A few days after realizing I would have to cancel the trip, my friend Sean called me with some news…he had found a tour package to Sapporo for the week before the Snow Festival for about $300 round trip, including 2 nights in a hotel. The trip I was planning to take would have been about $800... so I signed up.
This weekend I left the main island of Japan for the first time. Up til now, all travel I have done within the country has been on Honshu. We flew out of Kansai International Airport on Friday afternoon.
Immediately I was surprised because taking a domestic flight in Japan is like taking a train…EASY.
When going through security….
-you don't have to take off your shoes
-you don't even have to take off your coat
-liquids can be carried on; no plastic baggies and small bottles
-you don't have to show your I.D.
-you only have to take out your laptop (ie. No unpacking and re-packing)
Can you imagine? I barely remember what travel was like before it became such a hassle. Taking a domestic flight in Japan is like traveling back in time. It took us less than 10 minutes to get our tickets and get through security….
The flight was short, only about 2 hours, and then we were in Sapporo.
Sapporo is COLD. It is around the same latitude as Berlin I think, and Berlin is COLD. So we went off in search of our hotel…2 nights and a round trip flight for $300…I must have been staying in a hell hole right? WRONG!
After getting lost a few times (ie. Walking too far and having to turn around), we made it to our hotel. It was really really nice. Huge lobby, really clean, comfortable beds…awesome…the type of place I stay when my parents are paying the bill (^_-) but I can afford.
Liz and Phil were really tired (Phil had the flu (T_T)) so Sean and I went off in search of a ramen restaurant alone. It was a cute little ramen shop around the corner from our hotel. Nothing overly special, but the little Mom and Pop shops are always the best.
Hokkaido is famous for lots of different kinds of food; ramen, crab, sea urchin, caramels, milk, cheese….etc (in case you didn't know, the Japanese are obsessed with food. I sat in on this lecture about tourism in Kameoka and they said that over 50% of people travel in order to try the food that is special to a certain location).
The next morning we started fairly early and hopped on the train to go to the Asahiyama Zoo…a zoo? I went to Hokkaido to go to a zoo? A zoo 2 hours away from where I was staying?
Yep. It is the most famous zoo in Japan. Most zoos are really sad in Japan. They are dark, and small, and the animals look miserable. But at Asahiyama, all the animals were really active. The polar bears were fighting and playing; the red pandas were running all over their little obstacle course; the seals were swimming through tunnels; the lions, tigers, panthers, leopards, etc were all running around their cages. Every animal was so much more active than I have ever seen them at any zoo. There was even a penguin march where the zoo keeps herded the penguins around the pathways. It was adorable. All in all, totally worth it.
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| From Hokkaido Videos |
One of my favorite things about traveling in Japan is that riding on trains offers you the opportunity to really see the country. Our 2 hour train ride out to the zoo gave me an amazing view of the mountains in Hokkaido and the trip back was accompanied by a beautiful sunset into the mountains.
Hokkaido in winter, as I have said, is COLD. The streets were all covered with layers of ice a couple of inches thick…everywhere. After getting off the bus from the zoo I totally slipped and fell right on my butt in the middle of the sidewalk. Thankfully I didn't get hurt (wait, I have made it through a trip without getting sick, getting anything stolen, getting hurt, or getting scabies!!!!! Can I keep it up? Let's find out….)
After ensuring that I did not have a concussion, we headed back into the Sapporo area and went to this little town known for it's canal (large creek? small river? I dunno the best word for it…). It was really cold by this point. Snow was piled up higher than my head on the edge of the sidewalk, and people had made their own snow sculptures. This is when we discovered the sand bottles. There were these little stands on each street corner, like the ones that sell newspapers in the States, filled with bottles of sand. You can take a bottle and use the sand to keep yourself from slipping on the ice and then you just return the empty bottle to one of the other stands. Yep, the Japanese are brilliant…in such simple ways.
While walking around that area I realized how close we were to the ocean, when I walked right by it.....It was dark, which always makes the ocean scarier, but it made me excited for when it gets warmer and I can go visit Matt out by the beach.
After that, we decided to go get dinner…where else but the Sapporo Brewery? The brewery is a pretty big tourist attraction with a huge dining hall. We got lamb yakiniku (meat you grill yourself at the table). And we had a couple of special beers they don't sell outside the brewery. We wanted to spend a lot more time there, but they were closing so we had to sort of rush through dinner and head back. Sean and I decided to walk back to the hotel to get a tour of the city.
Sapporo is a really beautiful city at night. We got some great pictures of us goofing around as we made our way through the city. We found the street that will be hosting the Snow Festival next week and they were just beginning the building of some of the ice/snow sculptures. The snow sculptures are HUGE, and the main ones are generally created by the Japanese Self Defense force.
The next morning Sean and I set off to find the snow sculptures. Luckily we found the main part of the street sectioned off for the exhibit. There was a huge one of the Japanese Olympic Gold Medal winners, including the one of Kitajima surging out of the water with his arms stretched out (man I was SO tired of seeing that back in August) and also simpler ones of Snoopy or Pon de Lion (the mascot of Mr. Donuts).
While walking down the street we saw this older lady slip on the ice. Her granddaughter caught her but the woman couldn't get up so we ran over to help. It made me wonder how many hip replacements are done in Hokkaido a year....it must be a higher percentage than other, less icy places.
It started to snow pretty hard around this point so we walked back up toward the TV tower and went inside for a bit before heading to Nijo market. Nijo market is a fish market where we decided to get lunch, fresh crab...mmmmmm. Seriously, living in Missouri, I never really got a taste for seafood, but fresh crab is amazing. I also even got up the guts to try sea urchin...this brownish yellow gunky lookin stuff. It was kind of briny tasting but not too bad when mixed with rice.
After that we braved the snow storm, which had now become much stronger. We cut through a shopping center, and a group of Hokkaido-ans laughed at how cold I looked and offered me a taste of the drink they were selling, hot milk and something (I didn't quite catch what it was....but it sounded like they said something about corn....). It was sweet tasting and really warm, which was great in the cold, so we stood around chatting with the locals while warming up.
Then we made our way to Sapporo station so we could catch the bus to head back to the brewery. We decided we wanted to take the tour. We didn't have much time because we had to get out to the airport to catch our flight, so we rushed through the museum to get to the tasting section. They were offering their chocolate beer, which sounds disgusting, but it really was just like a softer version of Guinness, so I loved it (though Guinness is better, but at about $9 a glass I don't get it much out here)
（￣へ￣）
Then we took some random pictures in the igloo out front and the barrel shaped telephone booth before I went to the gift shop...where I found Hokkaido milk Kit Kats (I believe I have gone over my obsession with flavored Kit Kats...I think I have about 9 of the sweet potato flavored ones in my office to take to lunch, but they are limited time so I have to get them while I can....ok, I'm pathetic, I know...)
We were running late so we RAN to catch the bus and then took an unintended tour of Sapporo since we grabbed the bus with the slower, longer route....
Luckily we made it on time and got to the airport without any issues. We did our final shopping, where I was finally able to pick up some chocolate covered potato chips (yep, a Japanese invention, no matter how American it sounds) and a couple other famous items of Hokkaido, including melt in your mouth caramels that reminded me of the Werther's Originals my grandfather used to keep in the candy drawer.
After that it was back to Kameoka.
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