Yuki Matsuri
Last week I joined a huge group of ALTs on the HAJET Snow Festival trip to Hokkaido. Had an awesome time. After waiting til the last minute to board the plane in Tokyo (thanks Erika), and after experiencing a little turbulence on the decent, we arrived in Sapporo around 5:30pm on Thursday.
Checked into the Hotel Mets and then N, J and I went in search of some dinner. Stumbled across a Chinese Restaurant hidden behind the 2 metre-high pile of snow on the footpath. Good food, good Chinese wine and cheap.
On Friday the three of us went to the Historical Village just outside of Sapporo. It was cold and snowy, so not many people were there. We managed to pass the time pretty quickly there, and possibly broke a few rules along the way, but it was good fun.
Then we went back into the city and went to the “Third most disappointing tourist spot in Japan” – the Sapporo Clock Tower. And disappoint, it did. We were there for about 5 minutes before moving on to the TV Tower. Sapporo’s attempt at copying the Eiffel Tower.
After that we took the street car to the ropeway and went up a mountain for the night view. But the ropeway doesn’t take you all the way up. You then have to go in a bus-type vehicle with snow tractors on it. Or, you can ride in the open sleigh-type thing behind the bus. Which is what we did. BIG MISTAKE. I have never been so cold in my entire life. It was already –11 degrees up there, but when you get coated in snow from the bus’ snow tractors and drenched in the fine mist it also creates, it feels much colder than –11. Needless to say, we rode inside the bus on the way back. Amazing views of Sapporo from there though.
Then it was back onto the street car and into Susukino for some much anticipated miso-ramen. Man it was good! After we ate and embarrassed the chef by taking his photo, we went to look at the ice sculptures. Some were amazing. Some, well, I couldn’t quite grasp what they were going for. But the Karaoke ice room with free hot whiskey and hot baileys was pretty cool.
And that was Friday.
Saturday we went and looked at the snow sculptures on Odori. They were cool! And so big. This year is the Year of Friendship between Japan and Australia (or something along those lines anyway) so two of the main sculptures were Aussie buildings. The Opera House and the Harbour Bride, right? Nope. Melbourne’s Exhibition Building and Flinders Street Station. They were amazing.
We spent about 4 or 5 hours there – even saw an Electone performance. Then we did our souvenir shopping and went back to the hotel. Dinner was at the Kirin Beer Garden. All you can eat and all you can drink for 100 minutes for 3700 yen. And eat and drink we did. J and I decided it would be nice to go and offer other patrons beer, but we were stopped by staff after only pouring two beers. Ah well, we tried.
Sunday was departure day. Left Sapporo at 11:30am (no rush for the gates this time) and got back to Tokyo around 1pm. Spent the afternoon in Tokyo shopping and then got home around midnight. A great weekend. Thanks guys!
Checked into the Hotel Mets and then N, J and I went in search of some dinner. Stumbled across a Chinese Restaurant hidden behind the 2 metre-high pile of snow on the footpath. Good food, good Chinese wine and cheap.
On Friday the three of us went to the Historical Village just outside of Sapporo. It was cold and snowy, so not many people were there. We managed to pass the time pretty quickly there, and possibly broke a few rules along the way, but it was good fun.
Then we went back into the city and went to the “Third most disappointing tourist spot in Japan” – the Sapporo Clock Tower. And disappoint, it did. We were there for about 5 minutes before moving on to the TV Tower. Sapporo’s attempt at copying the Eiffel Tower.
After that we took the street car to the ropeway and went up a mountain for the night view. But the ropeway doesn’t take you all the way up. You then have to go in a bus-type vehicle with snow tractors on it. Or, you can ride in the open sleigh-type thing behind the bus. Which is what we did. BIG MISTAKE. I have never been so cold in my entire life. It was already –11 degrees up there, but when you get coated in snow from the bus’ snow tractors and drenched in the fine mist it also creates, it feels much colder than –11. Needless to say, we rode inside the bus on the way back. Amazing views of Sapporo from there though.
Then it was back onto the street car and into Susukino for some much anticipated miso-ramen. Man it was good! After we ate and embarrassed the chef by taking his photo, we went to look at the ice sculptures. Some were amazing. Some, well, I couldn’t quite grasp what they were going for. But the Karaoke ice room with free hot whiskey and hot baileys was pretty cool.
And that was Friday.
Saturday we went and looked at the snow sculptures on Odori. They were cool! And so big. This year is the Year of Friendship between Japan and Australia (or something along those lines anyway) so two of the main sculptures were Aussie buildings. The Opera House and the Harbour Bride, right? Nope. Melbourne’s Exhibition Building and Flinders Street Station. They were amazing.
We spent about 4 or 5 hours there – even saw an Electone performance. Then we did our souvenir shopping and went back to the hotel. Dinner was at the Kirin Beer Garden. All you can eat and all you can drink for 100 minutes for 3700 yen. And eat and drink we did. J and I decided it would be nice to go and offer other patrons beer, but we were stopped by staff after only pouring two beers. Ah well, we tried.
Sunday was departure day. Left Sapporo at 11:30am (no rush for the gates this time) and got back to Tokyo around 1pm. Spent the afternoon in Tokyo shopping and then got home around midnight. A great weekend. Thanks guys!
posted by GrantPGranthm | 4:32 pm
1 Comments:
We've really been out of touch! I had no idea you went to the yuki matsuri! And...we saw that electone guy last year too! -SB
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