Yuki Matsuri = Snow Festival

S = Susukino, the mob-controlled nightlife district.

We ventured into Susukino twice. The first time was on the first night, in search of nightlife after the all-you-can-drink-and-eat extravaganza of the Sapporo Beer Garden. The second time was in search of Ramen Alley and the branch of the Snow Festival featuring about four city blocks, off-limits to traffic, lined down the middle with two rows of delicate, colorfully-lit ice sculptures. Bit of a juxtaposition of purposes.

Also, when I came home and re-read the guidebook entry for Sapporo, I learned that Susukino has come under criticism for the heavier-than-usual involvement of the yakuza (Japanese mob).

A = All-You-Can-Drink.

In Japanese, nomihodai means literally "drink without limits." They are standard fare at your usual fancy and overpriced work party, less-fancy pub, and ALT-hosted fundraiser. It is the first word of Japanese most new arrivals learn.

The Sapporo trip flowed with alcohol from one end to the other. The several hours we spent at the Sapporo Beer Garden (or Bier Garten, as the signs on the wall proclaimed, or Biiiru Gaahden, if you prefer the Japanese) count as among the most alcoholic of my time in Japan. The drink menu was limited: it was basically beer, or another kind of beer. The food menu was limited: it was basically lamb to be grilled on your own little brazier, or some carrots and onions if you insist. The cavernous room was filled with smoke and ever-more-drunk salarymen. There was so much grease that we were each issued a paper apron and a plastic bag for anything we didn't want to get splattered and smelly.

It doesn't sound like it would be a good time. But it really was! Chaos of eating and drinking ensued. The organizer of the trip told me that because I wasn't eating lamb, I could order off the menu. The beer was locally-made, cold, and delicious. The service was unbelievably fast: sometimes restaurants will try to save money by bringing drinks slowly, thus limiting the amount you can drink during the time period you've paid for, but the Sapporo staff was nothing like that. I had no idea a person could carry ten mugs of beer in each hand, but now I have been educated.

We stayed, cheerfully drunk, for a good hour and a half after our party was over, playing icebreaker games around the long-cold braziers. We even got the wait staff involved, until they had to throw us out so that they could clean up.

P = Port, of which Sendai has one and from which we departed.

The email from the Miyagi JET Association, who organized the trip, told us that we would be taking a ferry from Sendai to Sapporo, and back. Being from America, my experience with ferries is that they cross rivers, and usually involve a couple of benches and a vending machine. I really had no idea what to expect from a boat that we would ride for over ten hours.

So I was quite surprised to find a ship waiting for us that I would more comfortably call a "cruise ship" than a "ferry." It had "tourist class" rooms lined with bunk beds where we slept, a full restaurant where we ate a free breakfast buffet, indoor and outdoor promenades, a full Japanese-style bath through whose windows you could watch the ocean falling away behind us, a karaoke room where we sang until we were thrown out on the way back, and a lobby where we sat up talking after they took away the karaoke.

P = Potatoes.

Locally-produced is usually very good. Locally-produced food in an area famous for producing it is usually fantastic. And such is the case for potatoes in Sapporo.

A pattern developed: I went with my friends for the company to a restaurant, found nothing vegetarian on the menu, and stopped at a festival street stall to buy a steamed potato with butter. Eating a whole potato (or, if I got lucky in my choice of street vendors), two whole potatoes with chopsticks, while walking, is not an easy task. But very much worth the effort.

In fact, come to think of it, Sapporo rates high on street food in general. The main site of the festival had a row of stalls selling various international cuisines. And almost every stall sold hot spiced wine, which was as welcome and delicious as it was unusual: most festivals make their money off beer... but then, most of Japan has their festivals in the summer.

O = Oyuki, the Japanese word for blizzard, literally meaning "big snow."

We arrived in Sapporo on Sunday at around noon and decided to take a look around. We stumbled quite by accident onto the main site for the festival, just as the skies opened and dumped snow on everything. Within minutes, the festival staff were trying to clear the sculptures with brooms. Within a half-hour, it didn't much matter anyway since visibility was about ten yards.

R = Ramen.

Ramen in Japan is nothing like instant ramen noodles that starving college students eat. Japanese ramen consists of noodles in a carefully-prepared, usually pork-based, broth, studded with pieces of meat and vegetables. The ingredients are prepared separately and combined in front of you to be served steaming in a huge bowl. Ramen is Sapporo's signature food, quite fittingly when you consider the length of an average winter there.

I can't, of course, eat a giant bowl of pork soup, so I have never been to a ramen shop. But one night my friends wanted to find the famous Ramen Alley, and I went with them. The Alley is indeed a small alley lined with a dozen or so tiny shops that can seat about twelve people each. We chose one based mainly on available seats, owned by an elderly couple. The man acted as cook; his wife was the waitress. The counter for diners wrapped around the three-meters-square preparation area, where the noodles were kept in a saran-wrap-lined drawer, and a giant vat of pork broth was kept at a constant boil.

After they ate, I acquired a potato from a street vendor.

O = Odori Park, the main festival site.

Odori actually means "big street," and it is the name of the main road running east-west through Sapporo. The park runs between the directions of traffic like a really big, really decorative median.

During Yuki Matsuri, Odori Park is used as the festival site showcasing the enormous snow sculptures that have made the festival famous, as well as the less well-known smaller sculptures commissioned by local businesses and organizations.

