SNOWWWW II: The Snowening

So, I know the last post was mostly pictures of snow. Well, so is this one! Because we went to the Sapporo Snow Festival. Which was very exciting, because I have wanted to see it since I was in primary school. True story.

The main attraction of the snow festival is the snow sculptures. Sculptures of all kinds of things, but this being Japan and all, there are some things you can expect to see,

like anime girls,


Mario,


and Totoro.


Pretty cool, huh? (Haha, no pun intended :P) But check this shit out... The main attractions were about three storeys high, like this zoo animal piece:

And this replica of a Korean palace (Edit: wait, no, wrong pic. This is a replica of some other building. But it's still REALLY BIG)

I heard that the SDF are involved in trucking in all the snow and ice required for these babies.

These sculptures were at the main site along Oodori (literally 'big street', it's a sort of boulevard of parks running across the middle of Sapporo), but there were two other sites. The Susukino site, south of Oodori, had ice sculptures running down the middle of the street, and managed to mop up the last couple of Japan cliches that the Oodori site hadn't covered:

Fresh fish


and Gundam.


Oh wait I love this shot too... How awesome would this anime be?

SWORDMAN, MEGAROBO AND MERMAID CHICK. I think there's even a dragon in there, too. Hell fuck yeah.

Of course, snow and ice carving isn't limited to decorative items. It can also be used to make...

INNER TUBE SLIDES!!1! We did have to wait for about 45 minutes in the queue, but it was free!

Besides the snow festival, Sapporo is also well know for beer, since it's where the first brewery in Japan was built. We headed over to the Sapporo Beer Museum for a squizz. As you can see, Clinton was pretty excited about that:

And I was pretty excited about lunch in the 'beer garden' (read: beer hall).

It was the Sapporo Beer Garden's speciality called 'jingus kaan' (I'm pretty sure that it's named after Genghis Kahn), which is lamb and veg cooked on a hot plate at the table. Tasty McTasterson. Ah lamb, how I have missed you... Delicious, delicious sheeps.