Sapporo Ice Festival

The way to the Beir Factory

A few weeks ago Anthony and I went to the Sapporo Ice Festival. We traveled via ferry and with a tour group to Hokkido, the northern island of Japan. On the ferry we were all put in a large room together. No chairs or beds, just little black pillows that looked like bricks. They did have some public places to sit and a restaurant of sorts--you had to buy the food from a vending machine. The ride there took about 6 hours. I don't like to be out on open water. We had dinner at the Sapporo Beir Factory.

"Viking"-style Dinner

Beir Factory Mascot

We're not sure, but this is funny.

I don't like beer, but we were served the most fresh and delicious beer you could imagine. The restaurant is all you can eat viking-style (which means you have a grill at your table and you cook your own meat/veggies/fish).

 










The first day we went to Otaru, a town outside of Sapporo that is famous for glass wear. There were so many little shops with glass trinkets, plates, cups, even pens! We also went to see the popular "music box" store. It was more like a wind-up musical collectables or something. The brochure sounded amazing and read, "If you don't find the music box of your heart's desire you're simply not trying." Well I was thinking they were going to have amazing works of art; special collectables that you might not find anywhere. But I was let down. The place was huge (3 floors) and had a lot of different kinds of musical collectables. I didn't find anything that excited me.

Our next stop was a "chocolate" factory. It was more of a sweets factory. We were able to see how the sweets were made and we could see the quality control room. There were two shops to buy sweets from-cookies, cake, sweet drinks. And we could see the area where the workers made the cakes. The famous sweet of the factory is a light cookie that has a thin layer of white chocolate in it. Towards the end of the tour we walked through a few rooms of antique children's toys and gramophones. It was strange and didn't fit the theme of the factory. I find that Japanese stores don't usually follow a theme too much. 

"Chocolate Factory"

Crab Dinner

Ramen Alley

Panda Happy Doll

For dinner we found an all you can eat crab place! They usually have a time limit of 90 minutes. For about $75 each we ate all we could of Alaskan King Crab legs. It also came with 3 pieces of sushi and 2 pieces of fried tempura shrimp and egg cream for each meal. Anthony didn't speak for the entire 90 min and only stopped a moment for our waitress to take a picture of us. Before we were able to get a table at that place we went to a little Italian place. There were personal-sized or appetizer pizzas for 500Y and a bottle of wine for 2000Y. It was AMAZING! I loved the atmosphere - super relaxed.

The third day was a free day and we got to see the whole snow and ice festival. We ate lunch at the famous Sapporo ramen alley. We stopped in a little place and the cook knew a little bit of English! He said his friend was a professor in California. The ramen was amazing and he served the BEST gyoza I have ever had! Gyoza is like a Japanese dumpling.

The Snow Festival spanned 12 blocks of Sapporo's Odori Park. Some of the sculptures were as tall as buildings. There were snow slides, food from all over the world, and thousands of people walking around. If you didn't stay close to your group you could be easily lost! We saw a few people from Misawa who were building a sculpture. There were also teams from all over the world who had 3 days to build sculptures for a contest. We didn't get to see the finished products, but we got pictures from the night before they were to finish. We

Odori Park

ate an early snack of pancakes at a tiny little restaurant. It was like the Japanese IHOP. The Pancakes were light and fluffy and the cook used powder sugar to draw a snowman on my pancakes, and a kitty for Anthony. They must have put a foot of whipped cream on his large size pancakes.

We got to walk around the shopping area near the hotel. There was an outdoor mall, but the walking area was covered. We went into one store and I was surprised to see that it was 4 stories tall! There was also an underground shopping mall. Anthony and I got ice cream at the Baskin Robins and I got to have a small "Happy Doll." Its a small scoop with chocolate pieces arranged to look like an animal. Mine was a panda. It was so cute! I think the last really cool thing we did was go up to the top of TV tower at the head of Odori Park. I took a few great pictures of the night time city landscape. The only complaint I had was that the bed was about as comfortable as the floor, but most of the hotel beds that I have slept on in Japan feel that way.

On the Ferry

The 4th day we traveled back to Misawa. It took 9hrs on a smaller ferry, going against the current, and I almost got sea sick! It was a nice trip, but it was nice to get home, too.

Observations of Japanese Stores

So after living here even just a few months you begin to notice that some Japanese stores have names written in Romanji (Japanese sounds in Roman lettering). Some stores have name in English; and this is sometimes hilarious. There is a second hand store called Hard Off. I've seen a few in different locations so I guess its a chain store. In a town near Misawa there is a Hard Off located next to a Wonder Goo. Japanese people get their hair cut or taken care of about once a month. There are a TON of "Cut and Perm" stores. I've even seen a Cut And Parm.Anyway, I like the second hand stores. Most new clothes and items are very expensive so its a good idea to shop at a second hand store. There is one that Anthony and I go to a lot called Game Suko. They have a large clothing section and video games, books, music, toys, action figures and a whole other mess of stuff. The other store we frequent is the Daiso. Its a lot like Big Lots or the Dollar Tree. I love that Japanese have smaller plastic and glass containers than American stores. Sometimes you only have a cup or half a cup of left over food and if you're putting into a seemingly huge container you're more likely to just throw it away. Wasteful.

The stores inside malls and mini-malls sometimes do not have walls separating them, so you have to be careful to look for little partitions sticking out from the ceiling. I've seen many puzzles of all kinds for sale at stores, along with the frames for the puzzles. I think it must be a very popular past time. There is a pet store in the local mall. You would not believe how expensive pets are in Japan. When people buy a pet from a store like that they are really making an investment. I guess it would deter people from purchasing a pet and not taking care of it.I saw a little munchkin kitten that was over $1000!!  

There are a lot of Pachinko parlors here. There is one near our house called Jam Friend Club. It looks like a big disco or something. Adults go to play games. I think its like gambling but I've never been in one because they allow smoking and sometimes it feels like all Japanese men and a good part of the Japanese women smoke cigarettes.  Although the contents aren't as potent as American cigarettes, I still don't like the smell or the lack of good clean air.