Sapporo

Well I survived all my trips and my crazy busy (but crazy fun) vacation time! I'm back in school as of today, but I can't wait to tell you all about Sapporo!

Patrick and I met in Hakata around 10:00 AM to head out to the airport for our 11:30 flight. The airport wasn't very crowded and we ended up with plenty of time waiting at the gate. The flight was a quick two hours and by about 3:00 PM we'd gone from the Fukuoka Airport to the New Chitose Airport and taken the train into Sapporo. We found our hotel with little trouble and settled in quickly. We talked about exactly what we wanted to do and figured out a lose schedule for our days. We decided to go out looking for dinner around 5:00 and settled on a brewery in Otaru, another city about an hour outside of Sapporo by train. We found it easily and walked around a bit before getting to the restaurant. It was so nice walking around in the snow again! We even found train tracks outside a railway museum with a snow train built out of a snowbank. We eventually got to the brewery and everything was huge! We foolishly ordered large beers and they came in glasses bigger than our heads! The food was also huge, but thankfully we didn't order much so we could finish it all. Everything was delicious and we had a great time exploring the other city. We eventually headed back to Sapporo and decided to try a bar near our hotel called Red Bar. It was a great place and we had a few drinks there before returning to our hotel for the night.

The next day we slept in pretty late and missed the hotel breakfast. We decided to get lunch at the station and explored many restaurants before settling on a かつ丼 (katsudon, fried pork and rice) restaurant. The food was good, but we hurried out to finally get a start on the day. We first went to the Asahi brewery to tour the factory. We took the subway there and noticed some odd things. First, the train made laser noises when it entered the station, which we both thought was pretty cool. Also, the subway had these big rubber wheels on them instead of the smaller, metal ones I've seen on other trains. It was really interested to see! When we did get to our stop, we had a little bit to walk to get to the factory. Unfortunately I had a hard time deciphering Google maps along the way. We found the building, but not the tour entrance and ended up walking the entire outside of the building only to find the entrance was fifty feet from where we started, but separated by a restaurant we couldn't see past from the other side. It had been a cold and rainy walk, but we were still in good spirits and excited for the tour! It was about half an hour seeing everything from the kegs to canning to vintage advertisements. They showed us the assembly lines explained how the made the beer, although the guides didn't speak any English. We were still able to understand and had a great time. At the end there was a tasting for Asahi, Asahi Black, Asahi Super Dry, and Asahi's juice and water products. We had half an hour to sit and talk and try the drinks and some snacks. Everything, the tour and the tasting, were free and really good! Once everything was over we headed back to the subway and went to the Sapporo Beer Museum. That is, a museum for the brand Sapporo, not a general beer museum in Sapporo. It was dark by the time we made it, but there were beautiful lights strung up all around! The museum itself was very cozy and made all out of wood. It almost felt like a giant log cabin. The museum showed how they make the beer as well as old marketing campaigns and models of the equipment they use. The ground floor had a big gift shop and beer tasting. This museum was free as well, but the tasting was not. It was still very reasonably priced and Patrick and I got a sampling of their different beers. We'd had a lot of fun, but it was time to head back near our hotel for dinner. We ended up catching a bus directly from the museum back to Sapporo station and found an 居酒屋 (izakaya) for dinner. We tired many little dishes and they were all great! Even though we have izakaya restaurants in Kitakyushu, the food was different because of the location. This one had different fish available and the best part was that they had real cheese. Hokkaido is known for in Japan for it's dairy products and even in Kitakyushu I buy Hokkaido brand milk and butter.

After dinner we went to our hotel to rest for an hour and put away the things we'd bought. We also tried Royce chocolate, a famous brand in Sapporo, and with the cheese before and the milk chocolate we decided Hokkaido definitely has the best dairy products in Japan. We went back out pretty quickly and walked to an area called Susukino, the "red light district" of Sapporo. We passed Odori park along the way and could see some of the White Illuminations. We also walked past the Sapporo TV tower and the Sapporo clock tower. Both are famous landmarks near the park and it was beautiful seeing them all lit up along the with illuminations. When we made it to Susukino it was amazing! It almost reminded me of Time Square because of the huge, neon billboards. Many of the billboards were even in English including Nikka, Sapporo, and Coca-Cola. We walked around to look at all the places before heading up to a bar called The Electric Sheep up on the ninth floor of one of the buildings. We had a beautiful view of the area and had a few drinks. We were feeling a bit tired and decided since it was Tuesday on a work week we probably weren't missing too much and decided to walk back to our hotel afterwards. We made sure to walk back a different way to see even more of the city, though.

On Wednesday I was up well before Patrick and decided to head out and explore a bit on my own. I explored the underground paths under the station and surrounding area for a little while before getting hungry. I found a cute little place to get I had a rice bowls. I had one topped with カニ (kani, crab), ウ二 (uni, sea urchin), and イクラ (ikura, salmon roe). Crab and sea urchin, crab especially, are very popular in Hokkaido. It also came with noodles in curry broth, one of the specialties of the area. It was all very delicious! After lunch I explored a little bit more before meeting up with Patrick at the bus stop. We caught a 12:30 PM bus out to the Hoheikyo onsen. The bus was called the かっぱライナー (Kappa Liner). It is an express bus to Jozankei, the town the Hoheikyo onsen is in. Jozandie's mascot is a kappa, a mischievous animal from Japanese folk-lore that lives in ponds and rivers. The bus was really nice, which was good because the ride was a little over an hour. Despite the long drive in snowy weather and the short walk from the bus stop to the onsen in probably two feet of snow, the onsen was completely worth it! It is probably the best onsen I've ever gone to. There were two indoor pools, both of which were very warm (104°F and 108°F).

The best part by far, though, was the outside pool. It was pretty cold going from the very warm inside baths to the snowy weather outside, but there were two very large pools connected to each other with a small, underwater staircase that were amazing. There was probably about a foot of snow on the rocks near the pool and quite a few feet farther back from the warmth of the water. It also snowed the entire time we were there. There were little waterfalls along the rocks and a small roofed section still sporting New Years decorations. The whole thing was just beautiful and I stayed in the bath for far longer then I usually do. I had some milk after the bath before meeting up with Patrick again downstairs. I had some ジンギスカン (Genghis Khan) BBQ lamb, another Sapporo specialty, at the onsen's restaurant before we caught the bus back to Sapporo station. When we got back Patrick decided to check out some of the places I'd found on my walk earlier and I decided to head to the Pokemon Center to do a bit of shopping. I got a new game and had fun looking around the store and the arcade on the same floor. Patrick and I eventually met up again at the hotel. We had a quick dinner at the hotel restaurant before heading to bed early.

The next morning we got up early and had a quick breakfast at the hotel before heading out to try our hand at snowboarding. We boarded the train as part of our two-part commute to the Kiroro, the place we would rent snowboards from. Unfortunately, after a few stops the train announced that it could not go to it's intended destination because of a weather advisory. We got off and waited to see if the trains would start again in the direction we wanted to go, but to get to the mountain we also needed to catch a bus that only came once every two hours. We waited about half an hour, but turned back when we ran out of time to catch our connecting bus. We hadn't given up, though, and decided to try a mountain closer to Sapporo. There was a mountain near to a place called Teine that was on our way back to Sapporo station. We struggled finding the right bus, but eventually found other people with snowboards and decided to follow them. We waited at a bus stop for a little over an hour until a shuttle van came to pick them up. It turned out the regular shuttle buses weren't running due to the snow and without a special pass we couldn't take the van that came to pick up the other snowboarders. Defeated, we headed back to Sapporo station.

We'd taken up all of the morning trying to get to a mountain, but I decided to make the rest of the afternoon more successful. Patrick and I split ways and I went to the Chuo tour bus to book a night tour of the city before catching the 12:30 bus back towards Hoheikyo onsen. The onsen was in the opposite direction as the mountains we'd been trying to reach and thankfully the weather hadn't stopped the Kappa Liner, although the trip was much slower the second time. This time I got off the bus in the center of Jozankei to explore the little town. I found some temples and small shops before eventually heading into on of the small onsens in the area. This onsen was a bit strange because it was on the eighth floor. There were many inside pools, a steam room, and even a small outdoor pool on a balcony. I spent a relaxing afternoon in the onsen and grabbing some おみやげ (omiyage, suvenirs) before catching a bus back to Sapporo for the tour. When I went to get my reserved ticket I found out that due to the weather the cable car that was part of the tour was not running, so that tour was canceled. There was another tour they offered me, but it was all by bus with no stops and I decided not to take it. I met up with Patrick for dinner and we walked around the city for a bit before grabbing some food. We walked around a bit after dinner as well before going back to the room to pack for the flight home the next day.

