Japan 2011-Better weather in Sapporo

Woke up today to a better forecast than what we had ysterday. High will be 6 celsius and mostly sunny. First job of the day, exchange the JR pass. We are out of the hotel by 8am for a quick trip to the JR Saapporo station. In addition to exchanging the vouchers, we make seat reservations for the latter part of our first week. We have some travel times of 3.5 hours on 2 legs of the trip to Tokyo. It would be fairly unpleasent to have to stand during the duration.

With that business over, its back to Odori to view the work in progress. Many still have the scaffolding around them without the slightest hint of completion. At least the skeletal framework is not visible and they keep making headway towaqrds completion

Edit:The Lion King, the play was having an engagement in Sapporo

Others are more complete but the final design eludes me. There is usually one large ice carving thats lit up from the isnide with colored bulbs. Im assuming this will be that will be bathed in a spectrum of colors after nightfall

Edit: The city of Daejeon in South Korea

Here we have something closer to completion. Its an oriental building of some type, maybe a temple. Even though iuts nearing the end, passers by are still not able to get very close to view it. Alot of the final touches still need to be added

Edit:The Temple Of Heaven

There is always great care put into the attention to detail on these outdoor displays. With weather conditions like the prvious day, snow flurries can erase alot of the work and may need to be redone
I dont know if its because the festival begins later than usual but there seems to be fewer displays this year. Granted we didnt walk the full length of Odori but we saw most of what was being erected