The Coldest I've Ever Been

I grew up in Seville, in the south of Spain, where summer temperatures reach forty degrees and it almost never rains, let alone snows. I had seen snow in movies, in photographs, once from a distance on a mountain peak during a school trip. I had never actually touched it.

That changed the moment I stepped out of Sapporo Station in February.

It wasn't falling hard, not yet — just a few soft flakes drifting down under the streetlights, landing on my coat sleeve and melting almost instantly. I stopped walking completely, in the middle of the sidewalk, and just watched one flake land on my glove.

A group of local students walked past me, laughing at something on their phones, completely unbothered by the snow settling in their hair. For them, this was just Tuesday. For me, it felt like the beginning of something.

I pulled out my phone and, like an obvious tourist, sent a photo of my snow-dusted glove to my family group chat. My mother replied almost instantly: "¿Frío?" — Cold? I typed back a single word: "Perfecto."

I had come to Sapporo for one specific reason: the Snow Festival, held every February in Odori Park, where teams from all over Japan — and the world — build sculptures out of snow and ice the size of small buildings. I had seen photos online for years. I still wasn't prepared for what I found.

Odori Park stretched for over a kilometer, lined with snow sculptures so enormous they blocked out the streetlights behind them. One was a full-sized castle, carved in perfect white detail, complete with towers and a working staircase visitors could climb. Another was a dragon, twenty meters long, its scales carved individually into the packed snow. Groups of visitors posed for photos in front of each one, breath visible in small white clouds every time someone spoke or laughed.

I walked slowly between them, my camera out, taking far too many photos.

What I hadn't prepared for was the cold. Back home, I had packed what I thought was a "warm" coat. In Hokkaido, in February, it was nowhere near enough. Within twenty minutes, my fingers had gone numb inside my thin gloves, and I couldn't feel my toes at all.

An older woman selling roasted chestnuts from a small stall noticed me shivering and, without a word, pointed at a rack beside her cart: small packets labeled in Japanese, with a picture of two hands warming themselves.

"Kairo," she said, holding one up. "Hand warmers. You shake them, and they get hot." She demonstrated, cracking the packet and shaking it gently before handing it to me.

"First time in snow?" she asked, perhaps noticing my expression, somewhere between wonder and mild panic.

"First time ever," I admitted.

She laughed, not unkindly, and gestured at the rack of hand warmers again. "Then you will need more than one today."

Within a minute, the little packet was warm in my palm. I bought four more.

By early evening, the light had completely changed. As the sky turned dark blue, the sculptures — which had looked simply white and impressive during the day — glowed from the inside, lit in soft blues, purples, and golds.

The castle I had photographed earlier now looked like something from a fairytale, its towers glowing gently against the night sky. Steam rose from food stalls selling hot corn, roasted squid, and cups of warm amazake, a sweet, low-alcohol rice drink that locals seemed to be drinking by the cupful to stay warm.

I bought one, wrapped both hands around the warm paper cup, and stood watching the crowd for a while — families taking photos in front of the dragon, couples walking slowly hand in hand, a group of teenagers building their own small, unofficial snowman off to the side of the path.

I set my drink down carefully on a railing, knelt down, and, for the first time in my twenty-six years, packed a handful of snow into a ball.

It was colder than I expected, and it fell apart almost immediately in my glove.

I didn't care. I made another one, and this time, I threw it — badly, and much too far to the left — into the open, snowy dark.

Behind me, one of the teenagers laughed and threw one back.

I stood there for a moment, snow settling on my shoulders, my hands finally warm again around the cup I'd picked back up, and thought about how strange it was that something so simple — cold, wet, ordinary snow to nearly everyone else in this park — could feel like a small miracle, just because it was new.