Japan is the snowiest country in the world — but the cold doesn’t spoil anyone’s fun here. Quite the opposite! Japan’s northern prefectures celebrate winter in style. Welcome to “Snow Week”: 8 days chasing joy and snowy adventures across Sapporo, Bibai, Hirosaki, Goshogawara, and Aomori City.
日本は世界で最も雪の多い国ですが、寒さによって楽しみが損なわれることはありません。 まったく逆です！ 日本の北の県は冬をスタイリッシュに祝います。 「スノー ウィーク」へようこそ: 札幌、美唄、弘前、五所川原、青森市を巡る雪の冒険と喜びを追いかける 8 日間。
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00:00 Welcome to Snow Week
01:31 Sapporo Snow Festival
03:02 Tsudome Area (Sapporo Snow Festival)
04:08 Bibai Snowland
06:06 Hirosaki Lantern Festival
09:12 Japanese Phone Call
09:52 Snow Drifting Experience
12:40 Squid Jerky (Kanagi Tsugaru Railway Stove Train)
13:28 Reflections
Spring is around the corner, but here in Japan, winter is going strong. Our family is here taking on the snowiest place on Earth, with snow festivals, outdoor thrills, glowing masterpieces, traditional snowshoeing with locals and the real-life Polar Express — serving stove-side squid jerky.
As kids, we dreamed of snow. We’d see the forecast dip below freezing, and then, we would wait, PRAYING that there’d be a few brief hours where we might be able to glimpse some snow. And then, occasionally, when the stars would align, school would be canceled.
A whole day of running around outside, jumping in it, sitting in it, building snowmen, sledding and having snowball fights. As Texans, living in the hot, southern United States, our girls have never known real snow at home. It’s usually icy and short-lived,
If it comes at all. So, to them, and to us, it’s magical. But for many who live further north, that magic can be quickly lost. Scraping windshields, clearing sidewalks, deicing planes, and that sense of dreariness, longing for the glimpse of sunshine. Not everyone chooses to
Dwell on the inconveniences, though. Some people choose to make the most of it. Aomori City, Japan is the snowiest city in the world. While traveling throughout Japan for 6 weeks, we wanted to discover how these snow-covered towns make the most of their circumstances,
Turning an overwhelming amount of snow into fun, joy and tradition. Welcome to Snow Week: 8 days of exploring Japan’s snowiest areas and everything they have to offer. Here we go… Our week began by checking off Japan’s most popular snow festivity: the Sapporo Snow Festival. This adventure took us to
We glimpsed our first snow from the airplane window, grabbed our bags, then took the bus into the city. It didn’t take long for our inexperienced daughter to stick her bare hands deep in a pile of snow. Our girls didn’t have snow boots on yet, so they were carried. We got to our hotel,
Layered up, then our daughters were in heaven, right outside the front door of our hotel. “You went a little hard, a little fast and your hands got cold, but now that you’ve gotten your mittens on you’re okay, right?”
We’d never seen snow piled up like this in a big city and on our way to the main area of the Snow Festival, we could not get our girls to stop playing in the piles on the side of the street.
The main festival has snow sculptures, curling and a place to build snowmen. But that’s about it. We only booked one night in Sapporo. That night we saw ice sculptures, then had pizza for dinner, because after 3 weeks in Japan, we were slightly fatigued of udon, ramen and rice.
We’re continuing to come across this problem when traveling, which is that so many of the various sites that you hear about going to see are just that: seeing. And it’s becoming less fun for us, but nearly impossible with children, because they are always wanting to go and move and do something. Fortunately,
There’s an entirely different area of the Sapporo Snow Festival built for families that want to go and do snow activities, and that’s where we went the next morning. The Tsudome area of the festival is about 30 minutes outside the city center and has a bunch of different winter activities for children and parents.
“That was awesome! It’s actually very fast.” “Ooh, my hands are cold!” We were there on a weekday, but we were really pleased with how much there was to do versus the size of the attendance. We never really had to wait very long for anything.
“For kids, even for adults, this is so much fun. I love it, love it, love it! Even the music, I appreciate. It’s a nice ambiance. Everybody’s just sledding…” “And tubing, and building snowmen…” It was a good first exposure to snow before we headed on to even greater adventures, up north.
