Can Spring be far behind?

The weather forecast says today’s maximum temperature is 2 degrees Celsius and

the minimum minus 3 (which is 36 F and 28 F respectively).

And the Makomanai Park, where the opening ceremony of Sapporo winter olympic games

was held in 1972), still has snow on the ground as you can see in the picture above,

and people are enjoying cross-country skiing — um, maybe cross-parking skiing in this case?

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Riding on an Icebreaker

A gull and sea ice at the Okhotsk sea.  Taken from an icebreaker ship “Aurora II”.

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Looking at  “Aurora” leaving the port of Abashiri from “Aurora II”.

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The view of the city of Abashiri from the ship.

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Sea ice / ice floe / drift ice on the Okhotsk sea.

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The Sea of Okhotsk coast of Hokkaido is the northern hemisphere’s southernmost region

to see drift ice.

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Day & Night at Lake Akan

Lake Akan Ice Festival is held from January 23rd till March 22nd.

A firework display is presented every night on the frozen lake Akan.

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There’s “Ainu Kotan” in Lake Akan hot spring resort.

The word “kotan” means village in the Ainu language.

This is Hokkaido’s largest Ainu community with 130 people in 36 households.

The picture above shows the entrance of Ainu Kotan,

where wood carved owls on the entrance gate welcome visitors.

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Owl is considered as the highest ranked animal “kamuy” (god or deity).

The owl god is believed to be the guardian of a village.

This is another owl in the kotan/village.

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At the “Onne Chise” theater in Ainu Kotan, traditional Ainu dances,

which were designated as important intangible cultural properties in 1984,  are performed.

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At the end of the performance, visitors can actually dance with them on the stage.

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Early morning at Lake Akan with Mt. Oakan behind the lake.

Can you see cars are on the frozen lake?

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Another picture of lake Akan.

On this day, the temperature at 6 o’clock in the morning at Akan dropped to

minus 19 degrees Celsius!

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Ice Climbers on Ginga Waterfalls

Ginga-no-taki (ginga waterfalls) in Sounkyo, Hokkaido yesterday.

It’s frozen all over!!

Can you see three people climbing up the frozen waterfalls?

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Those three dots are waterfall climbers,

and the temperature on this day was lower than minus 10 degrees!

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Hatsune Miku in Sapporo Snow Festival

This is a snow statue of Hatsune Miku!

The 63rd Sapporo Snow Festival is now held in Sapporo this week.

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Another snow statue of Hatsune Miku.  Hmm, she’s really popular!

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This year Sapporo Snow Festival has large snow statues of characters from “Onepiece” and “Toriko”!

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I thought this was interesting, because of the contrast between the snow statue of

an old castle and modern buildings behind it.

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The 2012 Sapporo snow festival welcomes you with 228 snow statues and ice sculptures!

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A Once-in-Ten-Year Kind of Cold Winter

Saw this from the window of Asahikawa JR station yesterday.

Hokkaido is now having a once-in-ten-year kind of cold winter, and

the minimum temperature on this day in Asahikawa marked minus 20 degrees Celsius!

When I arrived at the Asahikawa station at 9:00 in the morning, the thermometer read

minus 15 degrees C, and I could see diamond dust even in downtown Asahikawa!

Also all the trees — even trees in downtown area were covered with soft rime.

You can see soft rimed trees behind the snowman in the picture.

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Another soft rimed tree in Asahikawa.

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Pat-a-cake, pat-a-cake

It’s actually “rice cake” that we are making.

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The left ones are rice cakes stuffed with azuki bean jam.

The heart-shaped “mochi” (rice cake) on the right are mine!!

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Take the M train!

Now the 2012 version of Snow Miku is on the Sapporo street car!

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This cute snow miku is painted on the side of the tram.

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You might want to ride on this special Snow Miku train.

It runs until March, 2012.

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Munich Christmas Market in Sapporo

“Munich Christmas Market” in Sapporo has begun!

This christmas market started in 2002, which marked the 30th anniversary

since Sapporo and Munich became sister cities.

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There are many shops in the market.  You can find various things including

Finnish handicrafts, lace window decoration from Germany,  Snow Globe from Austria,

and even “Santa Claus Matryoshoka Doll”!

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You can also enjoy food and drinks there.

Hot wine that is served in this market is my favorite!

Today I went to the Market with a friend of mine and we enjoyed

Glühwein and “German” rooibos tea in the cold temperature.

(today’s maxim temperature was 1 degree celsius, and the minimum -3)

It was around 2 or 3 o’clock, so there were not so many people in the site,

but when it’s night, the odori park that holds this market is lightened up,

and many people visit here to enjoy beautiful illumination.

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“Munchner Weihnacht in Sapporo” Mug has a different design each year

and it’s very popular as a souvenir.

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Winter has come!

Winter has come!  At last!!

On the morning of November 17.   When I woke up, it was white all over.

Trees that were covered with snow were really beautiful.

And now…

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Oh, no!  Snow has all gone!

This is the same place as above and the photo was taken on November 29th.

Somehow construction work is being done here and there at this time every year.

Probably we need to wait a little bit more for a real snow season.

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