Hi there, I'm Amy from Cakes with Faces
And today I've got some tips for you
For the Sapporo Snow Festival
What there is
And how to have the best time at the Festival.
Then after that
I've got some practical tips
Like where to stay
And how to get there
If you're planning a trip for next time
There's new videos about Japan on my channel every Thursday
There's travel vlogs
With lots of ideas for things to do
And my Japlanning series
With tips to help you plan your trip to Japan
If you need hoodies or sweatshirts to keep you warm
Either at the snow festival or just at home
Have a look at cakeswithfaces.co.uk
Everything is my design
I also designed these warm, knitted winter scarves
Which kept me warm throughout the snow festival
There's my hedgehog scarf
And my new space scarf
Now let's get started
Firstly: what is there at the snow festival?
There's 3 sites to the snow festival
The main one's in Odori Park
Which is a long, thin park
In the centre of Sapporo
That's where you find the really big snow sculptures
The second one is Susukino
Which is just a short walk away
Also in the centre of Sapporo
That's where the smaller ice sculptures are
They look like they're made of glass
The third one is Tsudome
Which has snow slides & activities
Some of them are just for kids
But there's lots for adults as well
The snow slides are actually pretty big
I didn't actually go to that one myself
It's more towards the edge of town
You need to take a train or bus to get there
The great thing about the festival is it's all free
You don't even need a ticket
It's all open, so you just turn up & walk in
There's a couple of the activities at Tsudome
That you need to pay for
But apart from that, everything's free
It's really good
Here's a tip for getting between the two main sites
Pole Town is a long, underground shopping street
That runs between Odori Park & Susukino
So it's perfect for getting between the two sites
And it gives you a break from the cold
Which you're going to need
I found that after being outside in the cold for a while
My feet started going numb
So I needed to go inside for a bit just to warm up
There's also Tanuki Koji
Which is a covered shopping street
That runs East-West
That's really good for a break from the cold as well
Next: Daytime & night-time
You can visit the festival in the daytime or the night-time
But don't miss the night-time
That's the best bit!
They light the sculptures up
The ice sculptures look really beautiful
And with the big snow sculptures
They have shows every 15 minutes or so
With lights, music & projection mapping
That really bring them to life
It really is spectacular
The illuminations start at about 4 or 5pm when it starts to get dark
They carry on until about 10 or 11 at night
Next: How busy is it?
Sapporo is the main, famous snow festival in Japan
It's a major event
So it is busy
I went on the last weekend
Which is supposed ot be the busiest time
I actually didn't find it that bad on a weekday
But then I went back on a Saturday night
And it was a lot busier
There was a time when we were crossing the road
And we were caught up in a big crowd of people
All going along together
So go on a weekday if you can
They operate a kind of one-way system to keep everyone moving
Odori Park is long & thin
So you go one way along one side
Then back down the other
And stop off at anything you want to see
And it kind of works
It keeps everything organised
In the evening, the crowds do start to thin out
If you stay towards the end
As people start to go home
Next, a bit about other snow festivals
Before I started planning my trip to Hokkaido
I never realised there was more than 1 snow festival in Japan!
I thought it was the Sapporo Snow Festival, and that's it
But there's actuallylots of other smaller festivals too
From what I can see
They tend to be a bit less commercial
At the Sapporo festival
Everything is sponsored by companies
Which I guess is how they can afford it
And how they can make the sculptures so big
And even put the event on at all
But at the smaller festivals
It's more about the art
And the community getting together
And creating a winter wonderland
And just having a good time
So if you have time
Or if you're going in winter but not at the start of February
See what other snow festivals are on
Around Hokkaido or north Tohoku where it's snowy
Here's a couple of them
There's the Sounkyo Ice Waterfall Festival
Which looks really magical lit up at night
The Ouchijuku Snow Festival
Which is really picturesque with all the old buildings covered in snow
And the Zao Snow Monster Festival
Where the snow turns trees at a ski resort into snow monsters!
And there's loads of others too
Like the Otaru Snow Light Path Festival
If you've already seen my Hokkaido videos
You'll know I went to the festival at Otaru
The two festivals overlap
So if you time it right
You can go to both
Otaru is a town on the coast
It's only half an hour from Sapporo by train
So it's not far at all
It's a really picturesque old town
The festival's centred around the canal
Where they make lanterns out of snow and ice
And float lights on the water
It's really beautiful
There's some really creative displays
Although it's not as big & impressive as the Sapporo Snow Festival
You can tell a lot of love's gone into it
It's really enchanting and just magical
It was actually the highlight of my time in Hokkaido
Now back to the Sapporo Snow Festival
And Snow Miku!
