Japan Photo of the Week: Susukino Ice Festival
Last week I mentioned possibly one of the best festivals in Japan and today I got kind of an extension of the Sapporo Snow Festival, which is The Susukino Ice Festival. For those of you who don’t know, Susukino is to Sapporo what Shinjuku is to Tokyo. For those of you who still don’t know, Susukino is the nightlife district of Sapporo (Hokkaido really…) offering you everything from trendy restaurants, bars, night clubs, karaoke places and delicious (and famous) Sapporo Ramen shops to all kinds of adult entertainment, like gambling in the form of pachinko or slots, host and hostess bars, massage parlors and more. So what is the best part of the Susukino Ice Festival? It is the ice bars of course!
During the Susukino Ice Festival, which is the same time as the Sapporo Snow Festival, the streets of Susukino are lined with ice sculptures and are lit up at night. The small ice sculptures are not as impressive as the gigantic snow sculptures, but still are pretty amazing to me. Like I mentioned before though, the small ice bars, serving up hot alcoholic drinks and shots down ice slides, are the main attraction here! For more photos of some of the actually sculptures and information see the Japan Photo Guide. This photograph was taken by Evan Pike. 
