北海道の雪祭り （Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 旭川の雪祭り 雪

En français
The largest street in 旭川　was really filled with snow. I took it to go to the park where was held the second part of the 雪祭り。The snow sculptures were situated near the river. The first one was the largest stage of all, largest than the stage in 札幌　and was representing the transformers. The other sculptures were smaller and place in front of the restaurant so that you could look at them while eating. On the other side there was a Ice Village which was a large igloo with an ice bar.
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北海道の雪祭り （Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 旭川の雪祭り 氷

En français
When I came back from the zoo, I went to see the 雪祭りunfortunately it was a little early and my camera's battery finally died before I could take pictures of the illuminations. The first part of the 雪祭り was on the street in front of the station and was the presentation of ice sculpture. They were even more impressive than the one in 札幌。
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北海道の雪祭り （Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 旭川動物園

En français
The next day I got up early to go to 旭川 it takes almost two hours by train to get there. The thing I liked in 北海道 is that no matter where I wanted to go, I didn't have to transit. I took a direct train to 旭川駅。Then I was a bit lost arrived there, I needed to find the bus stop number 5 to get to the zoo, but I didn't want to go wondering too much out of the station in the wrong direction in the snow. Hopefully the Japanese tourist information was really helpful, the woman there gave me a time table of the bus departure to the zoo and to come back and showed me exactly where the bus station was. It was funny to speak in Japanese when she was answering in English to me. I took the bus to the zoo, it takes about 40 minutes to get there. It was starting to snow while we were waiting. A lot of people had decided to go to the zoo too. 旭川動物園　is one of the most famous zoo in Japan, it's not very big but it has winter animals such as polar bear, penguins and an arctic fox. And the very special penguin walk activity. My camera's battery got frozen during this but I still managed to get awesome pictures.
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北海道の雪祭り （Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 札幌のすすきの

En français
After 大通 I went to すすきの。The 雪祭り　there was made of ice sculpture. I had the chance to see some people working on the sculpture too. The ice sculptures are thin and filled with a lot of details compare to the huge snow sculptures. It was really contrasting. It seems to be easier to get things prisoners in the ice and then to sculpt it to give a given effect. There was bottles from sponsors inside of some, event crabs and other seafood, or flowers.
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北海道の雪祭り （Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 札幌の大通

En français

After checking at the hotel when I arrived in 札幌　I went directly to the main attraction in the city which was the 雪祭り　on 大通。On the way, I met some igloo which could be visited, people were lighting up candles inside. I then reached 大通 and the first view was a huge street aquarium sculpture or more exactly a sculpture of the submarine life. It was illuminated and absolutely amazing. I then walked along the street to see the other snow sculptures. Several of them were in fact stage where people were playing games or singing. I had a ラーメン before continuing to すすきの。

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北海道の雪祭り （Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : Introduction

En français

It has been a long time since the last blog post in January. Sorry about the long silence. Hopefully I have something new and interesting to entertain you for the next few days. I wouldn't say my life was on the down side for the last month but it wasn't quite as entertaining as it used to. Hopefully it's on the way up and I have to say that I spend the last four days week-end traveling up North to go and see the 雪祭り（yuki matsuri) in 北海道 (Hokkaido)。

The 雪祭り　is a festival with snow and ice sculpture and delicious street food as for any Japanese festival held in Hokkaido, the island in the North of Japan.

Normally when you tell people that you are going to see the 雪祭り they expect you to spend the day in 札幌 (Sapporo)　the main city of 北海道 and to spend a  day or two in 大どり(Oodori) to see the snow sculptures and the show there and to visit the other few sites of festival in 札幌。Few months ago, that's what I intended to do but not quite what happened. Instead I took four days to go to three different cities : 札幌、旭川 (Asahikawa) and

 小樽 (Otaru), to discover three very different and equally entertaining 雪祭り。 The next few posts will be telling the tale of my travel in the "Grand Nord". Stay tunned.

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北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : Introduction
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 札幌の大通
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 札幌のすすきの
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 旭川動物園
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 旭川の雪祭り 氷
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 旭川の雪祭り 雪
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : random walk in 札幌
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 小樽の午後
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : 小樽の夜
北海道の雪祭り　（Snow festivals in Hokkaido) : Coming back