Today I arrived in Tokyo after my overnight flight with ANA. I probably only got an hours worth of sleep but didn't use much energy during the flight so I felt well today. Shortly after arriving in Tokyo and clearing customs I jumped on my flight to Sapporo with AIR DO. This one's landing was delayed by around an hour or so due to weather problems but I made it safe in the end.
Following this I explored New Chitose Airport for a few hours, looking at places such as the Pokémon Store, Daiso, Animate, Arcade, and the promotional Hatsune Miku Snow pop-up store/museum. After looking around for those hours I caught my train to Iwamizawa, where my hotel is located.
I decided to drag my bags though many blocks of snow rather than catch a taxi and managed to exhaust myself there. After about 8 blocks I did meet a kind Japanese lady who was walking with her three young children who were dragging along sleds in the snow. After we had started having a chat in Japanese she asked her kids if they'd like to drag bags along in their sleds and they were very happy to. After arriving at the station I asked the mother for a group photograph and everyone was happy to be in it. I've noticed that the people of Hokkaido are very welcoming and friendly, it brings something warm to the place at least (at the moment it needs it).
I then checked into my hotel and had a Skype call with my family to check in before getting ready and heading back out to the Sapporo Snow Festival.
The festival was fantastic, the size and quality of the sculptures and displays was grand and I would certainly come back again another year in the future to see it again. Lots of people were slipping over throughout the night, I would have seen one at least every five minutes. Every time the other locals and tourists alike are there to help them up and ensure that they are ok. I had almost slipped myself quite a few times so I'll be making sure to be more careful in the next few days.
I'm trying to only use Japanese when approaching others with questions so that I can get as much practice as possible while I am here. It seems that I'm being understood at least even if my words may be a little off still, so it's great to put my knowledge to use in the real world now. The one time I did attempt to ask a train attendant a question in English it took a while for him to understand what I was meaning and there was a lot of confusion, so without a basic knowledge of Japanese traveling here could be challenging.
