Odori Park

Sapporo was planned on a grid in 1869, and two years later the settlers cleared a wide firebreak to keep fires in the shops and houses to the south from reaching the government quarter to the north. That firebreak is now Odori Park: about 1.5 km of lawn, flower beds and some 4,700 trees running from the TV Tower at West 1-chome to the rose garden at West 12-chome, with traffic on both sides. It is less a park to linger in than a long walk with places to sit. Around West 8-chome, Isamu Noguchi's Black Slide Mantra is a granite sculpture children actually slide down, and past the west end stands the 1926 stone court building that now holds the Sapporo City Archives. Corn wagons have sold grilled corn here since 1967. The calendar is what makes the place. The Snow Festival began in 1950 with six snow statues built by school students at West 7-chome; it now fills the park with more than 200 sculptures and about 2 million visitors. Then come the Lilac Festival in late spring, YOSAKOI Soran dancing in early summer, a long beer garden in high summer, Autumn Fest food stalls and the White Illumination in winter. During the big events the blocks are packed, so come early in the day.