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.

I have a habit of never planning any of my trips. I just travel with a complete open mind and schedule, that way there is never anything to miss and I am free to take advantage of any opportunities that arise. This trip was slightly different as the planning was done by the other people. The plan was to take a shinkansen for 4 hours out to Kushiro to see the famous white cranes. However the rest of the group was going to fly out of Kushiro on Sunday while I flew out of Sapporo on Monday, which means I would have to take the 4 hour shinkansen back. Given the choices I decided not to go to Kushiro and stay in Sapporo and travel as I normally do: just winging it. Honestly, there really is no other way to travel. So, given a whole free day on Saturday, I decided to go snowboarding in the famous Sapporo powder snow. It really had been a while since I have been snowboarding, but the opportunity was there and I could not pass it up. I took the morning bus out to ‘Kokusai’ Ski Mountain. Once there, the first thing I had to do was find a hotel for the night. Now, being during the Snow Festival, every single hotel in Sapporo was booked, especially on this Saturday night. I was hoping that some of the places near the mountain had some available rooms, so I asked the help desk at the mountain for some help. The lady stared at me for a while and then said in disbelief “You don’t have a hotel yet?”. She then went over to a rack of hotel pamphlets and picked out about 4 that might have some rooms. I then started calling them one by one. Full, full, full, available. Happy that I didn’t have to sleep in a snow igloo I booked the room for the price of 20000 yen, about $200 a night. I then rented a snowboard, goggles, and gloves and set off for a day of snowboarding. I can not describe the feeling of snowboarding on the powder that is the snow of Hokkaido. It was amazing, nothing like that of the horrible California snow. I could fall in it and be waist deep in snow, yet get out and still be completely dry. It’s too hard to explain, but I had an amazing time snowboarding. After, the nice lady that helped me get a hotel helped me out again and gave me a free bus ticket and directions to my hotel. Sapporo people are so nice . I mentioned that the hotel was $200 yet I have to say that it was completely worth the price. It was a Japanese style hotel so I got dinner and breakfast, as well as access to the onsen (Japanese bath). The onsen was amazing and was exactly what my legs needed after snowboarding all day. There was even a rotenburo (outside bath). This had to be the most amazing thing of my trip. I sat in the bath outside, relaxed and gazed at the view of the mountains while it snowed all around me. The following dinner was equally amazing as I was fed an amazing array of Japanese food including a variety of famous Sapporo seafood. A good sleep and another Japanese style breakfast in the morning and I was ready to go, relaxed and refreshed.

The hotel provided a free car ride into town as well. Once I was let off, I realized that I was near the third site of the Snow Festival. I wandered around the festival for a while, took some pictures, and had some festival food. I then got back on the train for Sapporo to meet with my friend. I met my friend, know as JK, while I was on my trip to Hong Kong, and he was nice enough to show me around on Sunday. We went to Otaru for yet another festival. The festival starts at night, so we spent the day wandering around looking at the famous sights. We had a great lunch at an all you can eat place. I ate an uncountable number of ikura sushi, as well as everything else there was to offer. As night fell, we walked around the city again this time as it was lit up by lots of candles. My camera can not get anywhere near the mood and sights of the snow glowing from the light of candles. We walked along the same canal as before, yet this time it was filled with candles. When we got back to the train station we learned that the trains had stopped for the night due to the snow, so we took a bus back to Sapporo instead. That night, JK let me stay at his place. I’ve stated about this before, but the generosity I received from his family was amazing. They fed me some dinner, and talked with me most of the night. I learned more Japanese in a night than on my entire trip. The bed they gave me even had an electric blanket, as well as about 6 others. It was the most blankets I’ve ever seen on a futon. In the morning, JK had already left for work, but his parents fed me breakfast and showed me nicely out the door. Completely Amazing hospitality.

Monday was my last day in Sapporo and unfortunately it was snowing really hard all day. After checking out the destroyed snow statues, I went off to the Sapporo ski jump hill and ski jump museum. The museum was amazing. It had all sorts of interactive games to play, and interesting exhibits. There was even a virtual reality ski jump simulator. I spent a good 2 hours there just playing. Despite the snow, I took the lift up to the top of the ski jump. The view of Sapporo was not available, but the view of the jump was interesting enough. Back in Sapporo I walked through the fish market and checked out a temple. I then towards the JR train station. When talking to some random Japanese person I learned of this ramen place near the station that has lots of shops and ramen from all around Hokkaido. When I got there it seemed like a mini ramen amusement park. I walked around and looked at the shops I wanted to go to. There was so many I wanted to try but my train for the airport left in a few hours. Since I missed out on going to Kushiro, I figured the next best thing would be to eat at the Kushiro ramen place. I went in and had some amazing shoyu ramen. After eating the ramen, I realized that I was still a little hungry, probably since I hadn’t eaten lunch. So I went to another ramen shop I wanted to try and had some great miso ramen. I finished off that ramen and was on my way out when a cute girl from another ramen shop asked me to try their ramen. I was full, and after some internal debating figured that I would not be back for a while, and I could just not refuse the cute girl especially it being Valentines Day. So I had my third bowl of ramen for the night. This was followed by a quick trip to the top of the JR tower 38. I saw what the city looks like at night through a blizzard, which was still quite interesting. I got on the train for the airport and the plane back to Tokyo to arrive back at home sometime around 12:30 Tuesday. Overall, an amazing trip.