Sculpture Of A Japanese Temple (Shinto), Sapporo Snow Festival 2013 Editorial Image

A Shinto shrine is a structure whose main purpose is to house (enshrine) one or more Shinto kami.(Its most important building is used for the safekeeping of sacred objects, and not for worship). The Sapporo Snow Festival, one of Japan's largest winter events, attracts a growing number of visitors from Japan and abroad every year. Every winter, about two million people come to Sapporo to see a large number of splendid snow statues and ice sculptures which line Odori Park, the grounds at Tsudome, and the main street in Susukino. For seven days in February, these statues and sculptures (both large and small) turn Sapporo into a winter dreamland of crystal-like ice and white snow. The Snow Festival began in 1950, when local high school students built six snow statues in Odori Park. In 1955, the Self-Defense Force joined in and built the very first massive snow sculpture, for which the Snow Festival has become famous for now. The Festival has grown from these humble beginnings to become one of the biggest and most well known of Hokkaido's winter events. The Snow Festival is considered to be a festival of international-caliber.