Skiing, Snowboarding and the Sapporo Snow Festival

Nagano, in the Japan Alps, played host to the 1998 Winter Olympics, and Niseko on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido, has a well deserved reputation for some of the best powder snow on the face of the planet.

The Sapporo Snow Festival

Beginning in 1950, and The Sapporo Snow Festival has become one of the biggest and best known of Japan’s winter events.

Held annually in Hokkaido, the festival now attracts two million and more Japanese and international visitors, who come to Sapporo to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures which line Odori Park, the grounds at Satoland, and the main street in Susukino.

For seven days in February, these statues and sculptures (both large and small) turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow.

This is a must see event.