Sapporo

We looked out of the window this morning to find that the roads which had been clear yesterday were covered with snow, and it was still falling. It looked like at least 15cms had fallen over night.


By the time we'd walked to the station David looked like a yeti, and we found that the little candle holders had all vanished,


At Susukino the ice sculptures had a good covering.


The competition which had begun yesterday was now finished, and we checked out the completed works.

We then walked through a big underground plaza, 'Pole Town', which connects Susukino and Odori subway stations, and came up near the foot of the TV Tower.

The snow had stopped, and sun was breaking through, so we bought tickets and went up the tower. We could see quite a long way, to the ski jump in the mountains used for the 1972 Winter Olympics.

We walked back through the park in the sun and watched some snowboard jumping on the temporary ski jump in the park, but it wasn't long before the snow started again.



We battled on to the international competition. The Malaysians were doing well,

and the Kiwis were also moving along.

We left the park and went up through the town. We found an Italian cafe and had pasta for late lunch, then at about 15:00 found the old Clock Tower building, another Sapporo landmark.

We spent a lot of time there, looking at picture books in their little library, watching their videos in Japanese, and generally whiling away the time in somewhere warm and dry until it got dark at 17:00. Then we went back to the park, for the third time, to see the sculptures under lights.



The Kiwis were progressing well,

so we left them to it, bought pots of instant noodle dinners at a mini market and came home to watch crazy Japanese TV and pack up.