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OOOOHHH what an adventure we had at this years Yuki Matsuri, meaning "Snow Festival" in Japanese. A few things to preface this blog entry. I have a teacher at one of my travel schools who is originally from Asahikawa, Hokkaido. When I told him (way back in September when we booked the tickets) that I was going he called his sister on the phone and she was more than willing to show us around. When we started planning our itinerary we were not going to have enough time to make it up there. Second thing to take note of; my teachers kept tell me how it is soooo cold in Hokkaido and how I need to be careful walking because its very slippery. Last note; Japan has some of the best electronics in the world...right?

Yuki Matsuri!!!!!

Casey Lary
2006-02-20 15:07:48

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idea to purposely throw ourselves into the side of snowbanks...repeatedly. I think we were just so excited to see sooo much snow...fresh snow at that!

The next day we headed to a small town just outside of Sapporo called Otaru. We got to see the Japan Sea waayyy up north. We were very close to Russia. Signs in Otaru were in English, Japanese, and Russian. Kinda cool! We even saw surfers...now that is diehard

We made it!!!surfing!!!! No thank you! Many of the roads were not groomed so we were trudging along in 6 inches of snow. They had GYNORMOUS crabs like nothing I had ever seen, selling for $100 bucks! Crazy prices! Otaru is famous for its canal with old Japanese buildings and its blown glass. We had an incredible ramen lunch as the snow continued to fall outside. It was quite a small town but there was a lot of charm to it. It was a great great afternoon. Before dinner I took a quick peak at some of the ice sculptures....SOOOO AMAZING! That night for dinner we did a tabehodai and nomihodai (all you can eat and drink) at a crab and shrimp place for 90 minutes. It only cost $50!! I think I ate 2 crabs and drank my weight in beer...it was absolute heaven. What a treat. Next we went out for some drinks. We did not know where to go. While reading my travel guide in search of a bar Lisa asked these two guys where to go. Mind you, we picked them up as they were leaving a hostess bar! That did not register until the next day.

So this girl is crazy. It was below freezing and she is walking around in a mini skirt.guys were hilarious. We made them come get one drink with us which turned out to them staying out until 5 am. I crashed at 2:30, but Lisa thought it would be a good idea to arm wrestle one of them late into the night. Again...we picked them up out of a hostess bar! We played "never have I ever with them." We also met a very interesting navy guy: 5'2", ...

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