On Friday I woke up again before Patrick and leisurely had breakfast at the hotel. Patrick didn't wake up in time for breakfast at the hotel, but he headed out to get some last minute souvenirs and a quick breakfast on his own. I stayed in the hotel to finish packing and double-check we hadn't left anything. After checking out we caught the train to the airport. We checked in easily and found out gate, but also found out our plane was delayed. We spent the time grabbing lunch and looking around the souvenir shops. We finally boarded our plane and said goodbye to Sapporo.

I was going to meet some friends for dinner that night, but due to the plane delays I decided to stay home instead. The next day I spent my time cleaning, doing laundry, and just enjoying being home after all my trips. I also made some final arrangements for my two trips in February. Sunday night I went over to see Caol to celebrate having Monday off. It was nice and low-key. Marc also came over around 9:00 PM and we all ended up talking until 1:00 AM. Monday was a holiday, so I met Leah for lunch. We'd both really missed each other over break and it was great catching up with her. We did a bit of shopping and caught a movie (Big Hero 6, but translated to Japanese) before each heading home. Now I'm happily back at school and ready for a quite week.

Nagoya and New Years

I know this is a bit late, sorry, I've been very busy! The day after Christmas, and my last post, Mike and I boarded the Nagoya bound train. We found our hotel easily and it was in a great location right near the station! Our room wasn't ready yet since it was still before noon, so we headed out to the zoo. It was pretty big and had a botanical garden and children's play area in it. We saw everything from bison and wolves to polar bears and penguins. After seeing everything, we headed back to our hotel to check out our room. We got hungry and stopped at a chicken place across the street from our hotel for a quick snack. We got a few different dishes from their おすすめ (osusume, specials) menu. The food was great and we happily heading off to our hotel. We ended up with a room and the 10th floor and had a great view! We got settled in to the room before wandering around the hotel area and eventually heading for dinner at a restaurant called Yagya. We had seen the restaurant on the way to the hotel. The outside of the building looks like an old temple and the food was pretty good! They were also filming a TV show called ためしてガッテン (Tameshite Gatten) at the restaurant that night. They started filming when we left, so we weren't filmed for the show, but it was still pretty cool to see all the cameras and everyone working. We were pretty tired from traveling, so we heading back to the hotel right after dinner. We had free drink tickets as a welcome gift from the hotel, so we stopped at the bar on the bottom floor for a drink before heading to bed.

The next day we got up early again and headed to the station to catch a bus to 長嶋スパーランド (Nagashima Spa Land)! The bus was a little under an hour and we were so excited! Spa Land is a combination 温泉 (onsen, hot spring), spa, and amusement park. It is home to the longest roller coaster in the world, Steel Dragon 2000. Unfortunately, the coaster was down for maintenance the day we went, but we still had a ton of fun! The park had many roller coasters and other rides that we really enjoyed. We even went on to the Pokemon Adventure Camp, a walk through game with a small touch pad and camera that interacted with images throughout the camp. They also had special deals at the spa for the holidays, so Mike and I both got massages. We grabbed a bus back to Nagoya for dinner and decided we wanted to see more of the city, so we went to the tallest building in the city for a nice view. We went to the top of the Marriott hotel by Nagoya station, which had a sky bar on the 52nd story. The view of the city was beautiful, but everything was very expensive! We ended up just getting drinks and a small appetizer. We thought we should get a new angle on the city, so we heading to another sky bar called The One and Only. This one was on the 40th floor of a different building, but the interior of the bar had very little lighting, so the lights of the city really stood out. We had a table right next to the window overlooking Nagoya castle! As you can probably guess, this place was also fairly expensive, so again we got a small salad to share and one drink each. It was an amazing view, but eventually we did get hungry from some real food so we headed off to Papanero, a place we'd seen near our hotel that looked good. It was in the basement of a building, but the interior was beautiful! It was an Italian restaurant and we had a great pizza and いのしし (inoshishi, wild boar) pasta. We checked out one more bar, Back Forty, before turning in for the night.

on Sunday we decided to extend our trip for an extra day. We spent a good part of the morning making the arrangements with the hotel and exchanging our train tickets. We did have time to grab a quick breakfast at a German cake shop and walk through Nagoya's central park while getting everything settled. We decided to try a Nagoya specialty pasta for lunch that was really delicious before heading over to the science museum. The museum was huge and even had a giant planetarium. It had exhibits on everything from mechanics to genetics to weather. Everything was hands on and we had a lot of fun looking around. After a few hours of wandering the museum, we took the subway to the movie theater to see ベイマックス (Baymax, the Japanese title for Big Hero 6). It only recently came out here in Japan and Mike and I both really wanted to see it. It was only playing in Japanese in Kokura, so we decided to see it in Nagoya where they were playing an English version. We both really enjoyed the movie! Afterwards, we went to another restaurant we'd seen from our hotel called 花火 (Hanabi, Fireworks). It was a Korean BBQ style restaurant and it was incredible! The staff was incredibly nice and it was easily the best Korean BBQ style restaurant I've ever been to in Japan. We had a few after dinner drinks at a place called Presto that Mike found. It was a coffee shop and cafe by day and a bar by night. It had some great drinks and we happily headed back to the hotel after a few.