One square plays host to the International Competition, where artist teams sent from about twelve different countries create their sculptures during the first few days. We went once during the day and watched the artists. The pair from Norway were cheerfully cutting apart their block of snow and giving away the pieces, as a statement about global warming and the scarcity of natural resources; the Thais labored busily and silently next to them. We went back that night to see who won: Thailand. Note to anyone planning to enter a Japanese-run competition: technical prowess trumps creativity.

(Although the Thai sculpture really was spectacular.)

Y = Youth Hostel, where we stayed ten to a room.

I just hope they didn't have anyone else staying...

...given our penchant for late-night iPhone light saber battles.

U = Uncool Canadian, the first I have ever met.

On our way back from the ramen shop in Susukino, we engaged in an epic snowball fight that wound its way through the entire city of Sapporo. Along the way, we met a Canadian and his Australian couch-surfer. The Australian was cool; the Canadian started throwing ice. Canada, you have never failed me before...

K = Kawaii, the relative lack of.

At different times, we all remarked on how un-Japanese the city felt. It helped that it was built on a grid: most Japanese cities are haphazardly composed of twisting streets, loosely-defined neighborhoods, and numbered buildings that are utterly meaningless in that 34 may be closer to 67 or 219 than to 35. When you can still get lost in your own part of town after a year, an easily-navigated city feels very welcoming and friendly.

But we also noticed distinctly fewer cute characters on billboards, printed on people's clothing, or dangling on keychains. Everyone, even the schoolgirls, wore sensible footwear and heavy coats. It was rather refreshing.

I = Inverted Panda.

This one somewhat contradicts what I just said. Apparently, Hokkaido felt cheated by their lack of a cute local animal to become their mascot and be sold in stuffed forms to tourists. Sendai has the onigiri version of Date Masamune; Tono has their water monster-turned-cute green elf -- but poor Hokkaido has not much but snow.

So, they invented one. The Japanese spelling of panda breaks it into syllables: pa-n-da. Hokkaido reversed this to da-n-pa. Then they took a regular panda and reversed all its black-and-white coloring. Now they have a way to make money off tourists! Yay!

M = Museum of Beer.

We went to the Sapporo Beer Factory on the first night, and continued enjoying Sapporo Beer throughout the trip. So on the final day, we took the trip to see the factory museum. There is actually a special bus that runs from the central train station to the museum site and back, every fifteen minutes, with no stops in between.

The Factory Museum was an interesting mishmash of factory equipment, black-and-white photographs of various beer-making entrepreneurs, old advertisements, and an absolutely priceless set of dioramas explaining the full process of beer-production as conducted in a magical sparkly world inhabited by cat-like figures ruled by a wizard living on a cloud above their heads.

I feel educated, don't you?

A = Asahiyama Zoo.

When my friend Siobhan and I told people we were going to Sapporo, often the first response we got was a recommendation to go to this zoo, even though it's 90 minutes by bullet train outside the city proper. A group of four of us ended up going.

The zoo has made its name by taking advantage of the animals' natural preferences to create enclosures that are fun for them to play in and fun for visitors to watch. Their most famous feature is a huge glass tube for the seals who like to swim vertically. All over the zoo, you can walk beside, above, and under the animals.

Winter is the most popular time to go to the zoo: although several of the exhibits are closed, the trade-off is the ability to see animals like giraffes and lions frolicking... in the snow.

I feel the need to insert a disclaimer: the Japanese as a whole have not embraced environmentalism with the sense of empathy common in the West, and their zoos often leave quite a bit to be desired. Like their people, the animals' homes are often depressingly too small. And one must question the educational value of a zoo when at least half the visitors were wearing fur-trimmed coats.

T = Twenty-five, the number of people in the group.

We pretty quickly split, however, into a group of ten from Sendai and a group of fifteen from the prefectural towns. And by "pretty quickly," I mean, "on the boat on the way up." This is the way it always goes when Miyagi and Sendai JETs do things together.

S = Shiroi Koibito, meaning "White Lovers."

Shiroi Koibito specifically refers to the most famous omiyage (obligatory present for coworkers when you travel) from Sapporo: a slice of white chocolate sandwiched between two thin vanilla wafers.

To make it worth the trek into the northeastern suburbs of Sapporo, the company created an entire complex. The factory floor is there, and fascinating to view (or perhaps it's just that I like factory tours), but somewhat drowns under the combined weight of several floors of chocolate-making historical artifacts, a very random toy museum, a rose garden complete with miniature cottages, a snow slide, an animatronic clock tower, and the Tudor-style buildings that house the whole thing.

Incidentally, I did not bring back Shiroi Koibito for my coworkers. I opted for much less expensive wafer-less white chocolate that I bought at the train station. I suspect they feel jilted.

U = Unexpected warmth.

The week before we arrived, temperatures in Sapporo hit -12 C. We arrived on the heels of a warm spell, however, and spent the week basking in temperatures of 2-5 C.

Well, sort of basking. Once the snow had no reason to stay frozen, it amused itself soaking our feet instead. My friend Caye, from Minnesota, and I -- both hardened snow veterans -- ended up having to buy new shoes, because the ones we'd brought were fuzzy and thus totally suitable for walking on top of snow, but did not hold up well at all to stomping through slush.

R = Racy storytime.

Our friend Matt, from Scotland, is serially publishing, in the local ALT newsletter, a "romance" novel about a nineteen-year-old girl who... sleeps with nearly everyone working at her father's manor.

I would give you the link, but to be truly enjoyed the piece must be read aloud by its author -- preferably in heavy, undefinable accent -- and even more preferably on a bus full of people who did not ask to listen to it.

I = "If life gives you lemons, make lemonade."

It was really very nice to spend a few days marvelling at the weather instead of complaining about it.