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Sapporo was quite pretty for a big city. They have a long, narrow park in the middle of town which our hotel was very close to, with fountains and food vendors and a tall Eiffel-style tower at the end of it. The first photo shows day-care Japanese style, with wheeled playpens; seems like a good idea! The second is what it appears to be: an enormous wheeled bottle of Korean liquor. The reason for its presence will become clear below. The third shows an old clock tower that is the symbol of Sapporo (for some reason; details on things like this were often obscure, as all the signage was often in Japanese only). The last shows the park in the center of town.    We arrived in Sapporo, by complete luck, at the beginning of a huge blow-out festival they have once a year called Yosokoi. It's a dance festival, with many, many dance groups, composed of everybody from two-year-olds on up. They have performances all over the city, on stages and in the streets; we were there for the opening night only, however, and it was on a stage quite close to our hotel, as luck would have it. These are the photos I got of it, holding my camera up above my head and surrounded by a huge standing-room-only crowd.           This last pair of photos from Yosokoi deserves special explanation. It is of Hokkaido University students, and a clip of this got played over and over all across Hokkaido as we travelled around; it was quite the sensation. Costume changes are de rigeur in these dance numbers, with things getting ripped off and re-fastened so as to completely change the appearance of the dancers; but Hokkaido University's take on that concept was a little... unconventional.   And now we're on the road again, driving to the middle of Hokkaido, to a town called Furano, just west of Daisetsuzan National Park. We took a very scenic route, after getting fed up with the horrendous traffic on the road towards Asahikawa, and saw some beautiful views as a result. The perfect rice field photo continues to elude me, however.      Part 9: Furano, Biei, Daisetsuzan and Asahikawa |
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