Ice, Ice, Baby...

To Sunday then, and the coldest I think I've ever felt before. After almost two hours of recovery in the sancturary of Sapporo's Excelsior Cafe, and with bleary eyes and tired expressions all round, we embarked on a journey to Sato Land, the festival's other major site one hour away from Sapporo by bus.

After all of us slept the whole way there, getting off was something of an eye opener - vast expanses of snow-white plains for miles around and by God was it cold. What we'd failed to appreciate was that cold though Sapporo was, at least the city had plenty of tall buildings to act as wind breakers. The place were now at had nothing as far as the eye can see, enabling the bitter winds to do their very worst...

Sato Land wasn't short of things to see or do by any means - enormous ice slides, snow labyrinths and a ride in a dinghy attached to a snowmobile promised much frosty fun, but with three hour queues for the slides and the thought of the cold winds whipping across my face putting me off the idea of the snowmobile, I contented myself with simply sampling the huge range of hot cuisine on offer from various stalls and trailers. Jared, Sean and Hannah weren't to be put off though and enjoyed icy drive around the track, the fools.

After a doner kebab, some corn on the cob, a cup of hot whiskey and as much time sheltering inside the site's main building that we all thought we could get away with, we had a quick wander around the snow labyrinth before admitting defeat and heading back ahead of the end of the closing ceremony.

With all of us in a near state of deep freeze, an emergency onsen-based thaw-out session was called for before heading down the road for a meal at a charming locale by the name of 'Nuts Cafe' and yet another extremely ill-advised nomihodai. The sensible ones (Mercedes, Jared, Hannah) made their excuses and left at a realatively reasonable time, seeing as we were due to be getting a bus to the airport the following day before 6am. The rather more foolish ones (me) thought they'd see how far they could push the fun before the voice of reason made itself heard and suggested that maybe another tequila wasn't such a good idea after all. The lost causes (Gemma, Sean) on the other hand, declared war on the forces of reason and the human body's capacity for alcohol absorption and stayed til nearly four, making friends with the bar staff, flirting with the bar staff, solemnly promising to one day marry the bar staff and ultimately yakking up outside, leaving a particularly colourful ice sculpture of their own.

All of which tomfoolery ended up making for perhaps the most chaotic boarding of a flight I can ever remember having. Sean had gone AWOL that morning from the capsule, and it was only with the kind assistance of the hotel staff that I was able to track him down to the lounge area on the top floor. With his basic motor functions seemingly shot to pieces and his eyes apparently only registering something else very far away when I tried talking to him, I ended up shoving his flight ticket in his hand and barrelling back downstairs to rejoin the others and seize our bus.

Three of us even managed to get through airport security together. Gemma got separated following a paged announcement for her over the airport's PA. Turned out it was courtesy of Sean who'd made it to the airport with moments to spare, only sans his ticket and mobile phone. Much negotioation later, Sean finally made it onto the plane and came to the back where we were seated to announce proudly that he was a 'star' before being led to the new seat he'd to reserve near the front.

So, that was Snowporo. A lot of snow, a lot of fun and one hell of a lot of drinking. Remember kids, one is never enough...