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Published: July 13th 2006
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fire and ice
sooo striking The next day, we decided to go to another festival instead of going to Sapporo again. Viviane wanted to see the Ainu (a tribe of Japan akin to the Ifugao) but as we had no time we stuck to the other snow festival. We took our stuff, checked out of the hostel and took a bus to the train station. However, when we got to the train station we found out that there was no bus or train going to this lake where the festival was and we had to go to New Chitose Airport to get the bus. But since, the bus for the port leaves from the train station. we decided to leave our stuff in the station lockers and took a bus to go to the airport. We found the bus and it took us around 2 hours to get to the lake. I've never ran so much as I did in Hokkaido. Catching buses is a very VERY stressful activity, totally different from waving one down along EDSA.
Anyways, this Ice festival was really cool and very different from the one in Sapporo. It looked like a village of mounds of ice and icicles. The way
ice madness
mounds of ice everywhere!! they made it is they had a base on which they put some water on and made them freeze than put another layer of water, froze them and so on. It was really cool and I finally got inside a real igloo. The lake was so pretty as well and we took a lot of photos. After a while, we decided to have lunch in this restaurant. Reasonable enough for Hokkaido 700 yen for a bowl of Ramen (thats 350 pesos) its called Sapporo Ramen. Supposed to be famous, but I couldnt see what the hoopbalah was all about. Anyways, after lunch we decided to climb up this mountain to see more of the lake and the village. The path was pretty steep and I was fearing for my life all the time (an exaggeration of course) We climbed with our backs bent forward to have better balance. When we reached the top, the climb was worth it. The view was really pretty. It was a little bit cloudy so we couldnt see the mountains well. But the snow made everything so pretty it was great. After a few minutes of sight-seeing. Sophie morphed back into her evil self and
me and ninon
amidst the ice started pushing me and Viviane into the snow. Before we knew it, we were all wrestling on the snow with Sophie losing fast what with me and Viviane tag-teaming on her. Ninon and Charlie wouldnt come near us for fear of being involved and they just stayed at a good distance taking photos of us. We had to stop coz Sophie's nose pierce (which she got just a few weeks before) was hurting. After the fight, all 3 of us decided to conspire against Ninon and was finally able to bring her to the ground! Wahahahaha!!!!!! Charlie was climbing further up the mountain and we were all tired so we decided to go down before him and to just see him later. The descent was harder than I imagined because it was steep. I gave up trying to walk down so I just slid down on my ass. More effective I think. Viviane and Ninon did the same and so we were the 3 ladies with snow on our bum. But we were alive so who cares. We walked along the lakeside and it was really pretty. We were cold so we decided to head to a cafe to warm
snow scape
taken from the mountain we climbed up and wait for sunset coz we wanted to see the lights. Sophie and Viviane weren't up for it so they stayed in the cafe while Ninon, me and Charlie (he finally went down the mountain) went to see the lighted ice sculptures. They were really very pretty. But 2 minutes into my viewing, Ninon suddenly ran up to me to say that the bus going back to Chitose was leaving in 5 minutes. So I took as much photos as I could and we all ran to the bus station. Once again we were living a scene from Home Alone, the frantic family run in the airport. We got to the bus on time and we were breathing and heaving like crazy. When we got to the airport, we waited for the bus to the train station. At the train station, we just got our bags from the lockers and headed to the bus station going to the port. There were a lot of foreigners with us this time on the ferry (it was the same ferry we used coming) but we didnt feel like meeting anyone else so we kept to ourselves. Watching movies on Ninon's computer and
mangling Sophie
SNOW FIGHT!!! or... wrestling... I dunno, but Sophie is in there somewhere... I think studying Japanese and mostly sleeping. We arrived in Fukui port around 8 pm of February 14. My most unique valentines yet. hahahaha we took the train to get to Osaka and we arrived in Gaidai at around 12 midnight. Hmmm... so thats the end of the adventure, wahahahaha
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