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.

(more…)