On Saturday, Mike and I went to Koiwai farm to see the snow festival. Having visited Sapporo`s mighty display last year, it was bound to look a little tame, but it was a nice day out all the same. Half of it was just food anyway, so we spent the first half an hour just eating. Then we had a look round the shop and tried out the ice maze. It was really slippy inside and every time you turned a corner a little kid slid into your legs. Highly hazardous fun!

One of the attractions was a stage show. This had some girls dressed up in very scary cartoon character outfits. They really looked like 5 foot walking dolls. I was absolutely petrified by them. They were doing some sort of pantomime type thing, but they just seemed to repeat "fuzakenna" a lot, which means "don`t mess with me". I think if you click the image you can see them in their full fearsome glory.

Although, this many people apparently thought they were worth watching....

Since it was snowing, we took the sensible option and went to Morioka and had a big meal in the volcano restaurant and took advantage of my free drink tickets.