We’re so grateful we came across this place. We took a train north from Sapporo to this tiny little town called Bibai. We stayed at a hotel right next to the train station, where the snow was piled high. We checked in, then on an evening outing, our littlest insisted on dragging her new
Mickey diapers through the snow and struck a quick pose with this sign for ramen. We got properly layered up and ready for snowy adventures. One thing we knew for sure was that we were not going to be short on snow for
This next adventure. The skies had dumped a few extra inches of snow on us that morning and we were ready to get out the door, hop on the bus and head to Bibai Snowland. What followed was 4 straight hours of snowland fun. We biked in the snow,
Strapped on helmets and rode mini snow mobiles and 4-wheelers. We found a new house. “It’s a wonderful little igloo in here. Nothing inside, but it’s nice and quiet.” We we dragged in a family-size tube across a winding snow course.
We didn’t know how our littlest would fare, but every time we finished an activity we’d ask: …and then we’d take another lap. The highlight of the place was a tubing hill similar to the one at the Tsudome area in Sapporo,
But this one had no line. Just a hill waiting to receive us as many times as we wanted to climb it. After 3 fun days in Hokkaido, we were ready to go to the real snowland, the Aomori prefecture, where the deepest snow in the entire world is found.
We had to train into Sapporo, take a train to the airport, fly to Aomori, and then take a bus from Aomori City to Hirosaki, and then yet another bus to our hotel — a long travel day to see a far-less touristed area of Japan. We were shocked upon arriving to discover that
Hirosaki — and Aomori at large — had seen some of its lowest snowfall ever, after the previous season covered the region daily with near-blizzard conditions. “Nothing. We can barely even see some snow. There’s just a tiny little bit on some of the rooflines.”
We’re in Okinawa, Japan, and I just saw this article that says Hirosaki received its highest recorded snowfall in a 24-hour period on February 17th, about a week after we left. So, you never really know if/when the snow is going to hit. But this year, it just seems to have just hit late.
We were here for snow! But this particular city was actually on our radar for an entirely different reason, which is their Snow Lantern Festival. The people of Hirosaki are used to being snowed in, and decades ago, they began making artwork to cheer
Up themselves and their neighbors in the deep part of winter. Now, every year for 4 days, Hirosaki Park features glowing snow lanterns made by locals nestled into snow sculptures. Our first night we got to glimpse the snowy cherry blossom trees of Hirosaki.
These trees are lit up and when snow rests on the branches, they show a pink hue. The girls were still happy to see any snow at all. The novelty certainly had not worn off yet. We walked through the park in the daylight and glimpsed a preview of the lanterns we’d get to
See glowing later that night. The draw during the daytime was another sledding experience. It began with a line of about 20 local kids, but as 2 hours passed by, the other kids had gotten fatigued and left, with only our eldest still motivated to get up the steps.
“Alright, right next to the snow slide is every Texan kid’s dream: a field full of snow, ready for a snowball fight. Ready?” Day turned to night and you could see the transition of the lanterns from bright snow to glowing artwork. The professional artwork is super impressive and really beautiful,
But the Kita no Kaku site is actually the thing we enjoyed the most. And the coolest part is that the drawn candle-holders were all made by local schoolchildren. We just love to demonstrate to our girls, from time to time, all the things that kids are capable of.
The highlight of the evening was this projection on the flagship snow sculpture of the event: the facade of the Hirosaki Orthodox Church. The girls really enjoyed swaying to the music. We got in one final sled run before calling it on the Hirosaki festivities. “Alright, do you remember that phone call?”
“The phone call to the snow-drifting guy?” “Yes. So, we found this snow-drifting tour on the Aomori City website. We found this phone number for this guy named Kakuta, and one night, from Texas, we called this guy in Japan. Do you remember how that went?”
“I picked up the phone, and of course I go, ‘Moshi moshi!’ because it’s one of 4 things that I know how to say in Japanese and he immediately thinks, ‘Great, someone’s speaking Japanese!’ However, he was the nicest person on the planet and somehow, with the use of Translator,
We were able to have a full-blown conversation, one side in Japanese and one side in English.” “We did successfully book the thing for February 11th, we just hadn’t booked a time, so that’s all we had to do, and then, we were off.”
