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?!

more Sapporo

$120 parfait, anyone?

kaiten sushi!  Aka... conveyor belt sushi restaurant, only, unlike Nagano, the sushi is FRESH and incredible!  delicious!

Hokkaido Day 1

Sarah and I went to Hokkaido last week!  It was a blast.  I decided to do more picture posts, but seeing as I came home with more than 500 pictures, I am going to post day by day, plus a special post about the crab dinner Sarah and I went to eat!

Let us start with day 1.  I got up at 3:00 in the morning to catch my taxi to Nagoya airport where I met up with Sarah and we boarded a plane to go to Sapporo!  I should mention that we did not have IDs checked as we went through security.  Crazy!

So, we land in Sapporo, hop a train from the airport to Sapporo station and then transferred to go to our swanky hotel.  It was nice.  I have gotten used to staying in more hostel type places with dorm-style rooms and shared bathrooms, so this hotel was excellent.  Delicious breakfast included, nice view, comfy beds, TV, etc etc etc.  wonderful!  However, a sign of a good trip?  Giraffe lockers!  This is what greeted us in Sapporo!!

Anyway, so we check in and then head out to find dinner.  Being smart, we decided to walk, but since I am bad at maps, we took a bit of a detour, saw a cool park with a pretty white house, and then eventually ended up at a ramen shop where we ate famous Sapporo miso ramen. yum yum.

 While we were eating, it started to snow.  Sarah was ecstatic!

I was not so thrilled...

 But Sapporo is really pretty.

 
 After dinner, we found part of the snow festival: the ice sculptures!!  Incredible!

There were several blocks of sculptures

Those are real fish...definitely a new way to keep your fish frozen...

Stay tuned for part 2! 

Sapporo preview

Last weekend, I went to Hokkaido with Sarah to see the Sapporo Snow Festival. (yes, Sapporo like the beer)

I am too lazy to write the whole post right now, so I present this:

This is me in China in 2006 (?) in front of the Hall of Prayer for Good Harvests at the Temple of Heaven.

This is me in Sapporo last weekend at the snow festival.

Ok.  that's all for now!