Sapporo Snow Festival (さっぽろ雪まつり) is one of Japan’s famous winter events, started
in 1950. When I was a child, every year I went to Odori Park with my family and
enjoyed watching beautiful, huge snow sculptures. On the way back to our home,
we had dinner at Sapporo Grand Hotel. It was my family’s tradition that we have
dinner at a hotel and get used to western style of table manners.
It was a first time for 15 years to see the snow festival! My friend came
back from Yokohama, and we decided to enjoy our memorable festival together. It
was a first time for 20 years for her.
Our first impression was, unfortunately, that most of sculptures were
small. It is regret to say that quantity of snow is decreasing each year,
therefore, it becomes difficult to make huge-scale sculptures. This year, a
sculpture of “Sazae-san” was the biggest at Odori Park. There are other
locations for the festival, but there is no others which was bigger than
Sazae-san.
Food stalls were available, much more than before. I admit that food is
important and popular element in Hokkaido trip. However, I saw food booths in
each section. Don’t you think it is a bit too much? One section was only for
the food, but it was good idea to have a food area with enough tables and
chairs.
International sculptures were interesting. City of Sapporo invited
sculpting teams from overseas, such as Portland (USA), which is a sister city
of Sapporo, Hawaii (USA), Hong Kong, Malaysia, Thailand, Indonesia, China, and
Korea. During the festival, those teams make a small sculpture and visitors
vote which one they think is the best.
Besides international sculptures, there was a small area where visitors can
enjoy international food from Russia, Malaysia, India, Greece, and so on. My
friend and I had a plan to have lunch soon, but I couldn’t resist. We tried
Tandori Chicken from India, and Souviaki, Greek BBQ chicken.
Tandori Chicken
I love spicy food! This tandori chicken was good for making our body warm. I
asked the Indian worker to put a lot of spicy sauce, but it was not enough. I
ate much spicier tandori chicken at Yokohama… I missed it.
Chicken Souviaki
This chicken souviaki was very delicious. Basically it was BBQ chicken, but
Yogurt sauce was really matched.
Snow Festival in 2012 will be held from 2/6 to 2/12. I should be in Sapporo
during this time, so I would like to visit there again and enjoy the night view
this time.
If you have a chance to visit Sapporo during this season, you should
definitely check out Snow Festival!!!
Sapporo Snow Festival
No comments:
Post a Comment