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THE beginning of the year is the time for snow lovers to flock to Sapporo, Japan, to visit the Snow Festival. However, this year one of the winter festivals in Japan has adapted to the pandemic situation through online events.
The festival, which takes place on the island of Hokkaido, in northern Japan, usually features around 200 sculptures made of ice. Reported by Kyodo, this year for the first time since it was held in 1950, this festival was held on a smaller scale and did not invite people to gather in the middle of the city, but in the suburbs.
Festival organizers will upload photos and videos on the website until February 28 showing the process of making the statues on display and providing historical information about the event.
Several photos show the process of making four snow sculptures located around town, including popular virtual singers Hatsune Miku and Dr. William Smith Clark, an American educator who helped found the Sapporo Agricultural School in the Meiji Era (1868-1912). The bronze statue of Clark is one of the popular tourist spots in Sapporo.
Visitors can also stop by the official website to watch a video about the history of the festival which dates back to the 1950s.
This snow festival is one of Hokkaido’s tourist attractions for foreign tourists, which attracted 2.74 million visitors in 2019. Last year, the number of visitors fell to 2.02 million when the new coronavirus outbreak began to emerge. [antaranews/photo special]
