Arrival

Just arrived inVancouver form Narita. I spent the last few days taking everything from the apartment in Yokosuka and getting rid of it. I ended up giving tons of of stuff away. I've slept maybe a 16 hours in the last 4 days. I worked until 11pm the night before. I stayed up until 3am cleaning and then was up again at 7am. I ended up having 5 kilos overweight and they wanted to charge me 700$ to bring my suitcase. So I went aside and stuffed a big pile of papers into the backpack. Turns out I had 6 kilos of papers. I still had to pay 50$ as the regular overweight fee but it's not 700$! The flight back was good, I ordered a kosher meal when booking and it was good food. It looked a lot better than what anyone else got and there was also more food in total. I Had fish with corn and some kind of sauce, big hard crackers, some sort of soft cookie thing, apple compote, chocolate pudding and a potato salad that was 90% green peas (I didn't eat much of that). Breakfast strangely was very similar but without the chocolate pudding and with a fish salad as the main course. I tried to sleep on the plane but I was way too tired. I made friends with the guy who was sitting next to me. We ended up having many empty spaces on the flight so we got to have 3 seats for 2 people, it was nice and roomy. Security was crazy at the entry of Vancouver, there was some big shot visiting while we we entering (maybe the PM?) and he was surrounded by dozens of armed police officers. Now I have to wait from 10am till 7:30pm for my connecting flight. I could go earlier but I was told my check in luggage can't follow me and I'd have to come back and get it. So I'm not going to be able to advance my flight. I'm tempted to leave the airport but I'm not really in the mood to walk around Vancouver and not have a place to sit or use the internet. Vancouver airports internet is great. Free and available everywhere.

Western Japan trip

Well today we leave for our great western Japan trip! It's currently pouring rain in Yokosuka, however it looks like it's going to be fairly warm and sunny for the rest of the time in Hiroshima, Osaka, Kobe and Kyoto!

Everything is packed, the house is clean and I'm just making the final preparations.

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!

The trip to Japan

WEDNESDAY, at 9:25 am I threw my luggage onto my back and walked onto the plane headed for Vancouver, then to transfer to Japan Airlines. I got some decent coffee on the flight. Probably my best experience with Air Canada so far!

In Vancouver I had to transfer to Japan Airlines. Having had an issue with my tickets, I more or less bluffed my way into the International departure lounge with my ticket for Air Canada. I bought some Yen there (the international symbol is ¥ but they use a different local symbol 円,, conversion is about $1US=¥100) I got a new ticket from the nice people of Japan Airlines. after boarding I slept through most of the flight. I only woke up once or twice. My mistake was to eat the food offered on the flight, it was pretty bad, burnt noodles with burnt meat sauce, a small dish of mashed potatoes with radish (this is apparently the way to make mashed potatoes here) and ice cold noodles with a semi-sweet sauce for dessert.

I arrived at 3:30pm on Thursday the 30th of July. It took about an hour or so to get through customs. When foreigners enter Japan, they must now put their index fingers on two electronic scanners which catalog and record your fingerprints, passport ID and take a picture of you at once. This is in case of any problems they can always figure out who the foreigners are. Being used to Big Brother, I was mildly surprised but the Japanese people here are really upset with this system (one of my roommates here even apologized to me for it).

I got the the luggage pickup zone and all the police dogs were coming to sniff me, maybe 5-6 dogs came up. After the first two I got a bit weireded out that I seemed to be such an interesting person to sniff. I guess I should have expected it though, with 4 cats and a dog back in Canada, my clothes must have smelled really interesting! None of the dogs seemed to be interested in my luggage, and one even came up wagging his(or maybe her?) tail to me to lick my hand, he was pulled back and reprimanded. After that they kept the dogs away from me.

After grabbing a cart and my luggage I wandered around and found an information kiosk. I asked the girl how to get to Yokohama where I was staying for a few nights. Ensued a long conversation between her and two other girls there trying to decide what to do with me. they finally gave me an itinerary which was much different form the one My girlfriend had given me. So I went to the public phones, fiddled around a bit with a phone card machine, and called her. Apparently the trip they had recommended would have cost 3 times what the other trip would cost, around $40. So I went down some pretty interesting escalators on which you can take your luggage carts and found the train station under the airport.

I gave the girl at the train ticket booth the method I wanted to take and she gave me a ticket and said that it would leave in an hour and a half. Unfortunatley the luggage cart had to stay there as I grabbed my two 40 pound bags in each hand, my backpack and walked to the platform to catch my train. I plopped myself down and sat there waiting. After a while a train employee started to walk around in my vicinity. I showed him my ticket and asked him if I was in the right spot, he said I was. After a long wait, the time for my train to arrive was getting closer, however there are 3 or 4 different trains there, with different markings and going different directions, all at the same platform. There is a local train and different express trains, which stop at larger and larger intervals.

Something must have happend because there was a stop in the trains and then they announced that all trains would be 10 minutes late. I kept an eye on the platform waiting for my train to arrive. When the time was a minute close, a train going the wrong direction stopped, I didn't get on it, it left within seconds of stopping. Then another came the right direction but an express, it too stopped for a second and left. Then some other different type of train stopped for a second and left. At this point I wasn't sure anymore which one I was supposed to get on. I saw two more trains go by one of which didn't actually stop so much as slow down to an almost stop, open the doors, then quickly closed then and took off. That was my train...

I went to another train employee asking when the next train was going to leave going my way, she answered in about and hour... Arrrg.... I had to call my girlfriend and tell her I was going to be a little late...

This time I was determined not to miss my train! I would dive through the doors like Neo if it was required! As I was waiting a New Zealand guy came up to me and we chatted, he directed me to another train employee who understood English and gave me specific instructions on how many trians to wait before getting on. Turns out the Guy from NZ was heading the same way for a part of the trip, he was going to Tokyo, so we waited together and chatted. He was on his way to see his sister for her birthday in Korea and decided to make a two day trip through Japan on his way there.