Snow snow snow

Feb 12, 2008 21:13

I recently came back from the Sapporo Snow Festival waaaay up on the northernmost island of Japan called Hokkaido! The trip had its emotional ups and downs, but the visit itself was pretty awesome. The emotional ups and downs were as follows: Glen and I break up the first night we are there, and then proceed to get back together on our last night. In Japanese we would say, "mottainai, ne?" which means, "what a big fucking waste," in this case mostly in terms of the beautiful Sheraton hotel room we had, but all in all I think we have a healthier relationship now, so I don't regret it happened, and enough of that and on with the snow...

To begin, I must say that I think hotel breakfasts are perhaps the best thing and the #1 or #2 reason why I'd ever consider paying for a fancy-ish hotel ever again. This trip, since it was through the JET association, came to be pretty cheap and so it was a helluva good deal with the fancy-smancy hotel added on. I have now rekindled my love of big breakfasts, especially of those on the 30th floor with a nice view of a snow-covered, mountainous wonderland.

The big snow sculptures that the Snow Festival is all about are pretty amazing. It was interesting to see them being made, too, by none other than the Japanese Self-Defense Forces (read: military). Strange, ne? Imagine a huge, magical snow sculpture based on the second book in the Chronicles of Narnia series...with men wearing camo climbing all over it and army vehicles parked out front. I suppose this means they're the special snow sculpting unit...? The most impressive sculptures were two I don't have a picture of here, so I'll just describe them a bit. One was made of huge blocks of ice with whole fish frozen in them, including a stingray! It wasn't very tall but it was really long, nearly a whole city block. There was another sculpture that was made of ice and was a replica of a famous hotel (I think?) somewhere in Sapporo. It was intricately done down to very fine details, and when the sun shown through the blue glass-like ice it was very serene.

I also went snowboarding! Did you know that Hokkaido and Canada have the best snow in the world (according to a Swiss guy we met and had a conversation with on the train one day)? Neither did I! Nicole, Glen and I went snowboarding on our last day and it was a beautiful day with perfect conditions. The best powder snow I've ever seen or fallen on. Ah, I didn't do so bad for a 4 year break! And despite the inevitable falling, it was really good fun. The most amazing thing was being able to see the ocean from the top of the mountain as you were about to start to descend.

2008 seems to be the year of exploring nature for Kate. Since Hokkaido, Glen and I have been hiking twice in three weekends. We're really close to the Japanese Southern Alps, and so may begin to head further into them as the weather gets warmer.






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