48 hours in Hokkaido

From 8 February to 10 February 2007

08.02.2007 - 10.02.2007 -1 °C
View Sapporo, Japan 2007 on ristinw's travel map.

I didn't know why I've planned to go to Hokkaido for only a short time. Maybe I was just wanna give myself a break, no matter how short the trip was, it was worthy. Cause, in my philosophy, every moment every second in our life is special...the intensity of every second we feel will eventually lodge in our memory for a long time or even forever. So, how long is the trip doesn't count, how u feel it does count! @v@

I arrived in Sapporo in the afternoon, and got to the Odori Park, Snow Festival, immediately.
Lots of people there and lots of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures. The Snow Festival began more than 50 years ago with high school students building a half dozen sculptures, I heard it from travel guide book.

After dinner, it was already 9 pm, so got to go to Otaru. Cause almost every hotel in Sapporo was fully booked, so got to go stay in Otaru.
Took the rapid train, around 30 minutes, yen620, I arrived in Otaru. Wao!! The feeling was so different from Sapporo. It was quiet there. Peaceful and calm.

This is the link to the photos which were taken in Sapporo:
http://www.travellereyes.com/member/album/photolist.cfm?member_id=4183&page_id=18277

The next morning we went to the central bus station and take the Kiroro bus to the Kiroro Snow World. There are mountains for ski and a snow park. we went to the Snow Park, the entrance fee cost Yen500 each person. Inside the park there are snow maze, snow boat, snowmobile, etc.

This is the winter boat. It cost Yen500 per ride. The ride was okay but it was as excited as I expected.

After fooling around in the Snow Park, we moved to the Mountains, didn't have chance to skii..........awful! .... then after lunch....way back to Otaru.

That day seemed longer as usually. It felt great and I wish I could stay there longer. The Otaru Canal was very beautiful. I saw lots workers were busy to place the candle along the canalside and were busy to "make snow", the snow statue and the sculpture there were started to melt, so they had to put more snow back to the sculpture. The temperature over there was -1C, not so cold, but if without wearing handgloves, after a minute, you probably find your hands frozen without feeling at all. I took my hand gloves off to take photos and I didn't know where I have left my gloves, my hands got frozen, it was lucky that I had an extra hand gloves!