The yearly seven-day snow festival began on 5 February in Sapporo exhibiting 290 ice and snow figurine in three sites in the city counting the main Odori Park site in Chuo Ward. Running till 11 February, the festival is expected to invite around 2 million people from across Japan and overseas.

Major highlights of this year’s festival revolves around the subject of nature and the surroundings such as two children grasping a statuette of the planet Earth and a mammoth snow effigy of a brown bear that occupies the Shiretoko area of Hokkaido. To make these sculptures possible, the organizers utilized 7,500 truckloads of snow by transporting it from neighboring countries as there wasn’t enough in the city during early January. As a part of the festival, a dance contest is also being scheduled for the first time; assigning a street near the Odori Park site that will be a vehicle-free esplanade this weekend.

Gallery: Snow Festival Begins in Sapporo

Via JapanToday