Sapporo Snow & Ice Festival (February 2012)

This past February, we planned a trip to Sapporo with a few of our friends (Lyndsey, Jill, Julie, Orlando and Trish). Sapporo is known for a big snow and ice festival every year, and some great powder skiing! Sapporo is in Hokkaido, the most northern prefecture in Japan.

Our first night there, we ventured out into the cold to check out some of the ice sculptures and a ski jump!

Ski Jump!

These are some of the really cool ice sculptures:

The Japanese sure do love their liquor!

...and beer!

...and of course seafood :)

Chris, Orlando, Julie, Lyndsey & Jill

After checking out a bunch of the ice sculptures, we made our way to "Ramen Alley". A lot of us tried the Butter Corn Ramen.

Ramen Bar

Never a dull moment, not even in the ramen restaurant.

Anthony Bourdain ate here! 

Yup, it really had that much butter in it!

After dinner, we headed back towards our hotel and hit up the "Ice Bar" on the way home. We all had a glass of warm red wine...it was actually delicious!!

The girls: Julie, Jill, me, Lyndsey & Trish

Aaannnd then we decided to keep exploring...

We found this special store...I'll spare you the other pictures we took here.

And then we all went down to Pole Town. Yes, Pole Town...it's the name of some of the underground walkways in Sapporo!! This city is amazing...since it's so cold & snowy during the winter, the city actually has miles (kilometers for you Japan folk :)) of shopping malls, walkways and random stores underground where the subways run. This entrance just looked like any other run of the mill subway entrance, but there was a mall right underneath us! It was so clutch when we were freezing our butts off! 

Our last stop of the evening was for some Sapporo Beer.

The next morning we ventured out to see the snow sculptures. It was pretty cold...and I'm pretty sure it got colder as the day went on. The picture do no justice to the frigid temps!

I wanted this shirt so bad, but it was only in kids sizes! Raaats!

The Taj

One of the BEST signs we have ever seen!

More nice construction signs

This is the Post Office guy

A little melted, but we still thought it was pretty cool :)

Bahahaha

Festival food Sapporo style

One of the cutest things was all of the little kids dressed up in their snow gear!

Ready for the snow and ice!!

Chris LOVED this train. He thought it was super cool that it was a real steam engine train that the guy had to keep loading coal into. I think he could've watched it all day.

After spending a few hours here, we decided to go to another area of the festival where there was a ice luge and tubing! It was about a 20 minute train ride away, so we got a little break from the cold. 

My favorite snow sculpture. It's a sibling thing :) 

Another train...shinkansen style!

 This is when the freezing temps really started to kick in.

FREEZING!!!!!!

Jill & I waiting to tube down the ice luge

Chris is happy in this cold weather!

Much needed train ride to thaw out!

We decided to bundle up before heading out again for the night. We checked out the ski jump area...and it was freezing! :)

Jill & Lyndsey

Ski Jumpers!

Lyndsey trying to stay warm!

We ate at the most delicious Italian restaurant in Japan! Well, at least we think so :) 

Cheese Cheese. What more can you ask for! 

 We found a pretty hip bowling alley too. Nerdin' it up.















A couple of my favorite cat photos to close out the first 2 days of Sapporo. :)

2 Random Photos

I took these photos sometime this winter when we were up at the Okinawa Aquarium.

They both made me laugh :)

Really?? This 'lifecycle' sign was in the aquarium. I wish I knew more Japanese.

Construction signs in the form of Shisa Dogs. Gotta love Okinawa!

The 3.5K (January 2012) Ocean Expo 'Trim' Marathon

So it had been a little over a year since I found out about my back injury and stopped running. I figured out around Thanksgiving time (while we were in Tokyo) that I could actually run a little bit without making my back flare up, so I decided to sign up for a short race with my friends!! It was just a 3.5K race...short and sweet.  I couldn't really 'train' for it since I was only running about 2-3 times a month, but heck, 3.5K shouldn't be hard to get through, right?!? Well, let me tell you something fun about Japanese races here in Okinawa. They like hills. And kids like to run too. The race was packed full of kids!! It was like 'dodge-a-kid' for the entire first half of the race...which was consequently downhill. And then the last part was uphill AND the race ended up on a hill higher than where the race started. We had a lot of fun at the race, and running around the kids is definitely something I will never forget!! 

Lyndsey, Jill & I before the race

Chris did the 10K-overachiever :)

I think this was the start for the 10K. Add about 500 kids to the front of the line for the 3K...and a few hundred more people behind :)














We finished!! We got cool beach towels instead of race T-shirts. It was in English though. I thought I was finally going to get a cool race shirt with Japanese writing on it, but oh well :) I use the towel all the time now!








Oh, and ps, every race in Japan is called a 'marathon'...you just pick your distance like 2-3 months before the race! Races fills up so fast here that they don't have any same day registration...it has to be decided WAY far ahead.

Lily & Hiking (New Year's 2012)

When our friends Jill & Michael are away, we happily watch their dog Lily...and she's the happiest little dog ever!!

An outing at Horseshoe Beach...

Lily loves the coral!

Over New Year's weekend, a few of us decided to go for a hike on Mt. Ishikawa...and we decided to take Lily!! We had to make sure she could handle the backpack in case we got to any parts she couldn't handle :)

Checkin it out...

gettin hydrated...

And still getting a ride down the trail! :)

There were really sweet tarzan ropes along the way...

Julie showing us how it's done :)

Lily blazing the trail!

Me, Julie, Orlando and Mike...starting our hike through the riverbed!

Lily made it to the top!