snow on mt rokko

went up to mt rokko on sunday to see the ice festival that wasnt to be.. the annoying thing was that there was nothing on the website stating that the festival was terminated - and hence now open to the public for free - due to poor weather conditions, so we sort of went there for nothing when you could have gotten a refund of your ticket if you went to a hanshin railway counter..

i wouldnt say it was a wasted trip though, because the snow was nice and, having gone to rokko once, im not likely to go there again, as i'd pretty much consider it a tourist trap of sorts. firstly, there's nothing much to do there. the main attraction is the ski grounds, but the snow there is apparently fake as there's not enough snow on rokko to sustain the ground permanently. also, all the other attractions cost money - the musical box house, for example, costs about 1200yen for entry - and they dont even seem that interesting either, unless you're interested in botanic gardens (at the top of a mountain, so cold climate plants perhaps?) or pastures with sheep (as illustrated on the pamphlet).

that doesnt sound like too much, until you consider the inconvenience of getting there by public transport. you have to take a city bus (200yen) up to the cable car stop, and you MUST take the cable car up the mountain. to get around the various sites in the mt rokko area, you have to take the mt rokko loop bus, and the combined ticket for the bus and cable car is 1300yen. sounds like an okay deal, but the bus only comes twice an hour, which means that you must spend either half an hour only, or more than an hour at any one attraction. add that to the fact that if you miss the bus you have to stand around waiting in the cold - or hang about aimlessly in a shop or some other place with heating - it becomes, in general, an inconvenience.

there were some pretty sights though, like my first icicle sighting:

while waiting for the bus, we wandered down this track and it was really nice to walk on the white snow.. came across this house

that's clearly abandoned:

we didnt go in though, which was good, cos i dont think i'd have the guts to explore :P mt rokko seems to have quite a few holiday homes though.

it's really nice how the ice and snow freezes on branches and trees, and i've never seen such a white landscape before! shikoku had snow, but the trees werent covered in it

i thought this was really gorgeous:

the Rokko Garden Terrace area, which is main place where visitors can dine and "shop". the food court was an awful rip-off though - a small cup of coffee (wasnt very good coffee either) cost 300yen! the other stuff were ok priced - ramen for 650yen is pretty normal - but the taste left a fair bit to be desired..

the ice festival was cancelled because temperatures werent constant enough to keep the sculptures from melting i think. some of the other singaporean JETs mentioned last week that there are concerns regarding the Hokkaido Snow Festival, because the snow in hokkaido freezes, then melts, then freezes again. it's apparently a rather cold winter this year - colder than last year i heard - but temperatures do fluctuate a fair bit. we'll have a bout of really cold weather, then it'll go back to less cold temperatures, and then it gets really cold for a while again. winter is rather annoying.

some of the sculptures that were on display:

this is one of those that had melted i think. the sign says that it's meant to be a dragon, but it looks nothing like one:

what i dont get is why even though the ice festival has been terminated, there are still some artists working on their sculptures. an ultraman in progress:

headless mermaid:

check out this lady wielding a chainsaw:

the ice festival was pretty small and somewhat of a letdown actually.. but there were so many people there! all of whom were conned, just like us :P i dont think i'll consider going there again next year, unless they appear to have a lot more stuff to see! grrrrrrrrr.

to end, here's one of my favourite sights of the day:

:)