After staying in Sapporo for the Snow Festival, my friend picked us up to go to another festival: the Lake Shikotsu Ice Festival. It is a small ice festival held in Shikotsuko Onsen, Chitose City located south of Sapporo which is about 40 minutes drive from Sapporo city. We planned to go first to see Mount Yotei but there was a snow blizzard, so we decided just to go to the Lake Shikotsu.

The festival place is located near the Yamasen iron bridge. There’s an entrance fee-donation of 300 yen to enter the festival. The ice sculptures were made from the water of the Lake Shikotsu which is famous for being one of the clearest water in Japan.

What I’ve noticed is that the ice sculptures were made in abstract forms like stalactites and stalagmites as compared to the very intricate sculptures in Sapporo. The colored lights however made these sculptures beautiful.

Among the sculptures are the igloos with colored lights inside, the church-like structure where you can ring a bell inside and the shrine decorated with many coins on its ice wall. There is also an ice slide with many children playing on it.

We went there today as they have fireworks display every weekends during the event period. The festival started last January 29th and will end on February 21st. The fireworks started at 6:30 pm and lasted for 15 mins. The display however got exciting on its last 3 to 5 minutes. The first 10 minutes was kinda boring as the fireworks were exploded just one after another.

It was getting freezing cold, so we left after the fireworks and headed home. Anyway, tomorrow is the dreaded Monday.