I'm back! (Which means that I have time and am on break!!!!) I have spent the morning sorting out my Hokkaido photos and they are now ready to post!!!!!
So without any further adieu~
THE PHOTOS!!!
Welcome to Hokkaido, Japan, The Winter Wonderland of Japan! (My nickname for it!)
We got mountains!
We got valleys!
And of course...
SNOW!
And snow!
And more snow!
And more snow.
And, yet....more snow.
But, you get the picture.... (haha, picture! ... >.> *awkward glance to the side...*)
Note the random Bonsai tree on the train station platform...decoration, I suppose...
Note: these photos thus far and for a while down are from the plane or the train. (A rhyme for my bro. :P)
And here are my companions! Both are from my CSU group! We had to take a train, an underground subway and a trolley to get from the New Chitose Airport to our hotel, the Leo Palace Hotel!
And now, we have some pics of our double-decker hotel room (amazing room it was!).
We had ventured into the cold, snowy North to see the annual Snow Festival in Sapporo. Of course, I do have pics of the event. Below are photos of the snow sculptures that were along the very long Odori Park. We only got to see half the park during our stay, however....
I just adored how the officers were dragging a sled of stuff...so I snapped a pic of them. :P
Note the snow creature above! It is called a Shisa, but you may know it as a Lion-dog. It's a mythical creature from Okinawa, hence why I said to make note of this. We will be seeing this creature again...
By the way, the Shisa sculpture above was done by the Hokkaido-Okinawa Club (that's what the sign says in the blue oval with white typing).
I just loved how this fountain...uh...froze? Got snowed upon? ...was affected by the weather!
If ya want to have some fun with my pics, start trying to read the time on the tower in the pic above. That tower shows up quite a bit. It is located on the ....eastern side (I think...) of Odori Park. So, since my friends and I spent a lot of time in the general Odori Park area while we were sightseeing, that tower shows up in the pics a lot.
At this point, my friends and I took a momentary break from wandering Odori Park. Mind you, we had just flown in that morning and slept some in the afternoon. So, we needed to catch some dinner while we were out.
We saw a narrow little mall across the street from Odori Park, so we stepped in to check it out.
Then...I discovered the snow on my friend, Riski.
It was pretty snowy that night!
Some shots of the mall!
And some artist just keeled over at the sight of this photo above. Can someone say 'perspective change'?
By the way, we found dinner!
You know a fancy restaurant when they provide chopsticks rests! :D
Though we still got disposable chopsticks.....
What we are having here is Yakiniku. Yaki means to 'grill, bake, cook with fire', while niku is 'meat'.
And, yes. We pay higher prices for grilling our own meat....and veggies....
But, man, was the meat in Hokkaido delicious!
*Insert Riski's meat call/growl*
..
...
....
This may be my last posting if Riski reads this....
:D
So yeah, dinner was a bit pricey, but worth the money!
Then, we explored the rest of the mall.
..
...
Found nothing overly exciting....
So we headed downstairs to the train station below.
..
...
Where we found this decorative vault!
The vault was outside a bank...and looked like it was filled with ice...that's all I know about it...
After finding that vault (and waiting for people to move so we could take pics of it...), we headed back to the snowy outdoors to finish up one side of Odori Park.
Hold the horses again! The sculpture above is the Hinamatsuri sculpture. Hinamatsuri is a festival to honor daughters and bring them good luck in life. I will go into that in more detail later, since the festival is in March!
Now, let's continue our adventure!
Ok, so these two photos above and below are of the smoking area wall, which was featured in the photo above the Hinamatsuri sculpture. They are ice blocks that had a decorative crystaling pattern within. And I mean every ice block had this patterning in them!
Some in-progress snow sculptures.
We flew in the day before the Snow Festival started, so of course, not every sculpture was finished. We're artists, when are we every finished ahead of schedule? :D
...Though I do know one artist who usually is....
And some snow graffiti done by yours truly! It's of one of my main characters! :D
Yes, I stood in the middle of the street and snapped this photo. However! I was in the middle of the sidewalk on a pedestrian green light. (or blue light, which is how it's referred to in Japanese)!
The sign above is for the Japanese burger chain, Mos Burger. Typically, there is no anime girl associated with Mos Burger, which is why this sign was so interesting.
Riski in the snow!
Riski in a lot of snow!
By the time this photo above was taken, it was snowing a lot!
Onwards to Day 2!
