Icy bait: Visitors, local and foreign alike, erect tents they rent onsite while fishing in the frozen lake of Abashiri.

It was cold. Freezing cold. Winter is harsh and it'€™s the harshest in Hokkaido compared to other parts of Japan.

Snow may create problems for the local residents in the East Asian country'€™s northernmost major island, a Japanese fellow said, but is often romanticized by tourists.

Evening had just arrived one day in early February. Snow blanketed the street, buildings, trees and hills in Sounkyo, which is located in Mount Daisetsu National Park, turning everything crisp white.

Piles of snow on the road side were a meter thick, if not more

From my hotel room, I could see the twinkling lights from nearby hotels, homes and streetlamps delicately illuminating the onsen (hot spring) resort.

Right across from the hotel, which sits snuggly upon one of the hills, were structures resplendent with purple, green, red, blue and yellow lights.

I was one of five Indonesian journalists invited by the Japan Tourism Agency and the Japan National Tourism Organization and facilitated by All Nippon Airways (ANA) to the Sounkyo Ice Waterfall Festival.

Ice castle: A snow sculpture of India'€™s Tomb of Itmad-ud-Daula stands among other ice and snow sculptures at the Sapporo Snow Festival'€™s Odori site.
The temperature was -14 degrees Celsius when we arrived there and this was just the beginning, as it gradually dipped throughout the day.

It is best to wrap up in as many layers possible; long johns, hat, scarf, winter jacket, gloves and boots, but even then the biting cold was seeping through the protective layers.

Cold is understatement, by the way. The biting cold and a chilly breeze worked extremely well together to make my face stiff and make speaking extremely difficult.

Despite the cold, the ice structures, many built by Japanese companies, were a sight to behold and mesmerized everyone '€” tourist, local and foreigner alike.

The colorful illuminations strung around the ice structures welcomed gave off an aura of fantasy.

Unfortunately, I missed out on the festival'€™s weekend firework show.

Astonishing ice statues and caves '€” including one that looked like a bar and another like a castle '€” stood on a 10,000-square-meter plot of land on near the Ishikari River.

Inside the ice caves, water seemed to have been frozen in time it was falling, creating ice stalactites.

Only cold drinks: Tourists visit a bar-like ice cave at the Sounkyo Ice Waterfall Festival in Sounkyo, Hokkaido.
'€œFirstly, the basic frames are set up, and then the water is poured over these frames in order to freeze it,'€ said my Japanese guide, Toshihiro Kamba.

It took one month to build all the ice structures, with many people starting in mid-December, before the 38-year-old festival began on Jan. 18. The festival, which always starts on the third Saturday of January, will run until the end of March.

And when it is over, all the structures are destroyed as should they be left standing they would begin to melt in April, when the average temperature increases to around 9 degrees Celsius.

Next in our itinerary was Sapporo, the largest city on the island, for another ice festival '€” a much bigger and older one. It was a lot warmer boasting temperatures of around -9 degrees Celsius.

Susukino was the first site I visited for the 65-year-old Sapporo Snow Festival, which also had two other sites in Odori and Tsudome.

Ice sculptures and structures, including an ice bar offering hot drinks, included beautiful illuminations on the background.

Those structures stood between shops, restaurants, bars and adult-entertainment establishments.

Favorites: A group of penguins walk down the lane with crowds on their right and left sides at Asahiyama Zoo in Asahikawa, Hokkaido.
Yes, Susukino is one of Japan'€™s major red-light districts and a place where I easily found girls '€” in a plethora of outfits '€” handing out explicit leaflets to passersby.

I continued the ice festival adventure the next morning on Friday to the Odori site, which offered 12 blocks of 108 snow and six ice sculptures, including those created for a competition by foreign teams, including the US'€™ Hawaii and Portland, Malaysia and New Zealand.

A man-made hill '€” measuring 24-meters high and 60-meters long '€” was also built for top class snowboarders and freestyle skiers to show off their skills, one of the most popular attractions.

Sapporo Festival also had venues for kid and adult activities.

'€œThis is our first time here and it'€™s really amazing,'€ said a British couple, adding they were in Sapporo skiing at a nearby mountain.

With time running out for my romantic Hokkaido winter journey, I would miss Japan, but was already longing for the warmth of home.

'€” Photos by Mustaqim Adamrah