The Sapporo Snow Festival, or Yuki Matsuri as it is known here, is an annual event spanning a week in early February in the heart of northern Japan. The festival is fairly modern, it’s history tracing back no further than the middle of the 20th century when a bunch of Sapporo University students started to build some snow sculptures in Odori Park. On the fifth year, the Japanese Self-Defence forces from a nearby base joined in with some heavy equipment and made the first of the huge towering snow structures that now draw millions of tourists from around the world, year after year. Apparently over two million people visit the Yuki Matsuri over its one week duration, and walking around the capital of the Hokkaido prefecture, this was impossible to dispute. Before Rhys and I went to see the kouyou in Kyoto, we were warned in advance about the immense number of people we’d have to walk amongst on the streets, but it was as lifeless as the bottom of a dried up well compared to the bustling crowds that populated Sapporo during the festival.
This year, the festival began on the 4th of February and finished today on the 11th. We were around from the 4th till the 9th, during which time we got the chance to see most of all the city had to offer. We arranged the trip a couple of months in advance due to its unreal popularity at a travel agents called Kinky Nihon Tourists (kinki being the unfortunate name of a place here), where Nami Tojo set us up with a friend of hers who spoke English. As we expected after our troublefree trip to Kumamoto a fortnight earlier, getting to Sapporo was a piece of cake. We were greeted by fresh snow and a bitterly cold evening temperature of around minus three degrees celcius as soon as we stepped off the plane. Thanks to a very well designed grid system, it’s very hard to get lost in Sapporo and we’d located our hotel within minutes. Overground there is an old tram line which goes around the main areas of the city, and below there are two subway lines. The subway system is vastly inferior to that of Nagoya’s, but as Sapporo is a more compact city this doesn’t really do the place any harm.
Sapporo Yuki Matsuri began in Odori Park, so it’s fitting that that it remains the heart and soul of the event. Odori Park is a long stretch of land of about one and a half kilometres, which divides Sapporo into north and south – the train station in the north and in the south is Susukino street, supposedly one of the liveliest nightlife spots in the country. At one end of Odori Park towers the Sapporo TV Tower. 
Again, it feels a bit inferior to Nagoya which has a bigger one, and as a small replica of the Eiffel Tower it’s a bit tacky. Nevertheless, on our second night in the city we rode an elevator up to the top to get a view of the festival from above. We probably wouldn’t have if we had to pay, but as the tourist company provided us with a free coupon we thought we might as well. They also gave us a coupon for a traditional Hokkaido dance class, which needless to say remains unused. A tourist beacon standing over the city, the Tower drew seemingly everybody in Sapporo towards it and we had to queue for twenty minutes just to take the elevator up. At the top the view was obstructed by the number of people but otherwise gave a clear view of the park. Despite the cold temperature accented by a biting windchill, we climbed down the tower by the stairs instead of taking the lift back. Looking through the metal grid wall surrounding the staircase to stop people falling (or given Japan’s high suicide rate, maybe jumping) off, we were rewarded with a much clearer view of the display before us.
As you might expect, the most grandiose sculptures are 
displayed near the centre of the city by the TV Tower, and as you walk the distance of the park you gradually get to smaller statues made by people from all over the world. Closest to the tower is an ice skating rink and just beyond that, a slightly bizzare music stage; on the left an elaborate ice construction and in the right a small elevated, transparant box with YAMAHA stamped across it. The stage was colourfully lit, and we stood around for a while watching as various girls took turns to step into the box and play very impressive pieces on the keyboard in the box. However, all credibility was lost as soon as you heard the tacky MIDI sounds being emitted from the big amps flanking the stage. These days, it’s possible to make some very authentic sounds with MIDI instruments so it was obvious that the old fashioned cheesy sounds were chosen on purpose. As I mentioned in an earlier post, little MIDI symphonies echo throughout supermarkets, train stations and everything in between here. People here have a real affinity for them, but it sometimes leaves me feeling like I’m trapped in a videogame.
Past the Yamaha stage are a series of twenty metre tall snow monoliths, representing a variety of things from popular media to famous buildings of the world. One of the most impressive was a display based on the new Narnia film, lit superbly at night and blaring out some narrative in Japanese.
