Every year a bunch of snow sculptures are constructed in the Ōdōri park in Sapporo. This year is the 66th Sapporo snow festival and we (Amy and I) had the opportunity to experience it first hand.

To start of, I would like to say that with big events like this, it is important to book hotels and flights early. I booked everything around the middle of November and that was apparently too late by Japanese standard. All the affordable hotels in Sapporo city were booked out, so the best I could find was a Toyoko Inn in the nearby city of Tomakomai, which is 1 hour away from Sapporo by train. But that was ok and well worth it in the end.

The main attraction was the giant Star Wars sculpture made by the Japanese defence force. It was made to celebrate the reboot of the Star Wars movies, with Episode VII coming out this year. There was a bunch of other amazing snow and ice sculptures which we got to see before some of them melted and were removed.

We also got to go to 2 special shops: the Snow Miku Shop and the Madoka Magika Shop. The Snow Miku shop had goods and a small museum dedicated to the history of Miku and especially in relation to the Snow Festival (there has been a new Snow Miku every year for the past 5 years). The Madoka shop had a whole lot of goods available, which can not be found in regular anime shops, so that was a very pleasant experience (my wallet is crying). There was also a restaurant that had Madoka themed drinks and a QB ice cream (he tasted like vanilla), so we couldn’t resist.

Lastly Amy and I went to the Sapporo Beer museum located a few subway stops and a short walk away from the main station. There they had exhibits on the history of breweries in Hokkaido and how beer was sold in Japan ever since the Meiji Restoration. At the end of the museum, there was a beer testing area, where we got 3 glasses of beer for 500¥ (~5$). After getting a bit drunk on good quality beer we went to the next door Japanese style BBQ restaurant and enjoyed the rest of our evening eating delicious meet.

And here is what you have all been waiting for, my beautiful photos: