Sapporo

I got back the other night from my 4 day vacation to Hokkaido tired and sore, but overall, it was a great trip. Allow me to recount the events.

Day 1:
I woke up Sunday morning early, at my place, as Janel decided it would be best that I not stay there despite her previous invitation, a decision I respected, and in retrospect know was a good idea if for no other reason than I wasn't as monumentally tired as I would have been. I packed the night before in all of three minutes, but as it turned out, I actually managed to bring everything I needed. I cruised out to Haneda Airport but not before pulling a quintessential David move and going to the train station early, sitting there reading for 15 minutes, and then realizing at the last second I didn't have my train pass/alien registration card etc with me, as I had left them in my other jacket which I had worn to work the previous day. So I flew back to my apt. on my bike and got back to the station literally 1 minute too late to catch my train to meet up with everyone, and as such went out there alone, which I don't really mind so much. Getting to the airport was straightforward enough though and I arrived only minutes after the rest of the group thanks to some quick transfers.

Our flight was delayed by about ten minutes due to severe weather conditions around Chitose Airport, so we had a little extra time to wander around the airport and take pictures on the observation deck. We, of course, being myself, Samantha, Jenn, Ceska, Tom G, and Natascha. After boarding the plane, the captain announced that due to the weather conditions, one of three things would happen after we took off: we would circle the airport until things cleared up, land in Hakodate, or return to Tokyo. Lol. Return to Tokyo. Hell of a vacation that would have been. I sat next to Jenn on the plane, thanks to a nice Japanese gentleman who switched seats with me, probably to avoid being stuck next to a bunch of gaijin more than anything else, but I want to think of it as a selfless act more than one of self sanity preservation. We wound up circling the airport for 30 minutes, which was the best possible option really, so we weren't really that late. Immediately after getting off the plane, as in, one step onto the bridge, I snagged some snow and started the official vacation off with a snowball straight to Jenn's torso, as promised. We snagged some beers, hopped on the train, and made our way to Susukino, where our hotel, the Sun Route Hotel New Sapporo, was located, near central Sapporo. It was snowing pretty hard when we got there

After checking in, we went to the ski locker area to examine our rental gear, and chide one another about the flourescent gear we undoubtedly had rented. I was really gunning for neon camoflauge, but alas, our gear was relatively wearable, fit for the most part, and lacked the early 80's flare we had all crossed our fingers for. I did however, get a nice pair of flourescent orange snowboard pants that, as was pointed out to me, looked surprisingly handsome. Jenn, however, had no stuff there, so a few phone calls were made and they said they'd have stuff out to her by 5pm, which turned out to be more like 6:30, after the rest of us had already left for dinner.

The rooms were nice enough, twin beds with little in the way of real comfort, but a bed is a bed and as hotel rooms go for people in our price range, it was more than adequate. Tom took a quick nap while the rest of us ventured downstairs to find the fabled Hokkaido miso ramen, and we found it next door to our hotel and were relatively unimpressed, as we've all come to realize is unfortunately the case with a great many Japanese 'local delicacies' which are no better if not worse in their place of reverence than anywhere else. After that a quick nap for the rest of us was in order, and after waking we hopped in taxis and made our way to the Sapporo brewery restaurant, where we set out on our mission to consume as much lamb as humanly possible, and drunk Sammy bit my forefinger so hard she broke the skin. Yes, that's right, I went to Hokkaido and all I got was this lousy HUMAN BITE. Thanks, Sam.

After dinner we wobbled outside where we started a snowball fight, which spread quickly after I started throwing snowballs at strangers and got about 25 people involved in a multicultural snowball exchange program. Much hilarity ensued. We called it a night early that night, as the next morning we would all set out to Kokusai ski area for a fateful day on the slopes.

Day 2:
Monday morning we got up around 7:30 to catch our 8:30 ski bus, and things got off to yet another phenomenal start when Jenn discovered that though the gear all fit, the snowboard that was delivered to her was not only tardy but the size of a spatula. Jenn had some words with the rental company, who then offered her a discount for her troubles. After arriving at Kokusai they gave her a better board.
Notable events from Day 1 on the slopes:
I learned to snowbard. See Linked entry for more.
Sammy crashed in some way previously considered physically impossible within 5 minutes of getting to the top of the lift and injured her knee, requiring the assistance of the ski patrol to bring her down the rest of the way, and barring her from skiing for the duration of the trip.

After we got back, we were all dead tired, and went to dinner at this nice Cuban restaurant across the walkway from the hotel, where we ate some surprisingly delicious food and drank some surprisingly good rum, and had a surprisingly hot waitress who spoke, you guessed it, surprisingly good English. I'd had enough surprises so I went to bed after a shower and a fistful of Aleve. I slept poorly, as I did every night while there.

Day 3:
Tom left the room early to go sightseeing on his own, and Jenn slept in and went to an onsen on her own, leaving Sammy, Natascha, Ceska and me to go to the Snow Festival itself, the main event, together. Unfortunately due to a warm front there was some severe meltage, but actually it wasn't so bad because it kinda made all the snow sculptures have this creepy, deranged look which I've come to kinda like.
Highlights of the festival:
The girl in the pod playing Benny Goodman while Natascha and Ceska swing danced before a crowd of elderly Japanese who just couldn't get enough.
Lunch in the tower and the mistake of taking the stairs to avoid the elevator lines. It might be the 3rd floor, but it's 6 flights up.
German style chocolate roasted almonds. Yum.
After all our feet were sufficiently numb, we hopped in a taxi and went back to the hotel, which turned out to be all of 4 blocks from where we were. We took naps. Or, at least that's what I thought we were doing, everyone else apparently was in Sammy's room watching porn that somehow involved the spitting of egg whites onto someone's chest. Gotta love Japanese porn.

Jenn and Ceska and I split to go have dinner and enjoy some more 'local delicacies' before going back to the Snow Festival to check out the night time lighting. We ordered a bucket of sashimi that contained some surprisingly delicious crab, and some surprisingly bad stuff in the form of a dark green paste which none of us could identify. I was very happy to discover a food in Japan that was actually as good as rumor held. The crab, I mean, not the UDGP (unidentified dark green paste), which is not to be confused with NGDOPG.

After dinner we went to the top of some entertainment center near the hotel and got on the Ferris Wheel they had to admire the view of Sapporo, which was nice. The mountains surrounding the city are very pretty when illuminated through the clouds by the spotlights of chairlifts. It was over more or less as soon as it started, so we walked to the Snow Festival, took more pics, and then went back to the hotel, where we all watched Forest Gump and I tried to fall asleep but then As Good As It Gets came on and Tom kept it on, so I didn't actually go to bed until 1:30 am or so, despite having to get up early the next morning.

Day 4:
Waking up earlier than Day 2 wouldn't have been so bad had I not had to pack everything up before leaving. See, we had to bring all our stuff with us to Kiroro, our snow park destination, put it in lockers, and then hop on the bus afterwards to the airport directly and hop on our plane to go home. So that was annoying, and I was dead on my feet, not to mention still pretty tired from Day 2's snowboarding skill acquisition.
Highlights from Day 4 on the mountain.

As soon as I got on the bus, I knew I had to pee, and so I busted out the iPod, sat in the least stressful position on my bladder, and attempted to enter some sort of Zen meditative state, which actually somehow worked, and I made it to the airport without any sort of real actual dicomfort, unlike Natascha, who tried but was unable to find that same Zen state. I think the iPod helped. She came and joined me after an hour or so on the road and we shared headphones and chatted a bunch, which was really nice. All the ski bus trips we sat next to each other and slept on one another's shoulders, which was nice. We did our best not to aggravate our bladders, and I'm assuming the chit chat was to distract ourselves from having to pee. Maybe, who knows.

Our plane was delayed due to heavy snow, and we got back to Haneda just in time to hope straight on the trains home, but Jenn was hypoglycemic by this point so she was dancing like a madman on the train blasting hiphop with her earphones inverted, which normally would anger me but at that stage of exhaustion just made me laugh. I got back to the apartment around 1 am, exhausted but happy with the trip.