Snow Miku is a special version of Hatsune Miku from Vocaloid
She embodies the spirit of the snow festival
Every year they have a new design for Snow Miku
With a new outfit and style
And she has a pet rabbit called Yukine
Yuki means snow
They always have a Snow Miku sculpture at the festival
The show at night was one of my favourites
It was like a mini concert
Last year she did a duet with the singer from Bang Dream
There's a shop with special merch
There's also a shop at New Chitose Airport if you're flying into Sapporo
There's also a Snow Miku AR stage
With a special show you could watch on your phone
With Snow Miku flying around
Now I don't know if they're going to have that again this year
But Snow Miku will definitely be there
So keep an eye out
There's also a streetcar decorated with Snow Miku graphics
I didn't actually come across it as I was going around
But if you're a vocaloid fan, that's definitely something to look out for
Food stalls
There's food stalls all the way along in Odori Park
They're a bit more commercial than smaller food stalls I've seen at festivals elsewhere
But there are a lot of them
And there's a pretty big choice
I had this oshiruko
Which is sweet red bean soup with mochi
It's a traditional winter food
We also had these extra long french fries
They got cold really quickly in the snow
Most of the stalls are more like proper Japanese food
Next: Demolishing the festival
If you're there the day after hte festival finishes
You can watch them demolishing the snow sculptures
Which would be something unique to see
The sculptures are just so big
And take so long to make
And then - you can watch them being destroyed!
What's the weather like?
It's very cold & snowy
I'd never been anywhere that cold
Before we went, I was actually a bit scared about what it'd be like
And how I was going to cope with it
Because I do feel the cold
I think you can see how cold we were
At night it went down to about -12 degrees C
In the daytime, it didn't really get any warmer than about -2 degrees C
Although that did feel warm in comparison
But it was totally worth it
And I think it adds to the experience
If I can cope with it, you definitely can
I'll tell you a bit more in next week's video
Which is going to be about how cold it is in winter in Japan
It's going to be about Tokyo & Hokkaido
With some tips for how to deal with the cold
And what to wear
Also, bear in mind that your phone & camera batteries
Won't last as long as normal in the cold
And you're going to want to take a lot of pictures
Next: Booking your trip
Obviously it's too late for this year
But if seeing all this makes you want to go next time
I booked my trip in August
It was actually during a heatwave in the UK
And at the time, going somewhere cold just seemed really appealing
You need to book your hotel as early as possible
Because everywhere will be booked up
I booked mine in August
Then I checked again nearer the time
And the only places left
Were like thousands of pounds
For just a couple of nights stay
As it is, the hotel we booked was the cheapest one in the area
And it was still double or three times it's normal price
Obviously, hotels ramp up their prices
Because they know lots of people want to come for the festival
So if you want to go
That's just how it is
You have to accpet, your hotel's going to be a bit pricier than normal
Where to stay
The festival's mainly around the Odori Park area in central Sapporo
I stayed near Nakajima Park
Which seemed like a good place to stay
There wasn't a whole lot in the area
But there was this shrine which looked stunning in the snow
And it was close to a station
To get around Sapporo
You can use the subway trains
There's only about 3 lines
So it's a lot more simple than the Tokyo Metro
As long as you're near a station
You'll be able to get to the festival really easily
So you don't need to stay near Odori Park
In fact, that'd probably be even more expensive
If you can, pick a hotel as close to a station as possible
Even a short walk seems twice as long when it's so cold
Especially when you're dragging your suitcases in the snow
My local station was Horo hira bashi
It took hardly any time to get into the centre
The subway's really easy to use
All the signs are in English
The trains aren't quite as frequent as they are in Tokyo
But it's nowhere near as busy
So it's a lot more chilled
If you have a Suica or Pasmo card
Or one of the other IC cards
For paying for your trains
You can use that in Sapporo as well
It's really easy
So you don't have to worry about what sort of ticket to get
Although I was tempted to get the local IC card for Hokkaido
Because it has a really cute flying squirrel on it!
Instead of Suica, this one's called Kitaca
Kita means north
Finally: How to get to Sapporo
You can get there on the train or an internal flight
I took the bullet train from Tokyo
The whole trip is 8 hours long
But we broke it up & stayed overnight along the way
Which was really good because we got to see some new places
I really enjoyed the places we stopped at
Which was Hakodate on the way there
And Matsushima on the way back
There's videos about both on my channel
Going on such a long journey does take up quite a lot of time on your trip
But I like the bullet train
So I enjoyed the experience
Just watching the landscape change
And get all snowy
And you get to go on the fastest bullet train there is
The Hayabusa
Which means peregrine falcon
It's faster than the Nozomi
Which goes to Kyoto
The whole trip's covered by your Japan Rail Pass
You do have to make seat reservations for the Hayabusa before you go
You can do it online when you're at home
There's more about that in another video on my channel
An internal flight is probably a quicker option
Even when you take into account getting to the airport
And waiting around at check-in
It might be cheaper as well
Especially if you're not getting a Japan Rail Pass
You could actually book it with your international flight
So as soon as you arrive in Japan
You change planes in Tokyo
And fly straight to Sapporo
So I hope you found that useful
If you've got any questions
Put them in the comments
I really enjoyed the Sapporo Snow Festival
It really was amazing
And even just being somewhere so snowy
Was just really an experience
Keep the Japanuary pictures coming
I've really enoyed looking at them
And I'll see you next week on Thursday
Bye bye!