The Eye of Patrick

In February the town of Shimokawa (my town) had its local festival. Most towns in Japan have different festivals for different seasons in the year. My towns winter festival is called “Ice Candle Festival”.

Now you might be asking what is an ice candle and how is it possible? Well it is actually really simple process and a beautiful one at that. During the nights leading up to the festival many town members fill buckets with water and leave them out to freeze and during the next day or day after they remove the semi frozen ice from the bucket and remove the water left in the middle of the semi frozen ice. What is left is a hallow ice cube, and is also where you place the candle. This process is done over many thousands times so that the final result is a night scenery of beautiful lights.

These ice candles are then places in the park and each night for a week are lit up for the town people and visitors to enjoy. Plus they have other events to interest people. One of the newer events is an “Ice Candle Wedding.” This is like it sounds a wedding at the ice candle festival. This year was maybe a more special year compared to previous ones as the person getting married was my predecessor. He had been living in Sapporo and so he was invited to have his wedding at the festival. (They were legally married before then.) It was a cold evening that day, I think it was -15 or so and so it must have been tough for my predecessor and his new wife as they were still dressed in traditional western wedding clothes. There were many speeches and gifts given to the new married couple and then it was over.

Other things that went on during the week included concerts and snow sculpture building. Though not as big as Sapporo Yuki Matsuri, it is almost as just as impressive to see the snow from the streets turned into such lovely castles and buildings. The snow sculptures were all built by the local people in the town. Each school built one, the army and some local businesses. I helped out a little with the high school one, though I can’t take credit for what turned out as many teachers spent the whole week working there. The crazy thing is that the festival lasts one week and the following week they are destroyed.

At the snow sculpture area they have concerts and yakiniku party (barbeque) and games for the kids. On the last day I made a visit to see the castles and also to talk to my students who were all there. I some how got roped into a team biathlon race, where we ran and shot targets and tried to beat the other teams. I think my team came in 5^th or 6^th place out of 12 teams, so we got a prize and drinks for free.

Overall the festival was a fun time and next year I look to be more involved in it. I hope you enjoy my photos and if you like them please leave a comment.

Thank you,

Patrick