Not just your average snowmen

The Ojiya Balloon Festival - http://www.niigata-nishikigoi.com/node/718 - also coincides with the Ojiya Yuki Matsuri, or snow festival.

One of the events that takes place is a snow sculpture competition, below you can see this years entries.

Another element of the weekend is the Glow Balloon Festival and as dusk started to fall 10 balloons arrived to take part.  There were literally hundreds of photographers there as well!