Here we are at the Sapporo Clock Tower!
It was part of the original Sapporo Agricultural College, which later became the Hokkaido University.
Hokkaido was not part of the Japanese nation until after the fall of the Japanese Shogunate in 1868. Hokkaido (which was then known as Ezo) came under Japanese rule the year following the Shogunate collapse. The land was mostly uninhabited, so due to the large number of suddenly freed (to a degree) people, the Japanese government allowed people to become farmers up in Hokkaido. Gradually, due to the large number of people who knew very little about agriculture or were having trouble in the northern region, a Japanese agricultural school opened in Sapporo.
Who's heard the saying, "Boys, Be Ambitious"?
Most Japanese know this phrase. It came from an American Professor's farewell speech upon a few years of teaching at Sapporo Agricultural College. This professor, William Clark Smith, was one of the most influential Christians in Japan! Many of his students became active Christians, while a few are still known for their Christian ministries. I would highly suggest reading up further about this man!
On that note: this is how popular that saying is! This is an ending theme to an anime that I love (well, at least I read its manga weekly :D). Note the name of the song!
On ho, towards more Hokkaido!
Above is the original layout of the Sapporo Agricultural College. The Clock Tower was in the middle of the ... campus? Anyhoo, its current location would closer to the camera, where that big building is on the model.
After visiting the clock tower, my friends and I had some Ice cream...
...across a tiny street from the clock tower!
The above photo is just for kicks. I have a panorama feature on my new camera...which captures interesting photos occasionally.
Our next destination was the Old Government Building, nicknamed 'Akarenga' which means 'red bricks' (aka=red, renga=brick).
Akarenga had a park on its compound.
With some silly signs!
I love Japanese signs!
AKARENGA!
Within the rooms of Akarenga were many small historical displays. However, most of the signs were in Japanese, so I could not understand the significance of everything being displayed....
Peeking outside the windows....
A mock-up of a normal room in the Government Building.
The following photos are in backwards-chronological order, meaning it goes from most recent person to oldest person. It also occurred to me that I do not know who these individuals are....
Start from the left-hand side of the photos and go right....--->
The following photos are gifts from other cities and nations to Sapporo.
^ Yes...that's all that the US could manage to give.... >.>
Now, the following photos are of history of Hokkaido.
Note: this helmet is from WWII era...Come to find out due to this posting, Hokkaido was also attacked in WWII by the Allied forces! I never knew that... But, then again, this is why I like to blog....when I have the time and energy (sorry, peeps...).
Above is the sign for the history exhibit from which you just saw photos.
Below are the photos of the Natural History of Hokkaido exhibit (plus some non-natural history stuff from the same exhibit).
The fossil above is an ammonite fossil. The photo below is the display placard with a sign saying, "Go ahead and touch it" (at least that's a loose translation of the sign).
Note: those squiggly fossils are mammoth teeth! You will see a few more later on...just not in this post.
Ok, ok. I must apologize. Being that wacky artsy person, I had a bit of fun photographing the next few furry displays. :D
Message below if you remember the Sapporo Games of '72!
Because I wasn't around yet!...nor for a very long time after that!
:D
The following displays are from the first era of Japanese history, known as the Jomon Period. This was the Hunter-and-Gatherer era of Japan. The name of the era comes from the thread- or rope-like patterning on the pottery. Don't worry if you can't see them in these photos, I have more from another Hokkaido day!
From this point, we have a variety of historical artifacts. Some of these are from Hokkaido's late native people, the Ainu. There are no more full-blooded Ainu people and no native speakers of the Ainu tongue, which is really sad to me. But, we still have recordings of the Ainu tongue and linguistical studies from early- to mid-20th century!
Whoops! These are more Jomon Period artifacts in this display!
Back to unidentifiable historical artifacts (at least for me...).
More Jomon below.
Outside the window....
And done with Akarenga!
The sign below roughly reads:
Caution
Since frozen snow will fall, please be careful.
Below is a pic of how they keep the form of full-grown bonsai trees during the winter!
Some snowmen for the Snow Festival! (We didn't make them!)
Yes, we did love Hokkaido! (Though some did not appreciate the snow. :P )
Thanks, Riski, for photobombing my pic! :D
And off to our next destination!
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...
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But that will be my next post!
In total, I will have more than 670 photos of Hokkaido on my blog, so enjoy! (or so sorry!)
Until then, Later Peeps!
