Otaru, Japan — a magical candlelit winter wonderland

Otaru, Hokkaido, Japan. February 2023.

When I first heard about the Otaru Snow Light Path Festival, I knew I had to go. (I found out about it about a month before I actually did go.) Though I was in Minnesota at the time in -17°C weather, I somehow really wanted to experience winter this year, and willingly traveled to Hokkaido, where it was -19°C but with more snow.

Every year in February, the seaside port town of Otaru in northern Hokkaido lights up with hundreds of candles placed in “lanterns” made out of ice and snow. They line the path along the canal and other parts of the city, creating a truly magical atmosphere where one feels as if they have stepped into a winter wonderland fairytale.

Walking along this candlelit path put me in a reverie of thought and true wonder at the elements. It was a celebration of fire and ice, two elements so far from each other in their nature, yet coming together in such a beautiful dance of light and refraction, illumination.

I came to think of the spiritual journey. That we may approach this journey from such different ways of being, simply being in our own nature, coming together to create something more uniquely beautiful and extraordinary than we could do alone, or among more of the same. The striking beauty is created in the vast difference. The unique light produced by a single flame refracted through ice, lighting up an entire path.

To add to the magical quality of the whole experience are the glass factories in the city. I felt that I stepped into a Hirao Miyazaki (Studio Ghibli) film, with the myriad windup toys, spinning and singing their melodies, glass ornaments and trinkets from an era of craftsmanship that is not so easily found anymore. I felt nostalgia for a time I didn’t even know — there was a feeling that I had been transported in time, to an imaginary childhood perhaps, where snow danced in snow globes and lights glittered outside as snowflakes larger than gumdrops fell from the sky.

The most vivid experience, perhaps, of my time in this city, was a moment of standing at the far end of where the snow light path ended at the north end of the canal.

There was a building that they had strung with lights, which were pulsating to the music playing on speakers from the building. The building was on the other side of the canal. The lights danced over and reflected in the water. An occasional gondola drifted by full of people admiring the lights.

The candles on this side of where I was standing illuminated the path, the flames dancing inside ice. Snow fell from the sky in thick flakes. A few hot food and drink tents were clustered nearby, at the end, where people gathered for something to warm their hands and stomachs.

I stood there for a long time, in a moment so present it felt like an eternity. And I had a very distinct knowing that this moment would be etched forever in my memory. A memory made in an intense experiencing of the present moment.

The music emanating in surround sound created a vibe so perfect it felt as though Spirit itself was completing the moment with music from the sky.

In moments like this, life feels so surreal and yet so real at the same time. Perhaps it was the magic of Otaru, of a city lit up with fire and ice, blanketed to the chimneys with soft white snow, winding by on its own time as it sang its own song — or perhaps it was being in the present moment, stopping for time to stop and listening to the rhythms of a place as you become a part of it. Perhaps it is all of it.

Thank you, Otaru, for giving me this gift. Of living inside my own fairytale.