Sapporo Snow Festival

The Sapporo Snow Festival is something that we really wanted to attend while we were here.  There are massive sculptures made out of snow and ice, and they are fantastic to see in person.  They had a whole area set up with ice and snow slides for kids, mini-golf, and food booths from all over the Japanese island of Hokkaido.  We all had a great time and are glad to have been able to attend this year!

The streets of Sapporo were decorated like Christmas

It was pretty cold out there!

I got sprayed with snow going down the slides

Shane on an ice slide

Adam coming down a slide in a tube

Mini-golfing in the snow

Shane and Adam with their clubs

Adam checking out the ice sculptures

Shane liked the mermaid

This ice sculpture of Iolani Palace was impressive

Disney snow sculpture

Animals of the North snow sculpture

Odori Park at night

Adam riding another slide

Dresdner Frauenkirche (German church) sculpture

Baekje Royal Palace of Korea sculpture

Adam on an ice slide

Riding on a train

Ramen Alley

A bowl of Sapporo Ramen soup....yum!

Tokyo

Some pictures from our trip to Tokyo:

Adam with the robot floor cleaner in the mall

Tokyo harbor at night

Adam at McDonald's

Adam at the Aquarium

Adam and I on the train

Nini at the Imperial Gardens

Adam at the Imperial Gardens

Adam at the Toyota showroom

Of course he found the racecar

Playing at an arcade

Tokyo harbor and Lady Liberty

Nini posing with the Statue of Liberty replica

Hakodate

We took a day trip to Hakodate, Japan, with our neighbors a few weeks ago.  We shopped for toys, clothes, groceries, and supplies, and then ate a not-so-wonderful meal at McDonald's.  We had a great time, but were completely exhausted by the time we returned home.  We left the house at 8:30 am and returned close to 12 hours later.  Thank goodness I am going home soon and won't have to make another one of those trips for a while!

Back to Sakhalin

Just a few more pictures from our journey back to Sakhalin...

Shane and Adam on the platform waiting on our train to the airport

Adam and Mommy waiting for their train

A city on the northern/western coast of Japan

The frozen sea is breaking up!  This is Sakhalin island, just south of Yuzhno

Did you know Colonel Sanders was Japanese?

The KFC in Otaru, Japan

Sapporo, Japan

We spent almost half of our vacation in one of our favorite cities:  Sapporo, Japan.  This time, we stayed in the JR Tower at the Sapporo Station.  Our room was on the 32nd floor, so it had great views of the city.  We did a lot of the same things that we did the first time we went to Sapporo:  shopping, eating Japanese food (ramen, gyoza and sushi!) and taking in the sites.  

View of Sapporo from our room

Night view

Shane with Adam at the observation deck of the JR Tower

Amanda and Adam

Adam checking out the view

Finally - after taking about 50 shots, I got a good one!

Day Trip to Otaru

Just some more pictures from our trip to Otaru, Japan...

Amanda by the canal

Rickshaw

Family pic at the aquarium

Lighthouse

This thing was pretty neat...it was a projection, but if you stepped on it or tried to touch a fish, they scattered

Adam and Amanda

Adam posing for a picture

Adam found Nemo