After seeing the famous Japanese macaques bathe at the Jigokudani Monkey Park, we headed to one of Nagano's most popular attractions, Matsumoto Castle. Most of Japan's castles have had to be fully reconstructed over the centuries, but this is one of small number of original castles left standing and is considered a National Treasure of Japan. It has been nic[...]
The Jigokudani Snow Monkey Park offers visitors the unique experience of seeing wild Japanese Macaques monkeys, also known as snow monkeys. Unlike a zoo, there are no fences separating the monkeys from the humans here, which means you will get to see them in their natural habitat. The park is located in the Valley of the Yokoyu River, which takes its wate[...]
My husband and I (plus our friends) visited Sapporo back in February 2017, for the 68th Sapporo Snow Festival. My friend Katie and I planned this trip together and had a bit of a hard time doing so, probably because we're both from tropical places and winter vacations are really not our thing. So I decided to put together more information, our 3 day itinerar[...]
We started our last full day in Sapporo by visiting the Tsudome Site of the Sapporo Snow Festival! During the rest of the year this multi purpose hall hosts sporting events and the like, but during the festival it transforms into a family friendly winter wonderland. Some of the activities featured are: yuki-daruma (snow man) making, a few different size sli[...]
After seeing the city from above at Mt. Moiwa, we headed back to the Sapporo Snow Festival via the cute city tram. Our first stop was the Susukino site of the festival, where they closed up part of the main street and turned it into an 'Ice World'. This area is ideal to see at night, because Susukino is actually the entertainment district of Sapporo and all[...]
After our visit to the Hokkaido Shrine we made our way to the Mt. Moiwa ropeway to see the amazing view of the city!! We decided to take the city bus from the Maruyama Park station, because the ropeway is only 15 minutes away. It did take us forever to figure out which bus we needed to get on... but in the end we figured it out! On the way back though, we to[...]