SAY CHEESE! Even though the quality of my profile shot is really crappy, I thought the sparkley-ness (I make up my own words) of it was pretty cool! I tried to take a shot of the city below from my hotel room, but there was way too much reflection! In this photo I’m using a Sigma 10-20 mm wide angle lens. I absolutely LOVE it! Wide angle lenses are so much fun to play around with! Unfortunately, I didn’t start using my Wide Angle lens until I arrived in the Abashiri a couple days later.
Okay Nakayo was right..these are so not life size, but it’s still pretty damn massive for something carved out of ice!
Hahaha! I loved this Snow Bento Box! It’s hilarious! 
The Kana reads “Stop! Metabo” I don’t get how that relates to Homer Simpson.
This snow sculpture won the championship. Rightly so! It’s so detailed, the angles used appear tricky to manipulate without thinking this thing will just topple over, and it’s dramatic!
This one is just plain strange and creepy, yet interesting nonetheless.
It reminds me of Jack and the Beanstalk where Jack tries to escape from the giant.
Seaturtles made from Hawaii. 
Located at the opposite end of Odori park, is this sculpture, a slide, a few stalls, ice skating ring, and the Saporro TV Tower. 
Arial view of Odori Park from the Saporro TV Tower. Took close to one hour to get to the top, but it was well worth taking a photo of this view! I was trying to ignore the group of tipsy people behind me in the line who reeked of alcohol! That orange glow sculpture is the same one as the previous photo (it changes colours) and to the bottom of it out of the photo is the ice skating ring. The blue and purple is the massive slide and beyond that is the rest of the park where all the snow sculptures are.
For some weird reason, the TV Tower looks small. I never imagined there to be an elevator in there with a store at the middle and top! This reminded me of going up the Las Vegas Eiffel Tower.
The main street of Saporro across from JR Station.
I seriously LOVE how I was able to capture the stop motion of the falling snow! They look like stars frozen in mid-air!
Look a Mickey Ds! There were quite a few of Mickey Ds and KFCs around there!
Seemed like we walked forever to finally get to the Ramen Alley in Susukino! I asked these two little older women if they knew where the Ramen Alley was on the map. It was just across the street thank goodness! Once we got there, it was difficult to chose a place to eat! Finally i settled on this place. I had miso Ramen which was really tasty! I forgot to take a pic! :(
Now this bowl of Ramen was DELISH! I never knew scallops looked like that until I saw this dish! Usually just the round meaty center is served. From what I recall this is Shio Ramen.
Oh the infamous Mister Donut from the manga Girl Friends! Akko and Mari in this one is hilarious! It’s from Chapter 4 where Mari and Akko are studying BUT Akko gets “distracted” by the doughnuts! TOO FUNNY! This scene looks all too familiar!! I think the Japanese have a different idea of what a doughnut is supposed to taste like than Americans. The chocolate one I had didn’t taste much like anything! If I were to bring in a box of Mister Donuts to my colleagues, they’d be like,”What is this? Fat Free doughnuts!?!” I know a certain someone by the name of Viridian who would go nuts in Mister Donut! :P
Lastly, A HUG SIGN! No it’s not a store with strangers inside ready to give you a hug when you need one. It’s a bitty produce market. Just thought the sign was too cute to miss! *HUGS* Hope everyone had a fabulous if not relaxing weekend!
~Sapphire
Torajiro Kishi is my FAV manga illustrator. Her character illustrations are like a splice between staple Japanese manga illustrations and Marvel. I have a pillow spot for stories and illustrations that look realistic-truer to real life people and events. That said, Torajiro Kishi is excellent with her erotic mangas like Maka Maka because not only do the girls look more realistic, but snippets of her scenes actually do happen in real life.
