The Chitose- Shikotsu Ice Festival (see photo) is about an hour from Chitose Airport by bus. The ice sculptures are made by local artists and are situated on the edge of Lake Shikotsu. The frozen lake, 42 km in circumference, provides a lovely backdrop during the daytime and at night, the ice sculptures are enhanced with multi-colored lights. You can wander freely among the ice sculptures and even climb on top of some!

Otaru, the second largest city in Hokkaido, offers the Snow-Light festival where they light up the streets with candles including floating them down the historic Otaru canal. Otaru lies 25 minutes northwest of Sapporo on the Ishikari Bay on the Sea of Japan. Don’t forget to sample the famous Otaru Beer while you’re there.

The biggest snow festival in southern Hokkaido is the Imakane Snow Festival. The preliminary games of the World Snowball Fight Competition are held at this time also.

The Asahikawa Winter Festival offers snow sculptures from small to gigantic and you can even try your hand at making one yourself. They also have snow slides and the World Ice Sculpture Contest in early February.

If you still just can’t get enough snow and ice into your winter Japan visit, head on up to eastern Hokkaido to see the floating sea ice. Large drifts of ice pile up in Abishiri Bay and then flow into the Nemuro Channel which separates Japan from the Russian held islands. From Abashiri, you can board a tourist boat that will take you out among the ice floes. Now that’s good, cold fun!

Snow Festival Dates for 2007

• 58th Sapporo Snow Festival Feb. 6-12 (Feb 5-in 2008)
• Otaru Snow-Light Festival Feb 9-18
• Lake Shikotsu Festival Jan 26-Feb. 18th (Japanese)
• Asahikawa Winter Festival Feb 8-12 (Japanese)
• Rausu sea-ice cruises (Japanese)
• Complete list of winter events in Hokkaido

Google’s recently expanded map service now includes satellite photo of the entire country of Japan and high resolution aerial photos of the metropolitan Tokyo area.

After spending way too many hours roaming the Japanese country side via Google we’ve finally managed to piece together Planet Tokyo’s first online tour of Japan:

Tsukiji Fish Market

Attending the Tsukiji fish market is traditionally recommended to be the first thing you should do on your first morning in Japan (well, after showering and brushing your teeth). So we’ll start our virtual tour by visiting the fish market. Unfortunately you can’t actually see any fish from this angle.

Ryogoku

Ryogoku is known as Sumo Town. The large structure is Kokugikan, Japan’s largest sumo stadium. The park to the north is a particularly nice place to stop and eat your bento before attending as Sumo match.

Tokyo Tower

At 333 meters Tokyo Tower is the world’s tallest self-supporting iron tower. It’s a full 13 meters taller than the eiffel tower.

Ueno Park

You can’t quite make out the polar bears doing back strokes at the Ueno Park Zoo (they’re there, trust us), but if you look closely you can see the Tokyo National Museum.

Tokyo Dome

The Tokyo Dome is home to the Yomiuri Giants and the Nippon Ham Fighters baseball teams. The unique dome is actually an air supported membrane. The surrounding Tokyo Dome City includes a variety of amusements and attractions.

Seibu Dome

Not to be outdone by the Tokyo Dome, the high-tech looking Seibu Dome sits on the outskirts of Tokyo and is home to the Seibu Lions baseball team. This unique dome structure has no walls.

Tokyo Disneyland

Tokyo Disneyland technically isn’t the happiest place on earth, but it might be the happiest place in Japan – or maybe just the most expensive.

Mt. Fuji

Mt. Fuji is Japan’s highest mountain and an inspiration to countless Japanese artists. As a result, Fuji’s profile is instantly recognizable. Google’s satellite imagery provides a unique perspective on Mt. Fuji that few people have seen previously.

Volcano Island

Fuji isn’t the only volcano in Japan. While much smaller than Fuji this volcano island off of the coast of Japan is quite impressive.

Keyhole Mounds

Kofuns are ancient Japanese burial sites that were created between the 3rd and 7th century. These keyhole shaped mounds are quite large and easily viewable from satellite photos.

Needless to say, there is quite a bit more to see, but these should be enough to get you started on your $0 a day tour of Japan. If you happen to find any interesting sights while wondering around Japan via Google let us know – send us the URL and we may include your submission in a future post.

• Send Us Your Google Satellite View

Yamato, a tofu-maker from the old school isn’t going to let lousy eating habits destroy his business. If tastes change, then he’s going to change with them:

His best sellers include black sesame tofu, which tastes like peanut butter custard.

There are also grass green avocado, deep purple-flecked shiso leaf and whole grain millet tofus. They did the trick, and Yamato’s sales rebounded.

