SKI AND SNOWBOARD 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 with it amazing ice sculpture is a must see.

The Sapporo Snow Festival, in Hokkaido, one of Japan's largest winter events, attracts a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad every year.

Every winter, about two million people 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.

The Snow Festival began in 1950, and The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become one of the biggest and most well known of Hokkaido's winter events.