小樽雪あかりの路, Otaru Yuki Akari no Michi

We went to Otaru on Tuesday for The Yuki Akari no Michi festival, which translates roughly as the the Snow Light Path Festival.  Otaru is a port city located near Sapporo.

Taking the train with our friend Michael who uses a wheelchair was quite the experience.  When we got to the train station one of the JR officials helped us to the correct track for our train and got a ramp to get Michael up into the train.  He gave us instructions on how to get to Otaru, by getting off at Teine and transferring to a second train.  When we arrived in Teine we found a JR employee waiting for us at our train car with a ramp to transfer Michael.  They would call ahead to each station that we used and send help for his wheelchair.  When we arrived in Otaru I didn't see a JR employee so I transferred Michael out of the train.  As soon as Michael was out the JR employee came up with the ramp and apologized for not getting there in time to help us.  He then took Michael down the escalator at the Otaru Station.  I have never before seen an escalator with the wheelchair feature that this one had.  I tried to find a video of it online without success.  This escalator had a special wheelchair feature where three of the escalator panels flattened out to make a space large enough for a wheelchair.  There were special metal flaps that came up to hold the wheels in place.  Once Michael was situated the escalator slowly transferred him down to the lower level.  The whole thing was very smooth, and with our limited Japanese, very mysterious.  Once we saw how it worked we were very impressed.

We met up with our friends Anton and Mami to see the lights and walk along the canal.  I took a few photos of the candle lights during our walk.  There were many blocks with different snow sculptures and candles.  They were very creative and pretty.  I was told that this is a good place to go for a romantic night with someone special.

There were many Otaru residents out monitoring the candles to keep them lit.  When I was taking photos one of them came along and helped push Micheal's wheelchair.

The leaf candle photo credit goes to Bre.

Here is a photo of Michael and Brigid by the canal.  The lights in the canal are all floating candles.  They were very lovely.

After all this walking around in the cold we were hungry so we tried a sushi restaurant near the canal.  Otaru is famous for its sushi and its fame is well deserved.  It was the best sushi I have ever had.  The sushi looked great and had amazing texture.  It was oishikatta!  We sat at the bar and watched the sushi chefs prepare our food.  They have a saying at this sushi restaurant(according to our friends who translated for us) there is no sushi from yesterday.

That's all for now,

-Kyle (and Bre)