Opening today in its 51st year, the annual Sapporo Snow Festival is still one of Japan's largest tourist attractions. The festival boasted nearly 2.5 million visitors last year -- a number expected to match this year's total -- and lasts only a week at the former site of the 1972 winter Olympics. International guests come to gape at colossal ice sculptures, which feature detailed renderings of Disney characters, China's Temple of Heaven, and everything in between. Preparations for the festivities began over a month ago and required upward of 6,000 truckloads of snow.
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