Past that was the world sculpture, a stage whose centrepiece was a sculpture of the globe, centred of course on Hokkaido, Japan, surrounded by replicas of Big Ben, the Leaning Tower of Piza and the Statue of Liberty. On Friday evening, I wandered over to the stage to see a small music festival put on by students at local universities, standing up in the cold to blast their music out to whoever would bear the cold to listen. One guy, a drummer, played his set shirtless. I was well wrapped up and couldn’t even feel my feet after standing around for half an hour. Fortunately there were plenty of stalls spotted around the park where you could buy hot wine to warm you up for just a few hundred yen.
Buying things from the stalls around the park and otherwise when talking to locals in Sapporo, I noticed a different kind of surprise to that we saw in Kumamoto. People here are very used to seeing western tourists, as many flock to the city during the festival. They’re not used to hearing them speaking Japanese though, so after replying in Japanese to someone’s English struggle was obviously a relief to them, and instantly they apologised, “I’m sorry, I didn’t realise you could speak Japanese!”. It gave me a nice feeling to think that there were a lot of westerners in the city at the time, but Rhys and I were two of a small fraction that could speak the native tongue. It made me feel more like a Japanese citizen than just another tourist, and maybe rightly so. We’ve been living here for half a year, now.
There is a second park in Sapporo, quite further away in the south, which we walked around on our first morning in the city, treading through deep snow and hearing that sound you only hear walking through deep snow, bringing back waves of memories of childhood snow days, back when it used to snow in England. Deeper into the park there were plenty of small Japanese children enjoying the snow themselves, building their own small snow sculptures and sledging down small mountains of snow. The middle of the park was a huge pond, completely covered over in a white carpet.
Sapporo is transformed into a different city as the snow festival opens and foreigners flock there. We had plenty of nights in the place, so on the second night decided to explore Susukino Street. Along the middle of the street stands a long line of ice sculptures, and along with them small ice buildings selling hot baileys and cold champagne. A bit out of our price range but nice for the novelty. The ice sculptures were less impressive to me than those made with snow, as you could see the CAD/CAM lines on the ice ones where a computer and machine had chiselled them out. There was probably some human intervention involved but how much, I can only guess. We eventually
ended up at a bar right at the end of the street, at least the end of the ice sculptures, after which point it becomes a seedy red light district. The bar was called Rad Brothers, and brimming with noisy English and American tourists getting tipsy on the cheap beer. We went to sit near the only two Japanese girls in the whole building and talked to them for a while. Apparently the place is usually a lot quieter, but as soon as the festival begins it becomes a gaijin magnet. Being that there were so many foreigners visiting, I was pretty much expecting to meet some fellows Brits on the way.
On our second full day in Sapporo, we took the tube and then walked over to Mount Moiwa, where we’d heard about a cable car taking people up to the summit where you were rewarded with a view over all of Sapporo. Any Japanese city looks the same from high up, an endless sprawl of concrete skyrisers, but with little else to do and a want to explore some, we got to the station at the bottom and began our ascent. After a fairly short cable car ride, we were yet to reach the summit but already had a great view of the urban sprawl beneath us. The second leg of the journey came included with the car ticket, and was a simple sledge pulled by a pistebasher. The exciting bumpy ride was easily the highlight of the trip, even with chunks of snow being spat at us from the quickly revolving treads of the snow mobile. With a bit of bad luck, a cloud of fog reached the summit just as we did and made the visibility a little poor, but we were a lot closer to nature at the top of a mountain than at the top of a TV tower, which suited me fine. Disregarding the cold, I got an ice cream and looked out to some mountains in the distance.
On the way down we ran into some other westerners waiting with us for the snow mobile down, and after the usual small talk found out a couple of guys had been in Japan for the same time as us, but doing something pretty different; dancing at Disney Land in Tokyo. It was a funny coincidence, since I have a friend currently doing exactly the same thing but in Paris. It can seem like a pretty small world at times, as one of the guys had been working in Paris previously and knew her. Their Japanese experience was so different to ours though, living in a small bubble of westerners, without either the need or desire to speak the native language. They were more used to seeing snow than we were also, as Tokyo got a helping of the stuff pretty recently. “It never snows in Nagoya”, we told them.
