The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan’s largest winter events, attracts a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad every year.

Every winter, about two million people come to Sapporo to see the hundreds of beautiful snow statues and ice sculptures which line Odori Park,the grounds at Satoland, and the main street in Susukino.

For seven days in February,these statues and sculptures(both large and small) turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow.

The Snow Festival began in 1950, when local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. in 1955, the Self-Defense Force joined in and built the very first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has become famous for now. The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become one of the biggest and most well known of Hokkaido’s winter events.
The Snow Festival is considered to be a festival of international-caliber.

Odori Site
Odori Park stretches from east to west through the center of downtown Sapporo and represents the main festival site.here,you can see a variety of snow and ice sculptures, many of which have an international flavor. There are other snow stages located here and featuring a varientyof entertainment.

You can see more pictures at
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Happy Chuseok weekend to all! For those of you who aren’t familiar with Korean culture, Chuseok is the fall holiday that has been likened to an American Thanksgiving.Chuseok (추석 - Full Moon Harvest) is a Korean festival celebrated on the 15th day of the 8th month in lunar calendar (Sept 14 in 2008).

The actual day falls on Sunday, but the holiday weekend kicks off today, which means lots of traditional Korean foods and desserts (like the customary rice-cake songpyun), special holiday television programming (movies, family-friendly fare), and yes, lots and lots of hanboks. Particularly, stars dressing up to wish people a happy holiday.

Brown Eyed Girls

Girls’ Generation

Kara

Wonder Girls

Yoon Eun Hye

Han Ye-seul (Fantasy Couple)

Lee Yeon-hee (East of Eden):

Park Jae-jung (You’re My Destiny) with Lee Yeon-hee; Banana Girl singer Kim Sang-mi

Singer Younha:

Misuda’s (Global Talk Show) Aussie panelist Kirsty Reynolds and Italian Cristina Confalonieri:

The boys of pop-rock group FT Island:

Singer Jang Yoon-jung:

Members of pop group Jewelry:

The boys of Shinee:

Members of girl group KARA:

Singer Solbi and actress Oh Yeon-seo (Great King Sejong):

Singer-model (and soon-to-be actress) Min Hyo-rin, singer Park Hyun-bin, Beijing Olympics gold-medalist badminton player Lee Yong-dae:

Singer Seo Ji-young with singer Kim Woo-joo:

Lee Joon-hyuk and Yoo Hana of First Wives’ Club:

Singer, “Pocket Girl” and Banana Girl Lee Hyun-ji:

Playboy model Lee Pa-ni:

The guys of variety show Oot Chat Sa:

Yokohama Ice Cream Expo attracted thousands of fans before it closed yesterday (SUN), according to organiser Manabu Matsumoto, who identified beef tongue ice cream from Miyagi Prefecture as the most popular variety.

“We have ice cream from all over Japan – from Hokkaido in the north to Okinawa in the south – but beef tongue has been the one that people keep coming back for,” he said.

More than 125 varieties of ice cream have been available in the two week festival, including cheese, octopus, prawn and a garlic variety called Dracula Premium Ice. Another favourite was flavoured with very finely sliced pieces of pearl from the traditional pearl-growing region of Japan’s inland sea. Most were selling for between Y300 (?1.42) and Y800 (?3.78) for a small tub.

The majority of the ice creams were clearly acquired tastes, including the beer version, which failed to recreate either the taste or texture of beer.

“We like strange-tasting food,” said Keiko Hashiya, 27, who had driven for nearly two hours to sample the ice creams. “I think Japanese people always want to try new things and ice cream is always very popular when it is this hot in the summer.”

Many Japanese regions attempt to cash in on local delicacies by producing ice creams that incorporate their tastes, said Matsumoto, who runs an ice cream theme park in Tokyo’s Ikebukuro district.

“Japanese people don’t always have a dessert after a meal, but recently many Japanese housewives have got into the habit of buying ice cream because it is easy to serve and refreshing in the summer,” he said.

Beeftongue ice cream

Cactus ice cream

Charcoal ice cream

Cheese ice cream

Chickenwing icecream

Chilipepper ice cream


Garlic ice cream

Goat ice cream

Octopus ice cream

Oyster ice cream

Pearl ice cream

Pitviper ice  cream

Rawhorseflesh ice cream

Sharkfinnoodle ice cream

Salt ice cream

Soysauce ice cream

Squid ice cream

Tomato_ice cream

Wasab ice cream

Hairstyle of Pretty Japan girls on 2008 Olympic

When christmas day is arrive everybody thinks of a gift, snow, cookie, sweets, candy cane, and Santa Claus. I have collected picture of Merry X’mas that show all everything is happy,topmost christmas pictures is here.

Christmas bear

Christmas rat

Christmas ball

Christmas puppet

Christmas candle

Candy cane

Christmas gift

Christmas cat

Christmas tree

Christmas house

Christmas festival

Christmas dog

Christmas cookie

Christmas sweets

Merry x’mas