1.
STV Snow Festival area
0.08

2.
CU PULL BACK..entrance to Festival
0.15

3.
SV & CU Animal and rider carrying torch
0.24

4.
GV Sumo wrestler figure
0.28

5.
CU Ice sculpture (figures in group)
0.32

6.
SV & CU Lowers inside cases of ice (2 shots)
0.40

7.
GV Gulliver and modern buildings in ice (2 shots)
0.50

8.
SV Visitors
0.58

9.
SV's buildings and figures in ice (3 shots)
1.06

10.
SV & CU Horyugi Temple
1.17


SCULPTURES AND MODELS IN ICE OF THE SNOW FESTIVAL.




Initials ES. 1310 ES. 1344



Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved

Background: Sapporo on Japan's northernmost island of Hokkaido was relying on the Winter Olympics this January to bring people to the city, but another attraction sure to charm the visitor is the annual Snow Festival, a wonderland of impressive sculpture in ice and snow.

Large-scale figures from local history and mythology, and buildings ancient and modern have been sculpted from the ice, the severe climate of this most northerly of Japan's cities giving them quite a long life.

Many of the sculptures also recall the antiquity of Hokkaido, last home of the primitive and almost extinct Ainu people, the original inhabitants of Japan.