A couple of weeks back, my friend and fellow basketball wife, Alicia and I were discussing where we should take our mini Japanese vacation. Should we go to Tokyo to visit friends, or brace ourselves for the cold and visit Sapporo during their 64th Annual Snow Festival?! We opted for the latter since we knew we would never visit Sapporo or Hokkaido any other time. Plus we heard great things about the snow festival and wanted to check it out in person. So on a snowy Akita night, I boarded my 12 hour night train and headed through underwater tunnels to Sapporo!
The train was actually a pretty cool experience. I bought a "carpet sleeper seat" and hoped for the best since no one at the train station could really explain to me what a carpet sleeper seat was. So praying I wouldn't be sleeping on a dirty patch of carpet I boarded the train...to my surprise the carpet sleeper area was awesome! There were sections of six carpet beds next to each other, each separated by a curtain. On top of each section there were two semi-private bunks. I lucked out and had my own private bunk, all with a clean pillow and a white blanket. The whole place was spotless!! I guess I shouldn't be too surprised, after all, this is Japan!
I have to admit, my heart stopped twice when I saw a group of little kids and then a girl with two cages filled with four cats board our cart...eeek! "Please let me sleep." But in typical Japanese fashion, as soon as the train started moving everyone became silent and the next 12 hours flew by! I missed going underneath the longest underwater tunnel in the world and would only occasionally wake up when I heard the conductor stomp through our cart. Now this is the kind of traveling I could get used to!
I have to admit, my heart stopped twice when I saw a group of little kids and then a girl with two cages filled with four cats board our cart...eeek! "Please let me sleep." But in typical Japanese fashion, as soon as the train started moving everyone became silent and the next 12 hours flew by! I missed going underneath the longest underwater tunnel in the world and would only occasionally wake up when I heard the conductor stomp through our cart. Now this is the kind of traveling I could get used to!
Happy we finally arrived in Sapporo!
We checked out the impressive snow sculptures at the Odori site. The snow festival has three different sites but we split our time between Odori (snow sculptures) and the Susukino (ice sculptures) part of the festival. The Odori site was the main site, where there were around 140 snow and ice sculptures filling a 1.5 km park. Very cool!
Unfortunately, we picked the worst night to see the lit snow sculptures. Our umbrellas couldn't handle all the snow and wind.
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A little Japanese rock concert in front of the sculptures. Yes, please! Heeeey hottie! haha
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Alicia was quite famous at the Snow Festival! Oh the life of a famous basketball wife!
The Susukino site displaying approximately 60 ice sculptures. There were a couple of sculptures displaying Hokkaido fish and shellfish frozen in ice. Very cool!
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Hokkaido is known for their seasonal crab; Hairy (kegani), Snow (zuwai), King (taraba) and Hansaki crab. I'm really not sure which types we tried...well other then hairy crab since I noticed a floating furry leg in my soup. Oishii! After getting over the initial shock, it was very delicious. We also tried spicy miso ramen in the famous Ramen Alley. Sapporo has more than a thousand ramen restaurants and is even called the City of Ramen. Double oishii!
 Hairy crab miso soup. |  Crab sushi. |
Spicy miso ramen.
Ramen Alley.
After a delicious meal at Ramen Alley we were off to find a Japanese photo booth. I have never experienced this "must-do" activity in Japan, so we were on a mission to fulfill my photo booth void. Japanese photo booths are like no other in the world. You can lighten your skin, make your eyes bigger, add numerous hearts, stamps and poorly written English phrases. Such as an awesome/wacky saying "We are Best Friends Forever. Happy♥Love." Hmmm. Happy♥Love?! Plus, these booths tell you how to pose...amazing! Check out our "kawaii" photo experience!! You know I will be dragging Dan to one of these.
Mmmmm Sapporo beer! On the last day of our trip we decided to try some famous Japanese beer and take a tour of the Sapporo Beer Museum. This museum is the only beer museum in Japan and has been selected as a Hokkaido Heritage site. But let's not kid ourselves, we were only there for the beer. So we cruised through the museum (free of charge!) and then ended up at the Sapporo Bier Hall where we enjoyed a delicious cold sampler of Sapporo beer.
Awesome trip! Well worth dealing with all the snow and wind in order to enjoy delicious food, cold beer and see some impressive snow and ice sculptures!
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