nothing to prove

ice ice baby

Any normal person would think that a vacation to a place colder than where you currently are is madness. I consider myself crazy but the frigid temperatures were worth bearing to see Sapporo and the largest Snow Festival in Japan. Continuing my trend of procrastination I got a grand total of four hours of sleep the night before my flight in order to clean my apartment and pack. Bright and early on Friday morning I headed to Niigata airport to fly out to Hokkaido and once on the plane I managed to sleep the entire hour long flight. That turned out to be a wise decision since I would not get much sleep the entire weekend. The main reason I headed up to Hokkaido was to visit my good friend from college Katie Finnegan. We studied abroad together, were studio art majors with Asian studies minors and applied to JET together so I definitely wanted see where she was living and how things were going.


Once in Sapporo I had all day to burn because Katie wasn't coming into the city until 8 pm because of work and the bus ride in. It was a great experience for me to test out my Japanese and just have a chance to see if I could travel to a new place on my own. First I got a map of the city and headed out with my prior research and a lonely planet in hand. The Clock Tower (Tokeidai) was the closest to the station so I decided to check it out. It had been moved from its original location but the building and clock, which were once part of Sapporo Agricultural College, was still intact after around 125 years.


Afterwards I headed to a place called Nijo Market to see the fresh seafood stands. Apparently I was looking really Japanese that day because multiple vendors were offering me crab to buy. Finally one took a second longer to look at me and realized that I was holding an English book, he was a smart one. After that he asked me if I was Japanese, which I obviously responded no to, and we got into a good conversation about his family that lived in the states. This was all in Japanese so I was pretty excited about being able to hold the 3 minute conversation. I figured since he was a vendor he would know a good restaurant to have lunch at. Turns out he did and put me in the right direction. It was kind of intense but I had a donburi (various seafood atop a bed of rice) which had salmon roe, sea urchin, squid, salmon, crab, and scallops. That was my first time eating salmon roe and sea urchin and it will probably be my last. It wasn't bad tasting but I can't see myself craving it anytime soon.

Next on the list was the Ishiya Chocolate Factory so I hoped the subway for about 20 minutes until I reached my stop. Luckily there was a map right outside that station that gave me pretty good directions to the factory. This place was a museum, factory, store, and restaurant all into one. It was very impressive and couldn't resist sitting down to a cup of warm hot chocolate with baileys and a slice of chocolate cake. There was so much to see and I definitely took my time taking it all in. I even ended up buying some omiyage (gifts) for one of my schools which I rarely do, even though it is a very common Japanese custom.




Then it was back to the core of Sapporo to see the Snow festival which is in this massive park that has the TV Tower, that is a smaller version of Tokyo Tower, on one end and it goes on for twelve city blocks. Plenty of snow sculptures to see and that was only part of the festivities. The other section was in the night life area of Sapporo, called Susukino, and that was were most of the ice sculptures were located. After taking my share of sculpture classes at St. John's I was mightily impressed and wished that I knew how to make ice sculptures. Since Susukino is also home to Ramen Yokochou, where there is a alleyway full of famous ramen shops, I couldn't resist the temptation and sat down to enjoy some great miso ramen for dinner.


By then it was time to meet Katie at the station and, after having to wait an hour because of her late bus, we were off to meet her friends for karaoke at a place called Thriller. If you mixed Michael Jackson with a haunted house the decor of this karaoke building would definitely resemble it. They even had a drinks called the Michael Jackson black and Michael Jackson white. It was painfully apparent that this place had never heard of being politically correct but it was very amusing. It was here that I met Jesse, Bret, Stephen, Jean, Heidi, Chris, Vicky, and Erin. Definitely a fun group so much fun that we kept singing until three in the morning despite some of us getting up to go snowboarding the next day.




After a couple hours of sleep Stephen, Jean, Katie, and I all got up to catch the bus to Sapporo Kokusai for some snowboarding and skiing fun. It was a bit chilly for what I have gotten used to snowboarding in Niigata but the snow was amazing! Apparently it had just snowed a couple of meters in the previous week so there was plenty of powder action happening. Being on my board is finally starting to feel more natural and because of all the excitement Stephen and I decided to go off one of the larger jumps on the hill. Granted we didn't go full speed but it was hilarious to see the video footage afterwards. There was a knuckle after the jump that neither of us anticipated and since I haven't gotten that used to my snowboard it definitely slipped out from under me once I came to the dropoff. We had some great times throughout the day and it was nice to get away from most of the tourist that had swung through for the festival.

Still reeking from not showering front the past couple of days we all headed back to Sapporo to meet the others at the Sapporo Brewery. Alas we found out once we got there that they had a two hour wait so we headed back to Susukino where we found a great yakiniku restaurant (barbecued meat and vegetables) to indulge ourselves with. After meandering through the festival one last time and sharing some potato doughnuts with Chris and Erin, some of us went to get some baileys while the others chilled in McDonald's. Eventually the group ended back at Thriller for one last round of karaoke, at which I was admittedly worn out at from the last couple of days, but on the way there we saw these two Japanese girls pimping themselves out to these old men. The best part was their matching outfits of cut off jeans, furry black jackets, one red fish net stalking, one black lacey stalking, and cowboy boots. It tough to match that as one of the best highlights of the trip. Once we sneaked back into our hotel room again, which was for one person but we had seven in, we fell asleep to the Olympics on TV.


My last day in Sapporo was really low key. We slept in until around 9:30 before checking out and heading to Mister Doughnut for breakfast. Then we did some random wandering around through shops in Sapporo before grabbing some lunch at this cozy place that had all you can eat focaccia bread and a drink bar with any meal. By the time we finished that I had to meet Kristi and Rosalind in order to catch a train to the airport for our flight back to Niigata. I was sad to leave Finnegan and all the new people I met behind but it was time to get back to warm Niigata, and by warm I mean not -10 degrees Celsius.

Finally we were almost back to Niigata when the pilot announced that there would be a delay because of the weather. That was futher complicated by the fact that we might have to fly to Tokyo if it didn't get better. Luckily we did land but then we had to wait another 30 minutes before a terminal was open for us to exit the plane. After all the plane chaos it was off to Maki to meet Melissa and Phil for some much need ramen and onsen action. It was an amazing weekend but now I am having to recover during the week which is no easy task for me amidst work, the gym, and random chores. I just hope I don't get sick again because I still have plenty of traveling left in me over the next few months.

posted by Aaron @ 7:59 AM