Hokkaido Day 15

Otaru - Mikudayo!

End of Day 15 in Hokkaido, Japan. Woke up and spent the whole day in Otaru, which is in the far West of Hokkaido, past Sapporo. What makes it special this time of year is that there’s a Hatsune Miku (Vocaloid) special exhibit that celebrates Hokkaido through a yearly “Snow Miku” that is based around a central theme that often showcases specific industrial or cultural aspects of Hokkaido.

Otaru is a city on the sea with interesting architecture and a lot of shops. It was far more full of tourism activity than I had expected - but it was fun nonetheless! As always, you can find more pictures on the Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thelanyardboard/

2026 Snow Miku is all about sweets - Hokkaido itself is the agricultural cornerstone of many of the ingredients for sweets, from sugar beets to wheat to milk, and as a result, many of the bakeries here have extremely fresh and local ingredients to use. The exhibit was fun, and it was really great to see so many people coming together around a common interest. Even after leaving the venue, in the town I would find many people wearing merchandise based around Hatsune Miku - and many of the local businesses have tie-in events or sport the likeness of the Snow Miku character.

Later in the day I headed down to the canal for the festival of lights, wherein Otaru over a very large area is lit up with candles in the snow. People will make snowmen and tiny sculptures that accompany the candles, and some lights are brought out over the waters of the canal. The result is dazzling. Logistically I couldn’t quite get a handle on it - there were a tremendous amount of people, and not as much centralization as many of the festivals I have attended so far - I am going to have to do a bit of internet sleuthing to find the chief organizers of the event to ask a few questions about how the whole thing comes together.

Snow Miku 2026’s core theme is “Shiawase Patisserie” (Happiness Bakery). There are always themed songs released for Snow Miku, and the headline this year is “Shiawase for you”, which can be watched here:

Tomorrow I am taking a surprise trip back up to Asahikawa - I have an awkward day before heading back to Tokyo, and wanted to revisit Asahikawa now that the festival is going on to see it with fresh eyes. More on that later.

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