We’re not sure if this is natural evolution or a marketing gimmick destined to fall by the wayside (though we’re hoping for the latter). We do know, however, what we’ll be serving at our next Planet Tokyo party. (via f*cked gaijin)

• Selling Tofu in the 21st Century

Many Japanese chastise American tourists because they come to Japan thinking there are still geisha walking around the streets of Japan. To the Japanese, this indicates that we are not only naïve, but that we have still to recognize Japan as a new modern nation. But American tourists could be forgiven for their blunder as the American media continues to push the geisha image on us, making it the most popular icon of traditional Japan. Movies like “The Last Samurai” and books like “Memoirs of a Geisha” promote images of Japan that, although romantic, are contrary to what modern Japanese culture is like. Even the Lonely Planet guidebooks insist on putting a geisha on the cover of their Japan edition even though 99.99 percent of their readers will never see one.

Ah, but what about that .01 percent? The good news is that you can be that .01 percent if you are willing to pay for it. Some enterprising foreigners have paved the way for you and now offer “assisted tours” to geisha houses. The most reputable is Chris Rowthorn (www.chrisrowthorn.com) an expert on Kyoto and Japanese culture. Having an introduction is necessary, and Chris offers this as well as an interpreter to facilitate communications. He also does non-geisha oriented walking tours of Kyoto.

Links

For a good description of geisha, their history and a clarification of the difference between geisha and prostitutes (geisha are not prostitutes!), see the Wikipedia entry at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geisha

Read about an Australian woman who claims to be the first foreign geisha in Japan at http://search.japantimes.co.jp/cgi-bin/fl20080629x3.html

Amy Chavez is a columnist for The Japan Times. Visit her website at http://www.moooobar.com

Last year, train lines in Tokyo introduced women-only cars to reduce these groping incidents, perpetrated by chikan, the Japanese word for molesters. Groping complaints on trains tripled from 1996 to 2004, prompting train operators to take action. Granted, avoiding handsy fellow passengers isn’t the only benefit:

But the reasons women seek out these carriages are not always straightforward. “I don’t go out of my way to ride on them,” said Akane Kojima, a 30-year-old Tokyo office worker. “If I were to do so, it wouldn’t necessarily be to escape the perverts but to escape the various bodily odors that men emanate, particularly during the summer months.”

Other benefits include a respite from the often racy advertisements that fill the various train lines. The specially marked trains generally run during the super-crowded morning commute hours. A few befuddled men find themselves in the relatively uncrowded female-only cars, but are generally steered toward the crushed embrace of their fellow men.

Western travelers can identify the trains by the hot pink signs designating the cars as “Women Only”. Helpfully, the signs are printed in English as well as Japanese.

• Train Operators Fight Groping by Creating Women-Only Cars: Female passengers on Tokyo’s subway say molestation is common. Many have requested separate compartments, companies report.
• Women-Only Trains in Tokyo

I am not sure what it is like in your country recently, but here in Japan, dog culture has become big. Some people are spending over 1,000,000. yen a month on their dog, for everything from dog hairstylists to dog massages to even dog pedicures. The owners have gone crazy for their dogs, and compete between owners who can spoil their dog most. I have seen dogs eating at nice restaurants sitting on the table while the owner feeds them a steak they ordered for them. Even at Starbucks they have dog bowls available and they pour the dog milk to drink, while the owner feeds them butter croissant.

Okay, probably a butter croissant is a bad idea. A fat dog is an unhappy dog. There are better ways to spoil your dog. For example, a stay in a nice hotel. While not limited to dogs, a new hotel at Narita airport offers all the comforts of home — plus room service. While their owners travel around the world, their pets spend time in well-appointed rooms. Onsite grooming and vet care is available, and staff are on call for late night walks. High-class treatment for dogs isn’t limited to specialized hotels; pet owners who visit Tokyo Disneyland can leave their dogs in the care of the Pet Club.

Even cars are being geared toward the dog world. Where American dogs are happiest hanging their heads out of cars or joy-riding in the backs of pickups, Japanese dogs are enjoying automotive features designed especially for their comfort. Really. Gone are the days when the dog had to ride in the backseat like everyone else.

“We created this vehicle from the point of view of a dog, but it turned out to be a gentler vehicle for the elderly, children and other family members,” said Honda designer Katsuhito Nakamura.

Finally, ardent news-watchers have surely seen video of the infamous “Panda Dog”. Only a canine would sit still for a dye job — you’d never catch a cat sitting under a blow dryer!

• Taking the dog for a walk takes on a whole new meaning in Japan. (Note: also a great resource for seriously cool watches)
• Tokyo Gets Five-star Hotel for Pampered Pets: Japanese pet owners can now embark on their foreign travels safe in the knowledge that their pampered pooches and moggies will be living in the lap of luxury at a five-star “pet hotel” that opens today at Tokyo’s Narita airport.
• Honda showing vehicle designed for dogs at Tokyo auto show
• Panda or Pooch?