Here are some of the pictures my friend took when we went to Otaru durring my Hokkaido trip:

Me and some kids that kept bothering me by trying to speak to me in English.

A nicer picture of the candles and the canal.

Take a look at my picture at the ECC Hachioji School web page.
Can anyone tell me what I am saying?

Since I missed the first snow in Tokyo on account of being in Hong Kong, I was really happy when it started to snow last Friday night. These pictures were taken Saturday morning as the rain was melting the snow away.

I went climbing again with the same group as before. This time we climbed Ooyama (大山). Unfortunately, the weather did not cooperate. As you can see, there were clouds both below and above us.

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Here is a quick overview of my trip to Sapporo:

I woke up at 5:00am to catch the 8:30 airplane out of Haneda. After arriving in Sapporo I met up with Jenn and the rest of the people. We then set out to take a tour of the famous Shiroi Koibito chocolate factory. After touring the factory, I bought a lot of chocolate as omiyage. We then proceeded to go to the ‘Historical Village of Hokkaido’. We got there a little before it was going to close so we almost had the entire place to ourselves. We wandered around and played in the snow until they kicked us out. That night I had my first Sapporo ramen. It was butter-corn ramen, and I thought it was pretty good. Afterwards, Jenn, Crystal and I walked around Odori to see the ice sculptures. They were quite interesting, but overall not that impressive. There was a game center near the ice sculptures so of course after we had seen all the sculptures we went in for some fun. There was Tekken 5! I’m guessing that people in Sapporo aren’t as good as those in Tokyo, because I beat all 11 challengers before they gave up even trying. After that, we had an amazing night stroll through the park to see the snow sculptures. Most of them weren’t lit up but they were still a sight to see, especially since it had started to lightly snow which, for me, created the perfect atmosphere. Back at the hotel we had some time to relax before the other 2 guys, who went out drinking, showed up. All 5 of us then found a place to sleep in a single hotel room.

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Hokkaido Photo Gallery

Recognize this character from Laputa? I went to the Ghibli museum on Sunday, and honestly I was somewhat disappointed. I made sure to watch all of Hayao’s movies before I went but the museum did not really do them justice. There were a few interesting things but overall not worth the excessive amount of time I spent there. Afterwards I took a walk through the neighboring Inokashira park. I’ve always wanted to visit the park and was glad I finally went there. However, I still think that Koganei park is a bit nicer. I then went to Shinjuku and met a friend for dinner. We went to this really nice and slightly expensive Japanese restaurant. A good discussion and some good food made the day much better. Oh, and the fact that I set a new personal record by killing 10 Japanese people in a row at Tekken

Do you remember when I climbed Mt. Takao in December? On that trip I met a hiking club and they asked me to join them for their next climb. After much debate, I decided to go and was very happy I did. It was a great experience with a group of new people. The group climbs a mountain every month, and this month was Mt. Jinba (陣馬山).

I got up early at 6am to catch the train to Takao station by 8am. From there I met up with the hiking club. These were people I only talked to for 3 minutes when I met them, so I was unsure what they would be like. Yet, I was surprised to find that they were all very friendly, talkative, and in general just nice people.

The weather was nice and warm as we started our climb.

Soon there was snow, and we had to be careful as we walked.

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