Our last morning in Yudanaka, after a nice breakfast at Ryokan Hakura, Onozawa-San nicely drove us to the park entrance and we got up there bright an early before everyone else, which is good considering how packed with tourists it got by 10:00 when we were about to leave. Thankfully it also opened 10mn early (08;50), giving us a bit of extra time. This also includes a 20-30mn hike on a snowy path from the winter entrance.

The monkeys are of course incredibly cute, and we found plenty of then in the natural onsen in the morning, as a way for them to warm up:

hot vent in the snow

the onsen was full

amazing it can stay in a branch like that

Good Bye Nagano

Haneda

Fuji-San, at sunset, lucky shot from the plane

Lots of driving in Sapporo to get some remote resorts (Rusutsu, Kiroro)

Many deer walking on the road, our rental car had a deer anti collision device for night driving

Mt Yotei was a nice volcano visible from all around. Some people hike it up for back country skiing

We ended up driving a fair amount, the car came it quite handy:

Outside of Niseko, we went to:

The festival, though was fun and pretty, too bad it was almost a 4H drive (return) from Niseko, and the bad traffic jam...

We had a very quick look at Otaru while we still had a bit of daylight left, including the local (small) museum, mostly centered around trains:

cool to see snow all the way to the ocean

We then went to see the Snow Light Path festival:

I love you too Arturo :)

Since we were going to Sapporo for the snow and ice festival, we left early to visit what we could during the day. We started with Shiroi Koibito Park, a chocolate cookie factory that pretends to be the charlie chocolate factory with oompa loompas, and while it is touristic, it's funy and pretty :)

Next, we went to historic village of hokkaido, which was a mix of old and new buildings, which felt a bit weird to me. I'd say it's not an essential visit, but it was nice to see with the snow:

Next door was the historical museum of hokkaido, which I found much more interesting:

interesting that Hokkaido lies more south than Paris and gets so much more snow

the Ainu people lived in Hokkaido for a long time before the Japanese came

And eventually we got to our hotel in Sapporo and stored the car in the car elevator :)

many spots for many cars

We then headed to Odori Park and the TV tower for some views:

we then took the stairs down

In the evening, we walked around town a little bit and went for more tower views:

and for fun we took the subway back to the hotel

Of course, the main reason for going to Sapporo was the Sapporo Snow Festival, which is on its own page

Of course, we went to Sapporo for the snow and ice festival, so here are the pictures:

awesome lighting effects