Since we are only spending one short year in Japan we are trying to find the parts that are truly one of a kind. Thus, I decided to take the kids to Sapporo for the 60th snow and ice festival. At first Jonathan was going to join us, but a previous commitment to speak in Sendai the same weekend prevented this.
I booked the trip through a Japanese travel agent since in Japan packages are usually cheaper and the bigger groups put blocks on the hotels. We were able to get a hotel just a few minutes walk from 2 of the 3 venues.
This was my first trip where I had to negotiate everything without Jonathan and I must admit that I was a bit concerned about my ability to get us where we wanted to be given the crowds that I was expecting.
We left Tokyo midday from Haneda airport, which is closer than Narita and handles domestic flights. This meant that we could take a regular metro train without having to make reservations on the airport express and that we could leave at any time. We had 2 small suitcases that were not heavy – just packed with winter boots and layers of clothing. We dragged them through Shibuya a bit after noon, not too crowded and up the stairs at the Hachiko entrance – no elevator or escalator at this JR entrance. After a few minutes on the JR, we transferred onto a monorail to Haneda. This delivered us to the terminal where we picked up our tickets. The security was wonderful, no lines and no removal of shoes.
After a bit of a scare due to heavy snow in Sapporo – would we be diverted?- we arrived at that city in Hokkaido. It was obvious that Sapporo was ready for crowds. They had volunteers at the airport to direct strangers to the proper place to get into the city. When we tried to wait in the very short line to purchase tickets for the airport link into town we were pulled aside taken to an English speaking clerk – no line at all, and given an explanation of the system and prices. Totally unexpected but very welcoming.
We got on the next train – totally packed with no seats available and stood the 40 minutes it took to get into town. We rode in standing next to a young Japanese who had studied in Colorado and had just graduated last year with a Finance degree. He was worried that we did not know how to get to negotiate the trains, which did not concern me. He was happy because he had decided not to go with a job from Lehman Brothers but instead was working for a non-finance firm.
We arrived at the main train terminal during rush hour, sat on a bench to change into winter boots, pull on gloves and hats, and managed to go one stop on another train to our hotel. Oddly enough we realized that the directions from the hotel had us walking further than necessary, as Alex pointed out, so we took our own route – only needing to ask directions once when we were a block away from the hotel. Every map we looked at had north in a different place making our attempts at interpretation more difficult than necessary. However, downtown Sapporo is laid out on a grid, which made navigation much easier than Tokyo.
Our hotel was a typical business hotel. Very tight fit, no place for storage of clothes, tiny bathroom. However it was clean, warm and had three beds and the location was great.
We set out for dinner and then our first snow sculpture viewing. Dinner was a Chinese restaurant in a small place near the hotel with good Cantonese food. Warmed and fed, we set out to walk the remaining 3 blocks to the Odori park part of the festival. We explored the gigantic snow carvings first. They were totally different from anything we had ever seen. Quite elaborate and very well done. Some had lights internally, all had lights externally, and a couple still had workers adding the final touches. Despite our fears the crowds were very thin. We could always get where we wanted without any problem. I took many photos and never had to wait for people to get out of the way. One section had teams from different countries competing. Some of the countries were ones that you would expect at a snow festival – Norway, Sweden, Finland. Others, such as Thailand and Hong Kong, were not expected. There was also an entire section of sculptures made by local folks and children displayed in one section of the park.
As is typical with any Japanese festival, there were numerous food vendors with various types of possible consumables. The most interesting were the seasoned nuts, but when I saw the 2,000 yen price (over $21) for a rather modest serving I decided that we could have hot cocoa instead.
After a couple of hours of walking around we decided that we had seen most of the park and that we were ready to head back and get into a warm building.
The next morning after a very mediocre breakfast at the hotel (most hotels include breakfast in the price), we headed out to the Tsudome for what we expected would be a morning of tubing. A local train and 5-minute bus ride took us to the site which was jam-packed with people. The rides looked better on paper then in reality. Every ride had a wait of over an hour and Caroline and I became so frustrated that we left the line for the only interesting ride. Instead we had a snowball fight and then went to the only uncrowded area which was for kids to try to ski on one-foot-long bamboo skies tied together with a meter and a half long string. The trick was to pull hard on the string while standing on the skis and steering down the slope. Easier to say than do although both kids succeeded after many attempts. At least the weather was nice with sunshine so that being outside was enjoyable.
Lunch was inside the dome with long lines, horrible food and not enough tables so once you bought the food there was nowhere to sit. We gave up on this site and went back into town. On our way out we ran into a family from our ASIJ bus stop – small world.
We went back to the hotel, stopping for a sweet on the way, then went to Odori park and looked at the small area we had missed Friday evening. We found an ice rink and got coupons to return the next morning – to avoid a wait - and then went and played in the snow nearby. I’m certain we were not supposed to do this, but as we were off to the side and our snowballs could not land on others, no official came by to tell us to stop. The crowds at the park were thicker but as we had already seen most of the sculptures they did not bother us at all. To warm up we returned to the hotel and spent an hour or so reading. After our miserable lunch I decided the kids needed Italian for dinner so we went to the Parco building and had a fairly good meal – no lines - before heading out to the ice festival. When we got outside it was snowing rather intensely. Interestingly, the Japanese understand that umbrellas can be used for snow as well as rain. Since I had not thought of packing umbrellas we had to continually brush off the snow so as to not turn into snow people.
