what do you see?

What is Chocorinco 2...? Well, there's a question eh. I suppose they look like pretzels, but are not, by any means. They are like chocolatey crunchy snacks, a simliar consistency to potato-based savoury snacks (like Cheetos/Wotsits etc.) but sweet. And, Chocorinco 2 contains two sizes of snacks in the same bag! Tiny, caramel-chocolate flavoured ones, and quite generously proportioned standard chocolate ones. The big ones also are said to contain nama-choco (you'll know what that is if you're in Japan). Of course the tiny ones all settle to the bottom of the bag, meaning that the eater gets a sudden surprise after eating all the big ones.

Don't worry, I'm fine. I got a headache after about the first 3/4s of the pack, so stopped eating. They're good, but a little too sweet to get really addicted perhaps.

Can anyone in Japan (except Hokkaido) tell me if Chocorinco 2 is available where you are? I've heard some tentative reports that it might be Hokkaido only...

OK, I'm about to do something risky and as I'm alone here at the moment I wanted to record it on my blog in order that I'm covered. If I don't post again for a while, alert the relevant authorities.

I'm going to try a snack called Chocorinco 2 that contains the ominous warning: 'Once you try "Chocorinco 2", you can never get enough of it!'. Thanks...

I heard about the snow in the UK! Welcome, enjoy and take care everyone.

Well, I finally ventured out to get some essentials (cut price chicken cutlet burger, chocolate covered pretzels, that kind of thing) and found a foot deep snow drift outside the foyer of our building, and about a half a foot deep one inside. Some people never learn to shut the door (born in a barn?!).

I'm deep in the dizzying world of web-page design today, or maybe it just makes me feel that way because I tend to drink copious amounts of coffee and don't get round to eating...it's time for some instant noodles I think.

I've concluded it must be a Friday tradition for the weather to be almost impossibly fine and sunny all day, and then to turn into a white-out just in time for the evening rush hour...yes, it happened again. Unless Sony have managed to create some kind of forcefield around Chitose. Anyway, here's a picture of the Oozora "limited express hurtling through Chitose as usual while I'm waiting for my, slower, "rapid".

Uh oh, here I go again advertising my work on UK strollers... but the real reason, honestly, is to show how nicely Eriko puts together the site (and to promote the north-east of England too).

Just a quick thanks to Blogwise, for listing my site. That's all.

I think I'd better break my silence and emerge to post again. The lack of posts in the last few days could have been because I've been insanely busy (designing a web-site, proofreading an entire thesis, writing an article and teaching in other spare moments), or perhaps just because I'm feeling the hole left by the heartless demolition of the lovely snow sculptures. Sapporo is a great place to live, but there is not always an immense amount of news to report here, most of the time.
Oh well, I suppose I can always resort to the usual general nonsense. 20 unique visitors a day can't be wrong!

Well, Happy Valentine's Day to everyone. Hope you can have a nice day!

I witnessed the sad sight of a large JCB demolishing the Norwegian ice-sculpture on the HBC web-cam earlier, wish I could have been there in person but the weather's way too rough today.

BTW, don't forget to keep checking the showcase site, there are some newish weird images on there now. I won't keep reminding you!

Hina matsuri (doll's day) ice statues in Susukino last night. 

OK, I've put 9 more pictures on the "recent Sapporo" page, some day and some night. Might be a little slow to load as I haven't compressed them too much, but hopefully they're worth it!

Here's some fish in Susukino, by day. 

OK, I admit it now, it's cold and I want spring to come! Maybe because we spent so much time outside today, walking around the snow festival. We started by going up through Susukino, seeing the ice-statues which are made mostly by well-known companies and shops in the area (and also very visibly sponsored by them too). These were good - nice shiny clear ice which looked good in the sun when it came out from time to time.
After a welcomingly spicy lunch at Cancun, we went to the main Odori site and walked all the way down and back. The sculptures here are pretty impressive in their size, a lot of work went into them and worth seeing, if you live reasonably near...I'm not sure how satisfied you'd feel if you flew in specially from Tokyo, or Kyushu...or China, Canada...as a lot of people seemed to have! The most popular sculpture definitely seemed to be Yon-sama (if you don't know who that is, think yourself extremely lucky - a grown-up Korean Harry Potter is all I can say) , or at least a huge likeness of his disembodied but still grinning head.
Anyway, after a bit more indecisiveness and time-killing until it got darker we went back and saw the evening festivities - lots of coloured lights and some really cold looking singers performing (we felt pretty sorry for the girl playing the keyboard, with rapidly reddening and frost-bitten hands...). It's definitely better at night when you can't see so much of the advertising and dirtier parts of the sculptures. Then after yakitori and other skewered stuff, we headed back through s'kino again looking at the now lit up ice-owls, eagles, peacocks, fish etc on the way through.
So the thorny issue of pictures rears its ugly head now (imagine that as a statue)...Well, we took plenty, I'll have to do some resizing and other jiggery pokery, and jiggery pokery definitely has to be left until a Saturday, so for now here's just one eagle:

I just found a new Sapporo life web-site, called Sapporo Life. This is the link to the food and drink part. Nice design and good info. too.

