Melon Kuma

There is a place outside Sapporo called Yubari, that is famous for melons (and for going bankrupt so no public services such as snow removal or ambulances works). They have a mascot (every place/company/entertainment event/whatever has a mascot in Japan) promoting Yubari and trying to get tourists to go there. This mascot is called Melon Kuma ("Melon Bear") since they mainly have melons and bears in Yubari.

Unlike most Japanese mascots that are very cute, Melon Kuma is more frightening. It usually makes children cry when it appears in the airport and at other places. Melon Kuma showed up at the Sapporo Snow Festival and violently attacked some celebrity presenter doing something in front of one of the huge snow sculptures. I am not sure this is the best way to get people to actually want to go to Yubari...

More snow and ice

I passed the Sapporo Snow Festival area again, and this time there were girls in very short skirts dancing in front of the snow sculptures.

Someone had also made a sculpture that was facing the wrong way. From the street were people are passing, you only saw a raw unworked back. The front of the sculpture faced an area restricted so no one could enter.

I also saw a snow sculpture depicting some character promoting Seoul. And a guy dressed up as that character.

Susukino Ice Festival

At the time of the Snow Festival, we also have the Susukino Ice Festival. This is also nice. This year there seemed to be more sculptures that were not exactly the same as last year (it has been my experience that in Susukino they make exactly the same things every year, up till now).

The musical Cats is in town now, and had an ice sculpture

There is always a few exhibits with actual fish in them

Dragons usually look nice

Two hands forming a heart

Curling

A car you can sit in (if you are ready to wait long enough for all the other tourists to stop sitting in it)

I sat in this one last year

I was there alone, so I had to take the photos of me myself

Some sculptures were not finished yet.

Starwars and more at Sapporo Snow Festival 2015

Starwars snow sculpture

The huge Starwars snow sculpture when lit up to show a red light saber

Every year we have the Sapporo Snow Festival here for one week. We get 2 to 3 million visitors (which is a lot in a city with less than 2 million citizens) during this week. There are huge snow sculptures, and there are large snow sculptures. There are very many snow sculptures. And it is cold.

This year, the coolest sculpture is the Starwars one. The temple above has some very nice projection mapping at certain times during the night, which was also very good.

I expected a lot of "Frozen" (the Disney movie) themed sculptures this year, and I was right. There were many many Olaf. There were a few Elsa and Anna too.

There are also many Yokai Watch (a game/anime/manga for kids that is very popular now) themed sculptures. Koma was very common, as was Jibanyan. I liked Whisper best.

It is the year of the ram now, so there were many sculptures along these lines.

Sapporo is famous for Jingisukan, barbecued lamb. This meant that there were also many sculptures featuring the "Jin-kun" Jingisukan character. The year of the ram is the year of the "sheep" in Japanese, so Jin-kun is very topical this year.

I liked this Evangelion (an anime/manga popular among nerds in the West and in Japan) sculpture.

This is supposed to be Yo Oizumi (and actor). I have met him (we were in the same TV show when I did magic on TV) and it kind of looks like him.

The "kao nashi" from the Ghibli movie "Spirited Away" was popular.

Hatsune Miku, a Sapporo vocaloid (singing computer program)

Funasshi was popular this year too, and I like the thing from the Nausica movie on the right

More projection mapping

Very interesting looking smoking room

They also build a trick jumping slope in the middle of the park during the festival

Some sculptures are made from ice instead of snow

Being treated like a celebrity at the Ice Hotel

Yesterday I went to the Sweden Hills "Ice Hills Hotel" that was featured in the TV show I was on last Monday. There are four buildings built from ice and snow, three that are rooms that you can stay over night in and one that is an "Ice Bar".

The (blue) Ice Bar and the three Ice Hotel rooms

The Sweden Hills ice hotel is inspired by and built in cooperation with the Ice Hotel in Sweden, which apparently is the oldest ice hotel in the world. This Swedish connection, and the fact that the new ice hotel is located in "Sweden Hills" was why they asked me to be on TV (being Swedish).

Me and the staff

Me and a cocktail

When I got to the ice hotel, the staff there recognized me from TV and said they were very happy about me promoting them on TV. They showed me around the hotel rooms, and several of them came up to me and asked if it was OK to take a photo together with me. Next time I should go there wearing sunglasses and look more like a celebrity, I guess, haha.

Selfie. They said that you could not have your drinks "on the rocks", only "in the rocks"...

Selfie. The hot cocoa was also good, but not served in ice

I wanted to try the glasses made of ice, so I ordered a cocktail in an ice glass. I also wanted to try the hot cocoa. I was wondering about what kind of system they had, since they did not seem to have a tab where they wrote down what I ordered, but then again when I showed up there with my friends we were the only guests. Later, other guests also showed up and it became quite crowded. I looked at them ordering and they had to pay for everything they ordered at the time of placing the order. It turned out they just gave me everything I asked for for free because they thought I had done a great job on TV...

Flowers and a bunny

Colored lights in blocks of ice

Staircase to a cold bed

The hotel rooms were very nice. They were all designed by different local artists, and one had a plant theme with carvings in the walls. One had colored lights, which looks very nice with the ice and snow. My favorite room had a staircase leading up to the bed. All the beds were made out of ice, though you have a fur blanket on top so it is not that hard to sleep on.

Fur lined door

Other people waling around in the hotel rooms

So far they have had quite a few guests, and the only ones to make use of the "give up" policy (they drive you to a normal hotel and let you stay there instead if you want to give up) was a family with very young kids where the kids could not take the cold the whole night. The roof of the buildings have holes straight out to the night sky, so you get new snow in the room when it snows, and the temperature (while warmer than outside) is not that high.

Ice counter

Ice seats

Ice table

The ice bar was also very nice. The counter and all the furniture are made from ice. The room looks very white when you are in there, but it is actually blue. So all the photos have people looking very blue in the face. The chairs are made from ice but have fur covers so it is quite comfortable to sit there.

Ice glasses

My ice cocktail

The ice glasses are cool (haha). They are a little bit inconvenient to drink from since they are so thick, but they give you a straw to drink through too, so no problem. The hot cocoa was very good, as expected since it is produced by the Royce chocolate company (which has a factory just outside Sweden Hills). All in all, it was a very nice place and I want to go back there again before the facility melts.

Hot cocoa comes with Royce chocolate

They recommended melting some of the chocolate in the cocoa to improve the experience of bot the cocoa and the chocolate.