Backpacking

tainment district. It was my first time in urban Japan at night - a real assault on the senses! Music, loudspeakers, neon lights, and plenty of Japanese people (but not the swarming crowds I expected) letting their hair down. Michael, one of the skiiers, had been there three years' running and kindly acted as a guide, giving us insights into Sapporo, pointing out things such as the Yakuza members (Japanese mafia). How to spot a gangster? Impeccably dressed in a suit, usually tattooed, and sometimes with fingers missing... when they mess up, they have to cut off one of their fingers to say sorry...

Day 11: 10th February The Wrath of Ghengis Khan

Sapporo, Japan

I was up early and by 9am was wandering around Odori Park, which runs through the centre of Sapporo and is the main site for the Snow Festival. There were hundreds of sculptures made of snow (they certainly don't have a lack of raw materials here). Most of the exhibits were of cutesy Japanese cartoon characters (Doraemon and the like), but some were huge scale reconstructions of buildings - the detail was phenomenal.

Whilst wandering through the park, I was harassed by a group of Japanese 6-7 year old schoolchildren on a visit. Alongside visiting the sculptures, they had been set an exercise to practice their English whereby they had to ask gaijin (foreigners) to write down on a form where they came from, and to "signe here" (sic). They were cute little things, but after the third group had swarmed around me,