We slept in on Monday and had an early lunch in lieu of breakfast. We decided to try another Nagoya specialty; Their most famous food, 味噌カツ (miso katsu, fried pork with a miso sauce). It was really good! After lunch we caught the subway to Osu to check out the famous shopping streets and we stopped by the temple in the area. We found some cool little shops, one of which was a place called Alice on Wednesdays that you needed a ticket to get into because the shop was so small. The door was shrunk so you had to bend over to get in and there were little peep-hole all around the inside and outside of the shop that showed different scenes from Alice in Wonderland. We ended up being able to go in and although it was mostly jewelry and ribbons and not much we wanted, we got some candy and enjoyed the novelty of it. We had a small snack at the market before jumping back on the subway to go to see Nagoya castle. Once we got there, we found out the castle was closed for the holidays and we couldn't go into the courtyard, but we walked the perimeter and could see the castle from outside. We found a craft beer restaurant, appropriately named 23 Draft Beer, and had a quick drink before deciding to head back to our hotel area for dinner. I was pretty tired and it had gotten a bit late, so we went to an Indian restaurant in the station for dinner before heading to bed.

We'd been doing a lot the past few days, so we decided to rest on Tuesday. We ventured out for lunch around noon and walked around until we found a place that was open. What we found was an English restaurant that had really great pickled tomatoes. After lunch we did a bit of souvenir shopping and some more walking around the city. We got a little snack on the way back to the hotel at the same chicken restaurant from our first day and we spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing. We went out again for dinner to an izakaya with many Nagoya specialties. This was our last night in Nagoya and we had some extra energy from our relaxing day, so we decided to try some of the different places around our hotel. First we went to a jazz bar called Baseline that had a live jazz piano player. He played a lot of jazz versions of Disney songs that were actually really good. Next we found a place called Mike's Corner that we figured we had to try. Unfortunately it was a bit disappointing, so we quickly moved on to Handcrafted. We were worried it was full, but there was an upstairs room with one table by the window still open. Handcrafted had great drinks and small food plates, plus the whole place was really cute! After a few drinks we went back to Back Forty since it was near our hotel and finished the night there.

We woke up early Wednesday to check out of the hotel. We left our bags at the front desk and caught the bus back to Nagashima Spa Land. We spent the morning at the amusement park and finally got to ride the Steel Dragon 2000! It was great fun and totally worth the wait! Thankfully there weren't many people so early in the morning and we could go on twice with almost no wait. We rode all the rides we had liked the first time around and even had time to do the Pokemon Adventure Camp again before heading back to Nagoya to catch our train back to Kokura. This was the 31st, so it was a HUGE travel day, but thankfully Mike and I both got seats on the shinkansen back. We dropped our bags off at my apartment before going out to meet some friends at KFC to celebrate New Years. I'm still not sure why they chose KFC, but we got the all-you-can-drink option and stayed there until about 10:00 PM. Patrick, Dave, Leah, Mike, and I split off a little early and went to Riverwalk to have some food from the 屋台 (yatai, traveling food stalls) set up for New Years. We had お好み焼き (okonomiyaki) and 焼き鳥 (yakitori) while we waited for the countdown. Around 11:30 PM, everyone else decided to go to another bar, but Mike and I were tired from our morning or riding roller coasters, so we stayed at Riverwalk. We ended up grabbing some Krispy Kreme doughnuts and heading home to watch a live stream of the countdown in Tokyo. We stayed up just past midnight, but feel asleep shortly after.

On New Years day we were still tired from our traveling and decided to have a quite morning. We made breakfast and rested before heading out in the afternoon to shop for a gift for one of my teachers. We grabbed lunch while we were out and then headed back home. We went out again later to meet Caol, Ruth (a friend of Caol's visiting from Ireland), and Leah at the Irish pub, Booties. Mike said he really wanted some of the fugu (pufferfish) fish and chips Booties serves and Caol wanted to bring Ruth to see the place. Dinner was delicious and after we all finished up we went over to karaoke. We sang for about two hours before going home a bit early.