Which is why we were pretty surprised after returning to Nagoya on Saturday afternoon to find not just a bit of snow, but an endless expanse of it. Snowfall is rare but not unheard of in Nagoya, a bit like how it is in England these days. It was blizzarding it down at Chubu International Airport, still going strong as we changed to the subway at Kanayama and even caking the streets and roads around our apartments and workplace in Yagoto. This was a little worry for me, as I was running on a tight schedule. I was meant to be boarding a night bus at 10pm to go to Nagano again, for my final snowboard/ski trip in the country, and looking at the state of the roads it seemed a bit doubtful. Nevertheless, after a quick call to Yamashita any fears were swept away – the trip was still on. I had to go somewhere in Yagoto to pay for a plane ticket so went for a bit of a walk.
Nagoya is a completely different place when decorated with snow, and it was incredibly refreshing to walk along the new streets; completely different to those we’d left behind when we went to Sapporo. We’d gone to the snow festival and brought the snow back with us. By the roads lots of children appeared outside to make their snowmen before it got too dark, and people on the streets seemed even friendlier than usual. A woman noticed me taking pictures around a shrine I hadn’t even noticed before, despite having walked past it an uncountable number of times, and started talking to me. It was probably alright to go in, she told me, so I did. The tranquility of the place was the reverse of the situation in Sapporo, and as I wandered around the barely touched ground I felt my own head clearing up, as fresh as the snow at my feet. We didn’t just expect snow in Sapporo, we knew it would be there in spades without a shadow of a doubt. Seeing snow in Nagoya was such a surprise it seemed almost magical, and much more special.
So, the trip was still on. I got some clothes together and headed out on the short walk to the hospital, where the night bus was departing from. There were plenty of people already standing around outside so I did the usual greetings and talking to some people I hadn’t seen for a very long time. I was especially looking forward to this trip as the people going were mostly the same as those on the Inuyama trip. Incidentally, one of the main sculptures at the snow festival was a replica of Inuyama castle, which we saw but didn’t visit on that trip. Hitting the slopes with me were Yamashita, Matsukawa and plenty of other people working in rehabilitation at the hospital, in addition to plenty of nurses from 1-5 and 1-6 wards – cardiac wards, I think. We got on the bus right on time, but due to the heavy snow fall, there was also heavy traffic and we arrived at the ski resort an hour or so late. Nagoya gets snow as infrequently as England does, and the roads in the area were heavily clogged up. Until we got out of the Aichi prefecture, of which Nagoya is the capital, the bus was trudging along at what felt like five kilometers an hour. Or less. Nevertheless, I fell asleep quickly being well used to long bus journeys, and woke up to the Nagano morning snow.
Night buses tend to set off with a big margin for delays, since we wouldn’t want to leave much later than ten at night, and there isn’t any point in arriving before the ski resort opens its lifts at about half eight in the morning. Thanks to this, despite the big snow pile-up we arrived at Kashimayari Alpina ski resort only an hour later than scheduled. Since we were in Nagano for two days, I decided to split it board and ski. Sunday I’d be boarding. After feeling significant improvement the second time I went earlier this year, I was riding my confidence as I stepped into my hired board and took the first lift up with Yamashita, Matsukawa and others. I was quickly knocked off as I fell to the ground almost every ten seconds for the whole day. It didn’t hurt at all though, on the fresh cushion of the previous night’s snowfall. The muscle ache didn’t really arrive until I’d boarded the bus back home the day after, but crept up with such intensity it hasn’t left me yet. It was worth it though.
The resort was a lot more open than the ones I’d visited earlier during my stay in Japan, consisting of three seperate mountains we were free to move around on our one day lift pass. The scenery was beautiful, a stark contrast to the artificial snow sculptures that decorated Sapporo, here we saw nature’s own craftmanship. 
Clumps of snow stuck onto the otherwise naked branches of the trees forming strange patterns, and beyond them the clear visibility let us look out onto a cool blue lake, and beyond it more mountains. Despite my impressive fall count, I still had moments when I could surf around the snow on my board at speed, weaving around first-timers, like I was one with the wind. Seconds later, I’d be one with the snow as I skidded down on my backside, but what can you do?
As Yamashita and I got some soba for breakfast as soon as we arrived at the resort, we didn’t need to take a break for lunch and got a good 6 or so hours session on the slopes. Then it was time to return to the hotel to meet the others. Due to the huge popularity the trip had received after Yamashita and Matsukawa advertised it in the hospital, two buses had to be used to get everybody to Nagano. The bus leaving on Saturday night that I boarded was for skiers and boarders, whilst a second trip including Rhys was setting off the next morning, and sightseeing during the day in Nagano. All fifty or so people got together at the hotel for a huge party in the evening, which we got back just in time for.
