Winter lights Festival in Japan

Monday, September 21st, 2009

In the northern hemisphere as winter approaches, cities in Japan prepare light festivals to draw visitors and brighten up their streets as the days end earlier.

Hokkaido, Japan’s northernmost island, has four distinct seasons and the city of Sapporo, population 1.8 million, holds its “White Illumination” between November and February, when the snow season is welcomed with light displays in avenues and parks from 4 in the afternoon until 10 at night.

The first snowfall is likely in November, the last month of autumn, when the average temperature is around four degrees Celcius, so visitors have to be prepared to dress for the cold. For a week in February Sapporo also hosts one of Japan’s largest snow festivals and the average temperature then is minus 3.5 degrees.

About 2 million people a year visit the Sapporo Snow Festival, which has been going for over 60 years. The sculptures are lit spectacularly at night and there are competitions of teams from around the world. This year there will be over 300 snow and ice statues, including of buildings and animals and some standing up to 15 metres tall.

This year the White Illumination starts on November 27 and the Snow Festival will run between February 5 and 11. As soon as the festival ends, the sculptures are destroyed so visitors have to go during that week.

The city also has excellent shopping and is famous for its natural beauty. There is a botanical garden with exotic and Japanese specimens and Maruyama Park and Zoo, which has thousands of wild cherry trees while visitors can go walking and see wildlife in Nopporo Forest Park.

It takes about 115 minutes to fly to Sapporo from Tokyo and there is an overnight train that runs from Tokyo (Ueno station) and Osaka.

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