On our last day off Stephen and I decided to make our way to Sapporo for the 2017 Sapporo Snow Festival. Our day started with a 2-hour train ride from Kutchan to Saporro, via Otaru. We layered up for the cold weather, however for the first hour or so of the train ride it was standing room only and we were both extremely hot! It was such a relief when we had to switch trains and we managed to get a seat in a less crowded carriage.

We arrived at Sapporo station around 11am, our first time to Sapporo. It is a cool big city. Lots of high rise buildings, shopping malls, big intersections. It was nice to get out of Hirafu and Kutchan and the snow town vibe for a day.

We wandered around the shops for a while, had some lunch, and then went to an arcade. One entire floor in this mall was dedicated to arcade games, it was awesome, I even bet Stephen in a car simulation game of Mario Cart!! After that we needed some fresh air so we made our way to Odori Park. This is where the week-long snow festival was being held. It’s a free event that involves the whole community and people from all over Hokkaido flock to take a look. The park is filled with huge ice and snow sculptures. These things are truly amazing. They look fantastic, with some of them being 2-3 stories high! I’ll let the photos do the talking. It was truly breath taking (and freezing! Haha).

M & S.