Hokkaido trip

HOKKAIDO was really great. We left early on Thursday morning. Our flight was set to leave at 6:30 am. We got to the airport in time and met up with others who were coming along. It was really early and we hadn't slept well or much the night before, but we were excited to go!

As we got closer to the boarding zone we realized the plane we were going to take to Hokkaido was one of the specially painted ones. We were flying in a Pikachu painted 747... Even the inside had Pokemon and Pikachu pictures everywhere.

The flight was short, only 1 1/2h, and uneventful. It was quite a shock to see all the snow everywhere as we landed though, it looked like we had flown back to Canada!

We all took the train from the airport to the main station in downtown Sapporo. We split up because different groups went to different hotels. Finally at around 9 am we dropped off our bags at our hotel.

It was about -10 to -15 on average during our stay. We really felt like we were back in Canada!

We then walked around towards the Snow festival. We saw many ice sculptures and snow sculptures. It was really busy! There were many food vendors selling lots of different foods things which we had never seen before.

Lunch consisted of Sapporo fries, hotdogs on sticks, a chicken/fish burger and drinks.

After wandering around until late afternoon we went back to the hotel at 3pm and checked in. It was nice to be in a warm room after the many hours we had just spent walking around. We all took naps for a few hours.

That night we went to the famous ramen street and had amazing ramen! I tried miso-ramen, it was the best I've had so far.

After dinner we went back to the snow festival and saw the great light shows and music shows which were played onto the big snow sculptures. We stayed until 10pm at which time they shut all the shows and lights down.

We went to the hotel and slept well.

The next morning we ate breakfast (sweet breads, water and coffee) and then took the train to Otaru. It was a great little town about 30 minutes train ride from Sapporo. They have a few canals in the town which are famous, it is called the Venice of Japan. There is a lot of seafood in this town and many places to have sushi, but the prices were ridiculous ($30-$40 for 8-10 pieces of sushi).

We looked around at many glass blowing workshops and looked at many great glass works. We also saw many fish mongers, crab is also a big delicacy from here.

Lunch was chicken stir fry for Jen and I had salmon and seafood tempura. It was amazing! So good!

We went back later that night. I decided to have fresh Sapporo sushi and sashimi (much cheaper!) and it was good too.

The next morning we went to another part of Sapporo and visited the Chocolate Factory. We walked around the museum part and then looked at the manufacturing section. Finally we went and did some souvenir and gift shopping.

That night we went to a "beer factory" and had Genghis Khan. It was decent but not great. It was a big plate of rather fatty thin slices of lamb and some vegetable which you cook yourself on an inverted skillet.

The next morning we packed our stuff, did some shopping around and then went back to the airport to go home!