In the land of festivals and never ending things to see, there is always something going on. In Hokkaido - Japan's winter playground - we celebrate all things snow related by holding the country's largest and most famous snow festival (which is Yuki Matsuri, by the way), dog sled races, lantern festivals, snowball fight tournaments, cardboard sled competitions, and one other lesser known pastime - watching the 流氷, or Drift Ice. Who would've thought that looking at giant chunks of floating ice from Russia would be so enchanting? Apparently the Japanese do. I decided to see what the fuss was all about so, a few weekends ago, I headed out to Abashiri to view the Drift Ice for myself.

A group of ALTs in the area (and some from the other side of the Hokkaido) came out to celebrate the wonder that is drift ice. We started off the day by partaking in various Winter activities including checking out ice sculptures, snowmobiling on a frozen lake and a few hours of snowboarding. The highlight of the day was the sunset boat ride on "Aurora" out to the drift ice. When the weather is cold enough the drift ice comes right up to the coast and you can literally walk out onto the ice, but on this day the ice was a few hundred meters out to sea. The hour long boat trip took us on a big loop through the drifting sheets of ice that looked like mini icebergs trying to stay afloat. When the sun started to set and the temperature dropped, the beauty of the drift ice became apparent. We had great views of the coastline with the sun silhouetting the mountains and Mt. Rausu towering in the background. The boat continued through the drift ice that stretched out to the horizon and pushed its way relentlessly through the chunks of ice, lurching occasionally on the sheet that refused to break. Once the sun set and the boat returned to land, we immediately headed to an onsen to warm up our frozen fingers and toes. We left the onsen feeling warm and refreshed and finished off the day with dinner at an authentic Nepalese restaurant. After dinner we all headed to Caroline's house in Tokoro for a night of drinking and games. The theme of the night was "Queens of the Drift Ice" (now in its 2nd year) so costumes had to have anything "Queen" or "Drift Ice" related. I turned a black long-sleeve shirt and a ¥105 roll of yellow tape into a "Queen Bee" costume. It was a good end to a good day and I'm looking forward to it again next year!