We found ourselves waking up in rural Japan to some fresh snow. We had to walk 20 minutes to the train station, and board our train to Kanagi. It was February, but the train was still decorated for Christmas. We couldn’t help but feel that we’d happend upon
The real Polar Express, with the scenery getting snowier and snowier as we left. Next, we arrived at Kanagi station to a surprise. An American greeted us, along with our Japanese host, Kakuta. It turns out, he was just as surprised to see us as we
Were to be there. And he had hired a local English teacher, Joe, to be our translator for the day. We didn’t know what to expect from this, but our girls were back in the snow and elated. Taylor threw on some Japanese snow pants and the girls were dragged in a sled
Through the snowless parking lot and road to a snowy forest. We got laced up in traditional Japanese snow shoes called kanjiki and then we were wrapped up in blankets called tsunomaki. The girls sledded and we shoed down to a snowy field,
Then we proceeded to just play in the snow with these happy people for about an hour. We built a snowman (named Olaf, of course) and dressed him in his own tsunomaki. We sledded around and worked up a sweat.
We had a Texas vs. Japan snowball fight, which we like to think we won. Our littlest could be found at any moment stuffing her face with snow — her favorite snow activity of the week. Did we need to go all the way to rural Aomori,
Japan just to play in a field of snow? Certainly not, but Kakuta made it worth every second of the journey. And after we were finished with all of our snow fun, it was teatime. Kakuta got us some drinks from the train station teahouse and
We indulged in what had been an elusive hot chocolate — a drink uncommon in Japan and the first we’d seen on a drink menu since arriving. This is where we found out that we were the first Americans to ever do this snow-drifting
Experience, and it’s something that Kakuta was really excited about. We think this is why he hired a translator for the day and why he brought a couple of extra people out with him. ‘Cause it’s not every day that 2 crazy Americans and their little kids come out
To rural Kanagi, Japan and play in the snow with strangers, but that’s the joy of this, and that’s how we know we’re really digging to find a novel experience. Kakuta gave us a commemorative bifold with a bunch of local stamps on it and his signature.
He gave the girls a whole bag of chocolate, then we ventured into the teahouse to wait on our stove train to arrive. Kakuta learned the girls’ names and helped them to draw them out, and they serenaded him with various Disney movie songs. After a few photos requested by locals,
We took to the train platform to board our train. This train was maybe the thing we were most excited about from this entire snow week itinerary just because of how unusual it sounded. In a place so cold, so covered in snow,
You can buy a special ticket aboard a special train, warm and waiting to comfort you from the cold. And down the aisle will come a trolley selling one coveted item: squid jerky. You fork over 800 yen and wait as the doting staff pull on their flame-retardant
Wool gloves and carefully heat your jerky on the stoked coal stoves. They’re peeled into strips and deposited back into your bag — ready for you to indulge. Our hesitant kids trusted us, and soon they were sucking on these fishy strips like lollipops — making us two proud adventuring parents. “Ooh! That was audible.”
The train took us back to our starting point, and along the beautiful snowy countryside. It was an incredible way to finish out Snow Week in Japan. We hopped off and bid farewell to the stove train. On our walk back from the station, we were treated to some of the most
Beautiful snowfall we’ve ever seen. Then, we got one final transit through the snow: a taxi ride back to Aomori City — the snowiest city on Earth and the end of our snowy adventures. We are so grateful to have seen such diversity across Japan’s snowy cities and towns. We know
That there’s so much else that we didn’t even get to do. But one thing is for sure: these people know how to make the snow fun. That’s what we wanted to discover. Outside of ski resorts, in the US, winter is often thought of as a nuisance — but Japan has found a
Way to turn large swaths of the country into joyful wonderlands. They build big, beautiful sculptures and they work with the snow to create masterpieces of art; they create snowy playgrounds for children and adults alike; they have cozy trains where people can take in the winterscapes with fishy snacks;
And finally, they welcome crazy American families into their rural towns just to show them a good time and connect over hot chocolate and a shared love of adventure. We’ll be back for more snowy adventures in Japan, but for now, Snow Week is over.