The next morning Mike and I headed over to Mihagino bus stop where we meet Juha and Kyoko. Takako, an old co-worker of mine who Juha now works with, came to pick us up and we drove to Beppu! She was the same teacher who drove my family down last January and I was really glad to be traveling with her again! We got in around lunch time and decided to go to the same restaurant we'd gone to last year where they cook all your food in the natural steam from the underground hot springs. We even got to try drinking a little of the hot spring water after it cooled, it was very salty. We had meat, seafood, and veggies and it was just as good as last year. After lunch we went to three of the eight "Hells" and they were extra active! We didn't know why, but they were steaming and bubbling much more than normal. We walked around the Hells for about an hour before going to our first hot spring of the day. Takako suggested this one and it was a mud onsen rather than a normal bath. There were three pools and a steam room. The first pool had minerals in it that made the water murky and was supposed to lighten your skin color. The second was full of mud to rub on yourself and the last had the same minerals as the first, but was outside. It was a very unusual onsen because the outside pool was for both men and women, without bathing suits! There was a separate outside pool for only women, but the men had to walk by to get to their pool! Thankfully the water was murky enough that you couldn't see through it. We stayed in the onsen for about an hour before meeting back up with the men in the lobby area. Mike had finished his first onsen and said he liked it! We drank the traditional coffee milk after the bath. Don't ask me why it's common to drink milk or coffee milk after onsen because I have no idea, but it was very good. We headed over to our hotel after that before meeting up with Caol and Ruth, who had come down to Beppu by train in the afternoon. It was evening by the time we met them, so we decided to grab some dinner. Caol goes to Beppu often and it is his favorite place in Japan, so he took us to a Korean BBQ restaurant he likes to go to. The food and drinks were good and we decided to go to one more onsen before heading back to the hotel. We went to a nice place on the beach. It was Ruth's first time at the onsen, so I walked her through the steps. There were a few small baths inside as well as one outside. The one outside had kabosu fruit in it and it smelled wonderful. Ruth was a bit nervous when we first got in, but really enjoyed it once she got used to it! We stayed in the bath for about an hour before meeting back up with the boys and heading back to the hotel for some sleep.

We met Juha and Takako for breakfast in the morning. Kyoko had to visit her family in Miyazaki and had taken the first train in the morning. She left close to 6:00 AM, so we had said goodbye the night before. We had a good breakfast in Beppu station despite only one shop being open and decided to head to 高崎山 (Takasaki Yama, Takasaki Mountain) next. We checked out of the hotel and Mike, Juha, and I gave Takako the presents we had gotten for her two days earlier. Takasaki Mountain was only about a ten minutes drive, so we got there fast. Over 1500 wild monkeys live there and workers feed the monkeys at the base of the mountain to keep the monkeys there instead of taking food from nearby farmers. The monkeys come down in groups and the workers know many of the monkeys' personalities and characteristics. People can visit and learn about the monkeys close to their natural habitat. Obviously we weren't supposed to touch them because they're still wild animals, but they would run around under your feet and sit close to you. We even saw one monkey sneak up behind and woman and try to get into her purse, probably looking for food. The workers feed the monkeys grains every half hour and sweet potatoes once a day. During the feeding they threw the food away from them and ran the other direction, but but the monkeys would still follow them. It was really funny and a bit scary! We had a lot of fun and stayed for over two hours before driving back to the city and meeting Caol and Ruth for lunch. We had a nice lunch and headed home afterwards with a quick stop for some pumpkin and vanilla ice cream on the way back. Mike and I got home around 5:00 PM and packed for our respective trips and set out for Hakata in Fukuoka city. We made it to Hakata by 7:00 PM and checked into the Clio Court Hotel. We were happy to find it just across the street! A great deal of a hotel and the room was really nice. We had お好み焼き (okonomiyaki) for dinner and then had an early night.

Mike's flight home was at 7:20 AM the next morning, so we woke up early to get to the airport. I went with him until security and then headed back to the hotel for breakfast. I stayed in until 10:00 AM when I met Patrick in Hakata station to head back to the airport for our trip to Sapporo. I'm finish up this post from the airport, but there's no internet here so I won't be posting this until I get to the hotel in Sapporo. I hope Mike is having a good flight home! Sorry for the length of this post, I've been very busy! Next update will probably be next Tuesday or Wednesday when I get back to school and that will be full of news from snowy Sapporo so stay tuned!