Day 2:  January 30, 2008

It was a beautiful morning as we were eating breakfast and looking out of the window.  We were excited about today’s itinerary.  It was all about snow today.  A perfect day to freeze our butts off.  First, we were heading to the Shirakaba Lake for the Crystal Festival.  And then, we would go to a ski resort for some sledding fun.  After lunch, it would be a three-hour bus ride to the Shinhotaka Ropeway.  There, we could ride the cable car to a stop at 7073 feet of the Hotakadake mountain.

Once we got to the Shirakaba Lake, we were disappointed.  The Crystal Festival was cancelled because there wasn’t enough snow and it wasn’t cold enough.  Thanks to the global warming.  Supposedly, the Crystal Festival each year drew thousands and thousands of people to see the work of art and wonder of ice.  The craftsman turned ice into beautiful sculpture.

We wandered through the gallery and saw the paper-cutting art exhibit.  We were not allowed to take photographs.  The artwork was unlike anything I had seen before.  It was breathtaking.

After we took some pictures outside of the gallery, we continued our journey.

The slide show below captured where we went on our second day in Japan.  Click on the picture to move onto the next one, or it will change every 10 seconds.
If you prefer, here is the complete list of the pictures.