Ice Sculptures and Meli's Hokkaido Host Family: Hokkaido Chronicles part 2

Here are some pictures of an ice village that Meli's host family took us too. The ice was made from water from the nearby lake!

An ice shrine

An ice cave. Those are actually pine boughs that have been frozen over with icicles! It smelled really good =)

Ice Sculptures from the Yuki Matsuri:

T-Rex

Gundam

Yes those are real fish!

Snow slides

In addition to all the beautiful ice sculptures, we got to experience the wonders of Hokkaido food! Tsukiyaki - a kind of dish where you cook everything right then and there in the pan in front of you (meat, veggies etc) and then dip it into raw egg! It's actually really good!! Sushi, yaki torii, these HUGE salmon rice balls...Meli's family was super nice and they also took us to an onsen, where there was a rotenburo - an outdoor hot spring. It was amazing to soak in the hot water while snow was falling on top of us and all around us was a snowy landscape...We ended up staying in there for almost 3 hrs (not just in the rotenburo, but also hopping in and out of other baths and then finally the sauna). We totally didn't realize that much time had passed...apparently you're only supposed to stay in for 2 hrs max!! oops!

Meli and her host family!