Sapporo - Day 5 - 18th February 2017

Today was a big day. In the middle hours of the morning we made our way via tram out to Maruyama Koen (where we tried to walk from the other day at Mt Moiwa). The park entrance turned out to be nowhere near Mt Moiwa.

Maruyama Koen is a big, beautiful park, that looks stunning in the snow. There was no predicted snowfall today, but the wind through the trees caused snow to fall in a steady, slow pattern. Snow flakes loosened from branches would drift lazily to the ground, mixing in seamlessly with the white expanse. 

In the middle of Maruyama Koen lies the Hokkaido Shrine. Having seen a fair amount of shrines on our previous trip to Japan, we didn't find this impressive by any standard, but it was different to see a shrine covered in snow. 

Around the shrine were a few snow sculptures to celebrate the upcoming Asian Winter Games.

Frosty, Beymax and Olaf ice sculptures

Snowboarding Squirrel Sculpture

The park was cold but a good place to get out and stretch our legs. Towering trees lined our path and we came along a smaller shrine upon a steep cliffside. A thin walking trail followed along statues covered in knitted beanies and scarves. We choose to continue on walking and not try to climb the steep hill without proper snow walking gear (such as poles), so we followed a frozen-over stream. Birds, seeming somehow resilient to the cold, flitted about. A small squirrel sat atop the snow, cheeks full of seeds and nuts. 

Creek at Maruyama Park

At half past 12 we wandered out of the quiet sanctuary of the park and legged it to Sapporo Station. We had plans to visit the Lake Shikotsu Snow and Ice Festival and needed to make the 2.40pm bus out to Shikotsu. To get to Lake Shikotsu from Sapporo was not the easiest task, and if we had been more organised, we would have booked a seat on a tour bus before we came to Sapporo, as not only was it more time effective, but the same price with the guarantee of a seat. 

We ate a brief lunch from a Lawson at Sapporo Station and hopped on a train to New Chitose Airport. The regional bus to Lake Shikotsu left from New Chitose, so this is where we were headed. We arrived at 2.30pm to the airport and made a beeline for the bus bay (just on the outside of the airport). The bus was at the stop and was ridiculously, overly full. There was absolutely no way we were going to be able to squeeze onto the bus. The Shikotsu bus comes only once every  2 to 3 hours in Winter season (http://www.1000sai-chitose.or.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ae8835152cf31a5ce094e10e3b33afe8.pdf), but luckily for us on Saturdays and Sundays (today being a Saturday) there was an extra bus scheduled for half an hours time, at 3.10pm. After having seen how packed the last bus was, we made sure we didn't leave our spot as first in line to get onto the bus (we didn't fancy standing for the hour long plus journey). 


The bus pulled into Lake Shikotsu, a very small settlement of a handful of buildings next to the lake, at just after 4.15pm in the afternoon. The bus had been heated, so the -7° temperatures were a shock to the system. According to my phone, real feel was -12° and I would have believed it.



The festival site next to the lake was really fun. Pillars and castles had been carved from the ice into a maze of lights. It was really exciting to explore, and the insides of the carved rooms were so much warmer than the air outside. We dawdled our way through to stay in the warmth as long as possible. We went through a room with frozen fish in the walls, another room with hanging bubbles, a grotto full of branches and back-lit with purple lights, and a multi-storied turret tower that overlooked the festival. In the center of the tower you could look into a crystal blue pool. There was a snow slide made of compacted ice for children to slide down, and a small ice-skating rink to slip around on in your shoes. 
 

The air was getting colder by the minute and by 5.30pm we had seen the entire festival. Whilst we had originally planned on being at the festival for the fireworks, our numb fingers and stinging faces made the decision for us to leave on the earlier 5.45pm bus. It turned out to be a good idea, as the lines to come into the festival for the fireworks wound out kilometers from Lake Shikotsu. The later bus ride back would have been extremely packed. The 5.45pm bus had plenty of room and everyone got a seat.

Lake Shikotsu

By 7pm we were back at New Chitose Airport, where we decided to stay for dinner before catching the train back to Sapporo.