Sapporo
Ever since I was a child, I dreamed of seeing Hokkaido. I love the winter and snow and all things cold. Thoughts of seeing the beautiful sculptures, as tall as buildings and as life-like and you and I, filled my days and nights. It was practically all I could think about. This year, Sam and I made my dreams come true. We went to Sapporo Snow Festival, we flew late on Friday night after Sam finished work, stayed in a wonderful hotel in the centre of the city, ate delicious food and even had time to rest, play on the switch together and watch the new Black Panther. It my the best mini-break we’ve experienced in our lives so far. Although we could not trap all that gorgeousness and fun within a camera, I hope you like the photos we took to attempt to share the festivities with you all!
Otaru
Whilst we were in Hokkaido, we also took a trip to Otaru, a coastal city North West of Sapporo. We took a local train there, so the journey wasn’t the smoothest, especially when the snow started pouring down. For a moment we were worried we wouldn’t make it back, and we’d be snowed-in, but all was okay in the end. Otaru is famous for sushi and glass, so we spent a lot of our time browsing and shopping all the little stores and their shiny wares. We managed to come across a lovely chopstick store too, which Sam and I were particularly interested in as we decided for our wedding anniversary this year we were going to get some nice chopsticks (as it’s our 5th year being married which is associated with ‘wood’ and we thought, as it’s our first anniversary we’re spending in Japan and chopsticks are a common marital gift here, there wouldn’t be anything more fitting). I will include below picture of the chopsticks for anyone who wants to see the ones we picked out. They have two silver bands on them, which represent both our silver wedding rings, they are both the same size, something that was important for us personally, but also a factor that is very rare for chopstick sets, and we also got them engraved with our surname. We could have gotten our full name, but we figured this way it felt more romantic, as of course sharing a surname is directly related to marriage, and also this way it felt like we shared both pairs as we share everything. (Unfortunately, I get awful writing names on school clothes vibes to prevent things from being lost when I see my full-name written on things too, so that kind of would have ruined teh vibes as well haha). There was a glass museum and a music box museum that were also beautiful, but they were also basically just large stores rather than traditional museums. The city itself was gorgeous as well, with a canal running down to when the main part of the city was. This canal also was where the Snow Light Path Festival first ignited. For anyone who follows my Instagram or TikTok related to this blog, you will have already have seen some of the beauties that this festival has to offer. For anyone who doesn’t, though, I am very excited for you to see the photos below. I hope you like them as much as we do. To summarise the festival in a sentence I would say picture this: candles, (protected by cages or ice blocks,) and community built snow sculptures all lining the paths of the city, so wherever you walk, you’re surrounded by cute or romantic snow art glowing with candlelight. What a fabulous way to end our trip. From Otaru, you can get a rapid train back to the airport in under 2 hours. It’s the perfect little detour if you’re looking for cheap things to do in Japan and you’re heading to Hokkaido at some point – I highly recommend it!