And they say English weather is changeable! It was bright and sunny all day today, in fact up to the moment I got on the train from Chitose earlier this evening, then about a minute later there's a major blizzard dumping quite a few inches of snow already. I've been wondering what they do with the snow sculptures in these situations, do they just wait and then brush/blow/suck the snow off somehow? Does anyone know?
The rumours of crowdedness during the festival are true it seems, although all the extra people in the city seem to be perpetually arriving or leaving, along with their wheeled suitcases. And the authorities have dusted off a lot of extra English signs and announcements (if you can dust off an announcement?) for the duration.
Other excitement at the moment includes the issuing of special edition tickets ("withyou cards") which of course I'm collecting in the vain hope they'll be worth something someday.
As it's another obscure holiday tomorrow, we'll finally go to see the snow sculptures in all their glory and gets lots of pictures. Can you wait?!

Er, I forgot what I was going to say.

I've switched to only showing 7 days post on the main page, to keep the page size down. Please browse the archives to read the kind of things I was writing way-back last month, or whenever.

Thanks for the comments everyone, keep them coming! Don't forget if you want to leave a comment but you don't have a Blogger account, you can do it anonymously.

The HBC snow-fes. site is more worth looking at now the festival's actually started. Nice to see at night with the illuminations. It's noticeably more crowded in town now, although I haven't made it up to Odori yet.

Preparations in Susukino last night. 

These are part of a make-your-own-snowman thing in front of the Akarenga 

Here it is...




...the fabled passion-fruit kitkat. Now, this one is GOOD. I mean that. It looks quite normal, except that the filling is quite a bright yellow colour. The chocolate tastes pretty dark, and then the passion fruit flavour hits you, very tangy. A really good combination. This one is a success.

Aargh wind-chill!! But the good news is the passion fruit kitkat has been found - it was easier than I expected thanks to knowing what the packaging looked like - at a Kiosk in Sapporo station. I'll post a picture later...

Today is Setsubun!! Yay!
Here's what it means (thank you Dita for this explanation!):

"The traditional Japanese calendar use to be divided into 24 parts,called setsu. The last day of each setsu was called setsubun, but the only setsubun to have survived into the modern calendar is the one that takes place on Feb.3.

This setsubun was the last day of the Daikan setsu, the day before the Risshun setsu, and was thought to be the last day of the traditional year. It was a time to purify the house, get rid of evil spirits, and pray for good luck and good health.

Mamemaki, or the bean-throwing ceremony, forms a major part of Setsubun. To shouts of "oni wa soto; fuku wa uchi" or " devils out! good luck in!" roasted beans are thrown at men dressed as devils, who are then chased out of the house.

Beans are also thrown around the house to keep evil spirits away,and if you then eat the same number of beans as your age, you will be lucky and healthy for the rest of the year.

Also, temples and shrines hold large Setsubun ceremonies. They invite famous people, particularly sumo wrestlers, to throw beans and bean cakes at the crowd, and if you catch these beans or cakes, you will be lucky. Often these celebrities will be toshiotoko or toshionna, people born under the same zodiac sign as the zodiac sign for that year."

Unfortunately there were no men dressed as devils to throw beans at, but...

In the middle of a big phat snowstorm now. I'm really trying to have my web-cam on more often now, so if you'd given up looking at it, please trust me and start looking again. I'm going to try to have it pointing out of the window a lot more too. In fact it's doing that right now...

There's an interesting article about KitKats in Japan on the BBC site.

We had a satisfying inch or so of snow the other night, finally, so things are a little easier now.

I'm taking an oath to make sure I take the camera out with me more often, especially during the festival next week. Talking of that, the sculptures are almost done and we hear more stories of how Odori will be packed with people, more people than we've ever seen in Sapporo apparently...should be, well, crowded.

In my endeavour to make this site useful, but probably not more exciting, if you happen to be:
a. in Japan,
b. English speaking and
c. needing to file your own tax return soon...

here's a link to the English bit of the National Tax Agency Japan site, where you can get some useful, if not entirely rivetting, documents and information.