On our second day, we spent the morning mainly exploring and shopping in Sapporo. In the evening, we travelled to Otaru, which isn't that far from Sapporo, to look at their local snow festival. It didn't take long to find evidence of it. The entire town was covered in candles embedded in temporary snow lanterns, like you can see in this picture.
The snow lanterns weren't the full story though. Pop down to the canal and you would see candles scattered across the surface of the water. There were also numerous displays of snow and light erected along a path that cut across the town, including the snow tunnel shown above.
Aki may be smiling in the picture, but I have to add: it was freaking cold.