Stuff I've Seen - Asahikawa

On the fringes of the rail network so it's older style trains.
Not that this little train enthusiast here minded one bit.

Still, at least they still have a green car,

Getting very desolate out the train window.

I was greeted by these little guys at the station.

Asahikawa has a snow festival that is kind of the inverse of Sapporo's

Their ice carving street is longer and better. (Their giant snow installations less so, we'll get to those later)

This is the path away from the station, across the road is a pedestrian mall with more ice sculptures that stretches another kilometer or so.

My favourite of the ice sculptures

One of the little snowmen done as doraemon 

A North Temperate bear stalking small children in its natural habitat.

The winning snow carving. (Now you see what I mean about the inverse of the Sapporo festival. It's one of the biggest and only slightly taller than me)

Well, aside from the main one, which is probably 30 meters tall.

A maze of icy passages, all alike.

The ice sculptures lit up at night.

It's slightly crap, since it's just cellophane over incandescent lights or something.
I'd like to see them change to LEDs

Several performances were held on the main stage.
This woman sang songs which sounded very "James Bond theme"-ish

Then there was this woman.
I really wish I could understand the lyrics of her song.

There were projected screens at either side of the stage to allow people up the back to see better.

An alley of ramen restaurants and a hair dresser.

The streets at night lit up with candles.

The morning I was leaving it had been snowing particularly heavily

The middle of the ice sculpture street was fairly well covered

and gave a nice satisfying crunch as it was walked upon

even if it did mean my pant legs were slightly damp for the first part of the train ride back.