Living in the North

For those of you that don't know, I live in Hokkaido Japan. It's the most northern island of Japan. It is also close to Russia and its in the North, so it can get quite cold. So, in true Japanese style there are a TON of winter festivals.


My town's winter festival involves running outside in Japanese traditional underwear and throwing hotspring water everywhere, and playing horse to try and win. The losing team has to carry the penis float around.



A favorite of mine, and most world known is of course the Sapporo Snow Festival. Every year they build HUGE statues of snow, light them up at night and people from all over come to see them.



Then there is the Otaru candle light festival, which was really pretty. They even light up the famous Otaru canal.



There is also smaller festivals like Sunukyo, in which they make a lighted up ice castle of sorts that you can climb around in. And in Monbetsu you can go out to see the ice glaciers as they come from Russia.



So although living in Hokkaido is SUPER cold....the winter also has some of the best festivals around.