jump in, but you could also colour in a mask to put on your face. More than half of the people doing that were adults. And nobody found that strange. There was also a short line before some stand where they promoted a new Miku-game for your mobile. People were playing it enthousiasticly on a demo mobile. We lunched at a nice bread-cafe while we looked at all the kind of people coming by and a Miku-elevator going up and down. After our lunch we decided to go to the Sapporo Zoo.

We took the metro and decided to walk the road along a nice park and some temples. And we were happy we did, the park was beautiful in its blanket of full white. We were glad someone took the trouble to make a small trails through the park because it was almost impossible to make progress without those. We sure made some amazing pictures of the park and the beautiful winter covered temples. The big Hokkaido shrine was less impressive than expected, although the frozen water to wash your hands with was funny. The cars parked in front of the temple were a pity since you could not make a really nice picture because of them. Inside there was a big bulldozer cleaning snow and a part of the temple was covered with plastic, probably to keep the cold out but not so pretty... After Michelle got a snow-shower from a tree while taking a picture we continued our way to the zoo.

To our surprice the zoo had no entrance fee. We happened to be there on just the right day with free entrance and opening hours until 20:00, lucky! So we took our time to see all the animals. The most special one was of course the snow tiger they advertised with on their poster. It even seemed that she liked to post for the people when she walked her round. She was clearly in love with the male tiger in the big cage next to her. She sometimes even called out to him. It was an amazing sight. The pinguins were fun to watch too. We happened to be there just when they were being fed! Afterwards we got an explanation about the species of pinguins by their caretaker. While it was getting dark we noticed that here and there ice-bucket shaped candle lights were placed. It reminded us a little bit of Otaru but it was not really a comparison because Otaru was way more beautiful. When it became a lot colder we decided to walk back to the station and go back to our hotel.

When we were warmed up a little again, we decided to eat Ghengis Khan which is a dish Sapporo is known for. We found a restaurant that had an advertisment in the Sapporo Snow Festival guide with the appropriate name "Ghengis Khan". We took the risk and went there although many people would probably know about it because of the advertisement. Well, we could not have been more wrong. After we found it (even though the guidebook gave us a wrong location on the map) it was very clear they did not get many foreigners there. It was full but there was not a queue waiting outside and when we entered everyone fell silent for a few seconds. After some minutes two girls were so nice to let us sit at their table. The atmosphere of this small restaurant was very nice and became even better when they discovered we spoke a little Japanese. The chatty old lady already told us that if we had questions we should ask the girls at our table. They were young and should know English, she said and the girls just nodded hesitantly not sure what to say. The people at the table next to us even made a little chat before leaving by taxi because they were alll drunk. Genghis Khan is like a barbecue at your table with a hot plate shaped like a helmet (supposedly Mongol style) heated by coals. The meat used is mutton or pork. The dish was delicous and we can recommend this place to anyone who goes to Sapporo! We tried all the kinds of meat they had available and added some extra mushrooms and vegetables. While sitting there we saw a weird tv-drama on the uhb-channel and asked the old lady it's name. This started a funny conversation whith the old lady doing her very best to find it in the newspaper. We even got extra information on when the Olympics were on too. The Olympics are very important in Japan so it is totally logical she gave us this information as well. After we finished our dinner we stayed a little longer for more chats before we went back to our hotel. There we discovered, as expected, our clothes smelled a lot! We put them away quickly before going to sleep.