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Published: February 26th 2008
ready to go!
Josh, Lara, Christine and Zach at Sannomiya Station in Kobe, ready to go to the airport!: snow
nenkyuu: paid vacation leave
kazoku: family
hikouki: plane
kouen: park
yuki daruma: snowman
samui: cold
kani: crab
hotate: scallops
sake: salmon (or sake rice wine depending on the context)
shiroi koibito: white lovers
tabehoudai: all you can eat
nomihoudai: all you can drink
February 7: Let’s enjoy Nenkyu Nenkyu is wonderful…instead of waking up at 7:00am and snoozing my alarm every five minutes until 7:30am, I got to sleep in until 8:15am! Woo-hoooooo! For on this day, the Kinokawa Kazoku and I were off to Hokkaido to go to the Yuki Matsuri!!!
We all met up on the train and began our 3 hour trek to Kobe Airport…it was boring. But it passed pretty quickly since we were all together and eventually we made it to Kobe Airport, the tiniest airport ever…there’s basically one gate. I pretty much slept through the whole flight and we arrived in Hokkaido around 4pm or so.
So in anticipation of it being much colder and snowy,
Rokko Mountain...
haha, the Rokko Mountain Parfait...and Josh! we all had packed on the layers…which was fine when we were outside, but we were literally baking in the train…it felt insanely hot and sweaty everywhere that was inside and really bone-chilling cold outside…it was always a rough transition from outside to inside, but I think it was especially so on that very first train ride from the airport to the hotel in Shin Sapporo…
I have never seen so much snow before…being from the mild bay area, the only times I had seen snow were in Tahoe pretty much, but never piled up so much in an urban city. It was so powdery and perfect too. For me and Christine (Hawaii person) it was a novelty seeing so much snow. We met up with some other JETs that night and had the best Indian food in all of Japan at the Taj Mahal. We had a toast for Ben, who loved to make curry and who would have been on our trip with us.
Afterwards, we walked around Odori Kouen, where the main snow sculptures are, before heading home for some R&R so we could get an early start being tourists the next day…
February Kobe airport
psh...bunch of tourists... 8: Let’s enjoy Sapporo= fish, ramen, beer, chocolate and SNOW!
It was so nice waking up to a beautiful clear day and set off on our first full day in Sapporo! A bunch of us Kansai JETs, met up to set out on our first adventure in Hokkaido…
We hit up the Nijo Fish Market, where we saw a LOT of crabs of all kinds, salmon, scallops and ikura. I really liked the feel to the fish market…I’m sure it was touristy and all, but it really reminded me of things that I guess I could see at home…fresh seafood markets, people preparing grilled scallops and crab soup outside their vending stalls, just the feeling of business going on at a face to face level. It just had a good energy, and it was a perfect sunny clear morning. Some of the JETs had steaming bowls of crab soup, but Christine and I went into a small shop and shared a bowl of sushi rice topped with fresh salmon- it was sooooooo good!
Next we headed to the Shiroi Koibito Chocolate Factory…I guess the story here in Japan is that they got in trouble a little while
Kobe airport
awwww, the ladies of the family (not pictured, Josh and Zach...hahahahahaha!) back for selling expired goods, but I guess they’re supposed to be okay now…anyhow, it was really cute. They had a little miniature village outside and a small snow slide that we all went down. Also, by that time it was really snowing- again, a novelty for people from Hawaii and the California Bay Area…inside we toured around and eventually plopped down at the café to share some chocolate fondue.
After that, Me, Zach, Christine and Laura headed to the Sapporo Beer Museum where we sampled some beer, before heading back into town. We topped off our night with huge, steaming bowls of Sapporo ramen from one of the ramen places in the Susukino districts infamous Ramen Alley. The specialty of Sapporo Ramen is something about using pork bones…and then topping the ramen with butter and corn. Yum yum!
February 9: Let’s enjoy snowboarding! Awesomely exhausting day…we boarded an express train for Niseko around 7am to head to the slopes for snowboarding and skiing…
Despite the early rising and then finding out we, unlike all the rest of the JETs on the trip, didn’t have reserved train seats for the two hour ride and then sitting
on the floor the whole way, it was a really fun day! Niseko was beautiful and the snow was pretty nice…I still sucked at snowboarding, but no major wipeouts! We were all pretty exhausted by the end of the day and went to the hotel spa (which told me I had to cover my tattoo) and then off to a restaurant in Susukino that had a tabehoudai yaki-niku and seafood…I don’t know why, but yakiniku style dining is really fun- there’s a communal grill in the center of the table where everyone can cook their meat and veggies by themselves…I wish we had more places like that in the states. Anyhow, we basically stuffed ourselves. While at the restaurant, we ran into Perry, another Waka JET, and we took purikura and took a peek at the susukino ice sculptures.
