Shortcuts through rice fields: Hokkaido Day 2

In which Sarah and I go to the Snow Festival!

Roar! Dinosaurs take over Sapporo! And they control the sun!

More dinosaurs. Extinct? I think not!

The most awesome snow sculpture ever. Seriously.

Close up of the fox from the previous picture. Look at the eyes.

Close up of the owl.

I was there, too!

Then we got in line to take the cheesy tourist shot. They made Sarah squat a bit so she would not block too much of the sculpture. tee hee. And she is holding a frowning snowman. And they made us say "we love Sapporo" and on the "o" they snapped the picture! Maybe someone should tell them that "o" is a rounded vowel and does not produce a nice smile like "cheese" does. Hence, I am making a silly face as I tried to round my "o" into something more smile-like... er...yeah.

Lion King!

Hall of Prayer for good harvests.

Mermaids

The most delicious parfait ever.

Gee, what floor should we go to?

Sapporo from the 38th floor.

More Sapporo.

My new frying pan... so... If you look back at the Lion King picture, you an see people standing up on "stage" in front of the sculpture. Well, they were having a shouting competition of sorts where kids (and adults) shouted random things and they measured decibels and the person who shouted the loudest won a prize. No, I did not enter the competition. HOWEVER, we did watch as this foreigner from Canada won and was presented with the above frying pan. Then, Sarah and I were buying (eating free samples of) delicious flavored almonds and the kid walked up and Sarah and I looked at each other and were both thinking "OMG, he is a STAR! He totally won that frying pan!" And then he talked to us, and we discovered he is also a JET and somehow in that conversation, he offered the pan to us, saying he could not take it home, and, well, who am I to turn down a lovely yellow and orange frying pan with lid?!