Chizu Snow Festival 2015

Every February, Chizu hosts a yuki matsuri, or snow festival. While we do seem to get a lot of snow all at once here, it melts pretty quickly, because it doesn't actually get very cold. So naturally, we had lots of snow leading up to this weekend, but the day of the festival was snowless and actually sort of warm. I think they ended up having to import snow from the mountains or something.

We had Yana's happyoukai in the morning, and did shopping after that, but around noon we wandered around the festival. They have it spread all throughout the town - restaurants are open, lots of food stands, and some stands selling local wares or just kitschy stuff. They used the snow that was brought in to make sculptures, snow slides, and snow lanterns. There were also various lanterns made of bamboo and paper, but they don't light them up until it gets dark.

A kind of freaky giant Olaf.

Our first stop was to get some food, so Justin got a giant takoyaki thing. Shortly after that we ran into some neighbours whose younger daughter also goes to the hoikuen, although she's in a different class than Yana. The girls were happy to play together, so we stuck around. We were actually waiting around because there was a mochi making demonstration starting in 30 minutes. While we were waiting a kindly old man came and brought us some warm deer jerky and sake to try. I'm still not sure who he was or where he even came from, as he seemed to appear out of nowhere and then disappeared back into the crowd.

At some point the girls decided they wanted to go up to Suwa Jinja, which of course is up a million stairs on the mountainside above the town. So we went up there and Yana insisted we climb to the very top of the shrine. It was actually my first time visiting the shrine, and I've wanted to for a while, so it was nice to go. No one else was there, so it was very peaceful.

Suwa Jinja.

We walked back down and were just in time to catch the end of the mochi making. Unfortunately our short trek caused us to miss most of it.

Making mochi.

After that we split up and continued to wander around the streets, checking out all the stalls. Naturally along the way it seemed like we met just about everyone in town. Whenever I go out to festivals like this I see tons of students or kids from the hoikuen, so about every minute we're waving hello to someone who shouts, "Herro Anje-sensei!" or, "Yana-chan!"

We decided to head home, and on our way we passed a house with a bunch of locally dyed indigo fabrics on display. I really love the color, so I stopped to take a look. In the end I decided to buy a cloth decorated with a design which represents the famous Chizu cedar trees. While I was there I struck up a conversation with the old lady running the shop. Turns out her granddaughter is a first grader at the elementary school.

My gorgeous indigo dyed fabric.

We stayed at home for the rest of the afternoon, but went out again around 6pm, when it was dark and all the lanterns were lit up. It was incredible - every street of the town was lined with lanterns of various kinds; some lit traditionally with candles, others using flashing rainbow lights or battery powdered candles. Either way, it was gorgeous. Even the bridge was lined with lights.

This was the main event; there were no less than 10 guys lined up with their tripods.

We decided to walk a loop around the town, but on the way we were stopped by the fellows running the hot foot bath. Yana wanted to try it, and as we were standing there we met a man from Hungary! Turns out he lives with his family about 20 minutes away. I swear, for such a small town, Chizu sure sees a lot of foreigners! He seemed very excited to speak to someone in English and spent a while telling us all about how wonderful Chizu and Tottori are and how great this area of Japan is.

While we were chatting, Yana's best friend, Shi-chan, and her mother and sister showed up, so the three kids sat at the foot bath together. They had lots of fun playing together, along with a slightly tipsy Japanese man who was sitting with them (they were serving free sake).

Enjoying the warm foot bath.

And then we met some more people we know! Back in August, I believe, we went to a dinner party with some locals, and tonight we finally saw the host again. He is a friendly fellow, who is actually the head of a local oil company. His son was also in town, just for three days. He lives in Tokyo now, and is the same age as me. His English is quite impressive, so we were able to talk with him as well. We ended up staying for a while at the foot bath!

Eventually, though, Yana was completely soaked from water and it was getting late, so we said goodbye and walked home. It was definitely a fun-filled day!

P.S. Check out this video of the festival! Yana and I make a cameo appearance.