February 20, 2000. "Winter story of Towada lake in 2000" at Towada lake in Towada-Hachimantai national park. There was an event held in "Yasumiya" around in Towada lake, during February 10th to 20th. During this time, there are excursion steamers that are use to be suspended during winter and also there is a "Girls statue" that is the symbol of the Towada lake. In the event of the Yasumiya, there was a statue of an old castle that is made by snow by the Hachinohe rangers, a live concert of Tsugaru Shamisen, and fire works. They held the event until 9 o'clock, but around this time they aren't so many people as it gets cold in the night. Well they have to leave earlier as they have to go across the mountain apart from the people who stay in hotels. Speaking of me it took me an hour and a half to go across Mt. Hakkouda in the afternoon but it took me 3 hours, as I didn't cross the mountain.

	Towada lake in sunset. Usually many swans come to this lake, but I couldn't see any today. There were couple of ducks swimming in the lake.		The symbol of Towada lake, "Girls statue". It was hard to open my eyes as it snowed hard after the sunset. They light up the statue only during the event. Around the statue there were many small snow caves.
	We have to go through the forest of the Towada shrine to go to the place of the meeting from the statue. The small snow caves that are made beside the road lights the forest and made the place fantasia.		The place of the meeting. There were about 5 to 6 snow statue made by the people in the schools or hotels. The most beautiful statue was the old castle made by the rangers.
	They did fire works in the end of the meeting. They did that every night so I thought it will make no difference comparing with the other nights, but some how my thoughts were wrong. The production of the fire works were excellent as they do the fire works every summer. You can see Nebuta in the right side of the picture. Wait for the picture of the Nebuta until summer.