Once again we were able to get right next to the ice sculptures and we watched as one man used a chainsaw to make a splendid fish out of the ice. The sculptures ranged from commercial advertisements for beer to artistic renditions of a phoenix and Pegasus. We had an enjoyable evening and managed to see all the sculptures.
The next morning we awoke to a snowstorm so furious that we could barely see the buildings 2 blocks away and across the street. Luckily it had mostly stopped by the time we were done with breakfast. We checked our luggage with the hotel and found out about options for returning to the airport. We walked to Odori Park and reached the ice rink right on time. Wonderful experience – no line, we handed in the kids’ boots, put on the required slippers so that the socks would not touch the floor, received skates for 200 yen each, placed the slippers in the proper basket and were out the door in 5 minutes. I stayed off the ice to film the kids and talk to the occasional non-Japanese parent. It turns out that my French is better than I thought according to one person who works in Tokyo. An Indian couple told me about a great place to have lunch. After the skating was done we returned to our snow area to build a small snowman and make a small fort.
Although we have traveled to Colorado for skiing several times we had never had a chance to play in wet snow so this was wonderful for the kids and I think they would have gladly spent an entire day doing nothing else. We then tried to find the Indian restaurant, but after a short 10-minute walk with two frustrated hungry kids I wandered into a fancy hotel and asked for the address and phone number. It turns out we were just around the corner from the place.
We had a large lunch with plenty of spice for me and no spice for the kids so everyone was happy. However, we did notice that the snow once again was falling rather thickly. I started to think about the flight and the ability to leave Sapporo in just four hours but did not say anything to the kids. We walked back for one last look at the festival before heading to the hotel to pick up our luggage. Since it was still snowing rather thickly I opted to take the train to the airport instead of the bus. I did not want to drag the luggage through the snow so we had a cab take us to the main train terminal.
At the terminal we bought our airport train tickets from a vending machine after trying to do so from a person. Since we had plenty of time we went into a bakery to get a snack for the plane. In the bakery I saw two Europeans. When I used some basic French to excuse myself as I squeezed by in the small space, they started talking to me very quickly. After seeing my puzzled expression they asked if I spoke English. They wanted to know why in this small shop there were 4 clerks behind the counter. They wanted to know why everywhere they went there were more people employed then they would experience in Europe. I tried to explain this Japanese phenomenon as best I could in the 2-3 minutes I had to spare but they were clearly amazed.
We reached the correct platform only to find very long lines already formed to get onto the train that did not arrive for 10 minutes. I keep forgetting that the Japanese will queue up more than 15 minutes early to get a seat. There were long lines for each of the cars. This lining up is possible because the platform is marked with the exact location of each entrance to the train and the conductor makes sure that the train stops precisely in the correct spot. Nor do Japanese cut into lines. As expected the train to the airport was quite crowded although Alex managed to get a seat after someone got off – much to the dismay of his sister.
Although the kids got to ride in a car, I had to stay in the area between cars with the luggage – there was no place to put it even though this was a train dedicated to running between the airport and the main train terminal. Once again I had a conversation with a Japanese in English. This time I spoke with a woman in her 60s from Sapporo who was learning English and did not have a native speaker to practice with. I spoke very slowly and used common words. I tried a bit of my Japanese with her but my language skills were not nearly as good as hers. She got off after a few stops and thanked me for helping her in English.
Taking the train was the correct choice as even it was slightly delayed. It continued to snow hard as we traveled and we could only see outside when the doors opened at a stop as each window was misted over. When we arrived at the terminal I was surprised to see so much snow built up in the undercarriage of the train.
We were all tired and grumpy at the airport. We quickly got out of our layers of winter clothes – the bathrooms were larger than normal -- and dumped the excess in the luggage and changed out of boots into normal shoes. Alex remarked that the airport did not look like an airport but like a grocery store without any real food. The Japanese purchase gifts for their friends and co-workers when they travel. So you see most items packaged in sets of 6 or 10. The packaging is often more important than the item although you are supposed to get a food product that is unique to the region. Whether it is tasty seems to be less important although that may be my bias.
There was not much for us to purchase to eat on the plane. We went through security only to discover that we had left a water bottle in Alex’s backpack. Instead of making us throw it away they put it in a machine ,which analyzed it and declared that the beverage could be kept. Alex was thrilled and announced that the US should get these machines.
The plane was delayed due to snow but only for about 30 minutes. Surprisingly, queuing to get onto the plane was very unorderly. Unlike the US, the row numbers were not called. JAL did call first class and premier flyers, then people needing assistance, but when it was time for the general boarding, it was first come, first served and you may not have anywhere to put your coat unless you are in the front of the line. The storage space on the flight was non-existent. Even our small rollaboards could only fit sideways although they passed the cutout for being carry-on baggage. Another strange feature was that this 777 had no screens on the back of the seats. When we were served a beverage we were given no more than 4 ounces.
We arrived back in Tokyo caught the trains without any problem and arrived back at Shibuya on a uncrowded Sunday night. We were happy to be home.
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