Sapporo's lone claim to fame is the Yuki Matsuri (snow festival), held every February for over fifty years. It features a variety of snow sculptures, some of them truly gargantuan. I missed out last year because I was cavorting with the family in Austria. This year I came to the rather sad realization that I probably didn't miss much. Most of the goliath sculptures are little more than ads for large corporations, and for some reason they just aren't all that mind-blowing. Fortunately, there are many smaller, not-so-corporate sculptures which are at least semi-amsuing. Anyway, enough bellyaching, look at the pictures.

A preview pic, just to tempt you: Fox finds a new low and pitches their big CGI pic Robots with automatons humping.

Disney Disney Disney! Michael Eisner loves you! Hand-drawn animation is dead!

No corporate mascots to be found! I think this may be some sister city's town hall or something like that. So it obviously needed pretty colors and a rock band to compete with the others.

Go go Fighters! Nippon Ham is one corporation I can actually get behind. The bear (I think his name is "BB") is the Fighters' new mascot (replacing "Fighty" the pterodactyl (the Fighty pics are near the bottom)). He bears an eerie resemblance to the Twins' vile "TC Bear", but couldn't possibly be any worse.

Now for the part I sort of like - the non-corporate sculptures. This little castle is quite nice.

And this guy is just rad. He could be Ray Charles or the dictator of a small fascist state I've never heard of. I don't know why I failed to "take the picture with" him. Just shy, I guess.

Finally, meet Pei Yong Jun. Yon-sama, as he's known here, is a South Korean actor who starred in a syrupy Korean TV drama called "Winter Sonata". The drama has become a huge hit in Japan, particularly amongst middle-aged women, who are positively mad for the guy. One such gal is posing with this excellent likeness of him. (At the festival, there was actually an entire section of about ten smaller sculptures recreating scenes from "Winter Sonata". This one was not part of that grouping, but due to its high quality, may have been the single most popular sculpture at the festival!)