Snow festival preperations

We went by the snow festival yesterday.  The snow sculptures are coming along well.  It was fun to see them in the process of being formed.

There were several whiteboards situated around Odori Park where visitors can write messages about the snow festival.

This sculpture is the magicians apprentice.  Not surprisingly, it is sponsored by Disney World Tokyo.  The large stars were glued onto the sculpture after being carved elsewhere. 

Here is a closeup of the face of one of the snow sculptures.  This sculpture is of Homare Sawa, captain of the Japanese Women's Soccer team which won the World Cup.

In this photo you can see how she is going to have hair extensions built (I assume out of snow) over the frame on the back of her head.

Here is Bre and Jody in front of an ice sculpture that I think is of the National Palace Museum of Taiwan.  I like the way the snow looks sitting on the ice.

They have models and drawings of the palace for viewing next to the sculpture.

Here is an important building for the coming crowds.

Next to the lost child center we found these two sculptures.  They are both named Ken, one is a boy and the other a girl.

In this photo you can see the two Kens on a sign.  I don't know what they are about, but it seems to be important.  If any of my readers can help me out and let me know I will update the blog with the correct info.

Here is a sculpture in a rough phase.  You can see a drawing of the sculpture nailed on the edge of the sculpture.

Here you can see some of the tools used in forming the sculptures.  The wooden pole to the left of the handsaw looks like an ice scraper at the bottom, similar to what you might use to scrape ice from your car windshield.

We came across this group of sculptors working on one of the community sculptures.  They used spray paint to mark where they wanted to carve.  They also had a TV camera following their exploits.  The community sculptures are awarded to local community groups for carving by applying through a lottery system.

This is one of the sculptures being built by the Japanese Defense Force.  We really liked the stone texture at the bottom of the sculpture.

I liked this little guy.

This sculpture was being built by a US Navy group.  It is the head of the Lone Sailor, a statue at the United States Navy Memorial.  We had a good time chatting with the Navy sculptors and learned that two of them are also from Seattle. 

The blocks of snow down by the Maypole are the location of the international snow carving competition that begins in a few days.

I took the last photos on the walk home near sunset.

That's all for now,

-Kyle (and Bre)