February 10: Let’s enjoy nomihoudai! Haha…actually, let’s not enjoy nomihoudai for a long time…1. It always turns into a desperate race against the clock to consume as much beer as possible in a mere two hours…2. it always ends up turning into a drinking competition between any tables within shouting distance and 3. due to the previously enumerated reasons,
Waka Waka!
Lara looks so tiny! it gets real SLOPPY real fast…then, after your two hours, the restaurant (Kirin Beer Garden), releases the floodgates and lets loose a teeming stream of drunk gaijin (JETs from around Japan) to wreak havoc on the town (Sapporo)! Eventually it ends in a 4000yen taxi ride (~$35-37) ride back to the hotel…only to find out that you left your cell phone at the bar, possibly never to be seen again…sigh…and sadly all BEFORE 11pm...haha, how laaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaame am I?
BUT, I did really enjoy Maruyama Kouen, which I visited with Josh, Christine and Zach. It was such a pretty day- blue sky and snow piled high everywhere. It was also nice because it was one of the first places that we went that wasn't completely overrun with tourists. It was actually really peaceful and nice just to be able to walk freely in the snow. The park itself consists of a “virgin forest” according to the guidebook and also houses the Hokkaido Shrine. It was a complete change of pace from the rest of the week and it was absolutely beautiful. We even made our own Yuki Daruma (Christine’s first!)- it was really exactly the winter wonderland image that people
like me and Christine (us in the temperate, no-snow regions) had in our heads when we first imagined Sapporo. And to top it off, we ate at KFC…
So that’s another thing about Hokkaido- my internal war against consuming American chain fast food while in Japan came to a crashing halt in Hokkaido…up until now, I have not eaten a single McDonald’s French fry or chicken nugget or anything else of the dollar menu…I had resolutely refused all temptations for the last 6 months, but alas, Sapporo was my downfall…and I don’t know if I will ever regain the resolve I once had…sigh…it started with a brief stop at KFC and I shared some black pepper chicken with Zach…it was like the gateway drug…for a mere 2 days later I had McDonalds for lunch…a Happii Setto (Happy meal), with Chicken nuggets, fries, a drink and a kiddie toy. Oh the shame…
February 11: Let’s enjoy Otaru! Otaru is a really sweet little town that was a major fishing port, but it’s now full of artisan glass shops, art galleries and bakeries and sweet shops. Keeping in with their fishing history, they also have tons of good sushi
Snow!
There was so much snow, that if you left your bike out, it was pretty much covered up...in some places the snow was over waist deep (for me...for normal people it was probably about thigh level). restaurants and street vendors selling grilled scallops, oysters and crab soup. The town’s major attraction is a big canal, which in the winter they illuminate by floating candles in the canal, and also lighting up candles inside small structures made of snow along the canal’s promenade.
We all bought and ate so much, and even got to blow glass at a local glass shop called K’s Blowing, which I think was the highlight of Otaru. I really would love to go back and visit Otaru again…one day there just didn’t seem like enough…there were so many different food items to sample and so many shops to browse through. I guess it would compare to going to Sausalito or Marin or someplace like that.
Also this day, on our last night in Sapporo, Christine, Zach, Josh and I decided to bring things full circle, and at the same Indian restaurant, Taj Mahal, that we ate at our first night…and then ended the night with 3 insane hours of karaoke! Haha, Celine Dion never sounded so good, that’s fo sho! I think we all got to bed around 4:30am or so…
Febraury 12: Let’s enjoy Bye-bye Sapporo! inside the Sapporo Sheraton...
there is a chapel... at least two weddings were held here during our stay. Sigh…after 5 glorious days, it was finally time to depart… …BUT before departure, we had to go through the ordeal of buying omiyage for everyone back in Wakayama- teachers, friends, other groups that we participate in. The airport omiyage stores were a complete zoo…it seemed like everyone was leaving Sapporo that day and had, like us, put off all gift buying until the airport…it was hard leaving I have to say and I definitely didn’t feel ready to go back to classes the next day.
Just a couple things on Sapporo…it is definitely worth going to. I was an amazing place and such perfect combination of urban city life and entertainment, juxtaposed with beautiful natural scenery and places that you could escape to for a more peaceful setting. Also, the way the city was built, with wide streets, a grid pattern and with it’s tall buildings really resembled cities in America. While we were there, it was sort of easy to forget that we were in Japan. It wasn’t just the architecture, but also the jumble of Japanese and foreign people…I have never seen so many foreign people while in Japan (other than the JET conferences). Everywhere we went,
Indian food
A group shot at Taj Mahal we heard English (or Chinese) and I don’t think that I really had to speak hardly any Japanese. Maybe it kind of felt like Alaska…like how it’s part of the US, but it’s pretty much it’s own place.
Zach, Christine, Josh and I have all applied for a summer intensive Japanese language program in Sapporo (haha, it’s only about 3 weeks though…), so hopefully we’ll get to enjoy Sapporo in summer as well!
And P.S. sorry for the insane amount of pics...I think I went a little overboard, BUT I had to whittle it down from the original 860 pics...so sorry it took so long!
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