First we sat around at the long tables and had the usual course of raw fish, unusual vegetables and of course, rice. No Japanese meal would be complete without a generous helpful of rice, be it breakfast lunch or tea. Meanwhile, we had a constant supply of beer and later the more risky sake. The people on the trip were some of the friendliest at the hospital, many of them fairly young physiotherapists and nurses. Several people had brought their families along with them too, so there were also a lot of playful young children who quickly took a liking to me, bringing extra food to my table. The next day me and Yamashita broke some massive icicles hanging off the hotel roof and gave them to the kids, which along with their endless childish imagination kept them amused all the way until the bus came to whisk us away again. They literally swarmed around me and dragged me to the back of the coach, where we played a Japanese word game called shiritori for the whole journey. I was a bit thick headed but managed to keep it going after getting a lot of practice the night before.
After the eating was coming to a close at the party, the karaoke started. One guy from the hospital, built like a brick wall in a completely non-imposing way was hogging the show, hanging around the karaoke machine for hours. His appearance was the perfect complement to his voice which hilariously jumped to pitches no man should be able to produce, and after a while his performance was joined by one of the rehabiri senseis who did a bit of dancing on the side. I even took to the stage after the sake had hit home and blasted out a rendition of Linda Linda. I’m getting too predictable.
After we’d finished, Yamashita, Rhys and I headed for the outdoor onsen. As I’ve said before, usually I can take or leave the onsen and not care either way, but after a hard day on the slopes there is no better treatment. After a long dip in the hot spring water, we returned to the rooms. I ended up sat in the hotel lobby at around 2 am playing shiritori with Matsukawa and some others. I might have mentioned this game before in a previous post. In some ways, it’s a good job I’m leaving soon as the longer I’m here the greater the chance of repeating on myself. Either way, shiritori is a game that involves taking the last syllable of one word and using it as the first of another, and continuing in a cycle. I learnt it working back on the peadiatric ward at the hospital, and it’s a fun way to practice Japanese. Especially after an eclectic mix of beer, sake and chu-hais.
The next day was ski time, and I felt right back at home on a pair of carving skis, cutting through fields of moguls, the fresh mountain air wiping away any trace of a hangover that managed to linger even after my huge breakfast at the hotel. One often touted hangover cure is the full English breakfast, but it pales in comparison to the full Japanese breakfast, whole fish included. Although we only had half a day on the mountain this time, I felt like I was skiing the best I ever had, and was gliding along the slopes. Me and Yamashita also found a fantastic off piste section winding through the trees. Going off-piste is becoming my favourite thing to do, there’s something special in being somewhere hardly anyone else has been, and a real feeling of freedom in making the first marks in the fresh virgin snow.
After another rest in the hotel’s onsen, we got the bus all the way back to Nagoya, leaving at 2pm and arriving four and a half hours later. The return leg was much quicker than the night ride, maybe a little bit because of the shorter stops, but a lot more to do with the lack of snow in the Aichi prefecture. The blocked roads we’d struggled through two days earlier were now spacious and easy to drive on, the traffic became a swift river rather than the clotted artery of a McDonald’s regular. All of the snow that had fallen on Nagoya had long since melted. For its short stay it had a massive impact, turning the city into a completely different place, but now it was gone and left not even the slightest hint of its existence, departing with the same swiftness it had arrived with. If it were not for the pictures I’d taken around Yagoto, it’d be very easy to dismiss the whole thing as a nice dream.
Just as the snow melted away, our time here is quickly slipping away. Tomorrow is our leaving party at the hospital, where after work we have to suit up and stand in front in our collegues and friends, and deliver a speech. Finding the words to thank them for the experience they’ve given us would be a challenge in English, never mind Japanese. The following evening, we are going for dinner at a restuarant by Nagoya Castle with the director of the hospital, and the next day our very last at the hospital. The day after, I turn nineteen, and some days after that I pack my things away and leave for Tokyo, to start a new adventure in Thailand, Cambodia and Vietnam. Today after work, Tojo san came to inspect our apartments and tell us to get them cleaned up for the next volunteers. The long goodbye has begun.
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