yuki matsuri

so i went to sapporo (in hokkaido, the north island of japan) for the annual snow festival. they build huge sculptures our of snow and ice. we actually had to go the weekend before it started (so that it was affordable) so a lot of things weren't finished and we weren't allowed to walk all the way up to see some of the sculptures. but it was really fun and pretty anyway. it was such a fun trip and i'm so glad i was able to go! it was so pretty!
(i didn't notice that the lens had fogged up, oops)
not a sculpture, just a lot of snow on a subway entrance.


this is what the snow sculptures start out as.
the chronicle of narnia snow sculpture.




people make these snowmen to make wishes, later, once the festival is in full swing, there will be hundreds of them.
butt-biting bug!
the egypt one was my favorite.



i wish this giant slide had been open to go down...it wasn't.

susukino, the downtown entertainment area


ramen alley. when you walk by, everyone tries to get you to come into their ramen shop. when we finally settled on one, we still felt weird eating there, b/c many of them seem to have yakuza ties.
so much snow!

trains and tracks covered in snow and ice still look weird to me
the view from the plane on the trip home. it was so nice b/c the sunrise and sunset is rarely visible from where i live
and then, the most ironic part of all, i went to sapporo b/c i really missed snow. so i was shocked when i left the train station and saw the remnants of snow on the ground. it doesn't snow here, so the fact that it actually did, the weekend that i went to see snow, thus missing the snow here, was pretty funny.

the last day

we decided to go karaoke and go out to eat for our last night. it was really fun except for the control panel for karaoke is difficult since it is all in japanese and it turned out that they didn't have as many songs in english as i thought they would. but we did find some great ones to sing to, like gimme more and misuto baraito sido (mr. brightside). they even give you tambourines to use!



then a quick stop at the pachinko parlor. i have wondered about them for a long time b/c i always see people in them playing the weird pinball-like game. so we tried it. and couldn't figure it out. and left after 5 minutes. mystery solved. that game sucks.


bye bye lindsey. i hope you had fun. thanks for coming. and making my new year's eve not a non-event. muah!

the rest of the day

then we went to see the imperial palace

i'm going to buy this bus.
then we went out to Odaiba bay

the fuji television building
the fake "goddess of liberty" is a big tourist draw
rainbow bridge

the best surprise ever


then we made our final stop at tokyo tower. these are some jizo at the temple right near tokyo tower.
and 2008 makes the third year that i have seen on tokyo tower
and the best mascots in the world

the panda jerks!

lindsey and i stopped by the ueno zoo next. we got to see the giant panda after waiting in line for 20 minutes. i thought he just looked depressed.
important information about sloths.
lindsey is on the right.
for some reason all the gorillas have blankets that they use as shawls.
the american bison.

asakusa

the temple in asakusa was crazy since it was so early in the new year. but that made it kinda fun. frustrating, but fun. and the asahi "flaming turd" building was thrown in at the end for good measure. i love that ridonk building.

nihon-ji

this is now another one of my favorite places in japan. there is a ferry that leaves from the port about 20 minutes from my house that takes you across tokyo bay to chiba. and for some reason i really like ferries. they're right up there with trains for me.

anyway, once you get across, you take a cable car up to the top of the mountain where you can see my town and mt. fuji on a clear day. then, you can hike all over where there are huge buddhas (way bigger than in nara and kamakura) and tons of small statues, which are actually kinda freaky, but whatever. it was a super pretty place and had a lot of stairs but they were worth it for the view.