Live from Japan!

The winter festival in Sapporo has three different sites. Susukino, home to most of the ice sculptures. Oodori Park, home to the snow sculptures. Satoland, about an hour train/bus ride from downtown Sapporo, home to snow play.

As soon as we boarded the bus for Satoland I realized that maybe we had, um, made a bit of a mistake. First of all, a vast majority of the people on board were outfitted for some serious winter activities. Hats, ski coats, mittens, snow pants, the whole works. We, on the other hand, were a bit less equipped. Also, most of the people on the bus were quite a bit shorter than we were. I know that we are “huge” foreigners, but I am talking about really short, like under-the-age-of-ten short.

Despite all that, we continued on, convinced that coming from Minnesota and Wisconsin we would be able to cope with the cold and have a little fun of our own.

As it turns out, a group of adults can have heaps of fun at an event almost exclusively designed for children. It isn’t physical age that matters, it just matters how young at heart you are.

We played around in a maze made of snow.

We climbed on and posed with snow sculptures.

We admired (and giggled) about the field of miniature snowmen.

And then, we made one of our own. That is our little ghetto snowman, “Chibi Reiner.” We were too impatient to wait in line to receive our little wooden pieces for eyes and such, so we were resourceful and used what we had. His eyes are little squares of chocolate that Eric had in his bag.

So, despite being well above the average age of Satoland attendees, and not having any actual kids in tow, we definitely managed to have a good time. For me, I can always manage to get that little twinkle in my eye when I make a snowman. Perhaps I am not really as old as I think (or feel) sometimes.