Friday 3rd.
I have to start this holiday on the Friday as I thought I had thrown my plane tickets in the rubbish. After a msn session of "where'd you put it last" with mum and Fiona, my aunt, and making Yuki take me into the office, I finally found them. They were in a very logical place and even though I'd looked exactly there possibly 6 times I managed to overlook them. I have decided that from now on I am going to get organised. (Yeah right!)
Saturday 4th.
After a very short sleep, I woke up at 5 am to catch the train the airport. I actually got to the airport way too early and had a bit of a nap. To make a long story short, It happened that this day was the coldest for the winter and as a result it snowed alot. So much so that Sapporo Airport was closed for most of the day. All but one flight into Sapporo were cancelled (The only flight to get in was from Tokyo). Luckily I met up with Lalindra a fellow Auzzie and his friends, Kathy, Heather and Steve. Kathy lived close by so we all crashed at her place. Her apartment is amazing so I am not surprised she is staying for a 3rd year.
Sunday 5th.
Finally flew to Sapporo. The snow was amazing. I had never seen so much snow. Cars and some houses were completely buried. You can get some idea of the amount of snow by the pictures. At Sapporo station I said good bye to Lalindra, Heather, Kathy and Steve and went and had lunch. I went to a small restaurant and this lady decided I was nice enough to talk to. Because I was able to understand the start of the conversation she must have thought that I was fluent in Japanese so she just talked away for a good 15 minutes. I caught a grasp of the conversation every now and then but most of the time I had no clue! After the 'conversation' I found my accommodation "Sapporo Kokusai Youth Hostel" (1st photo). Although it was a youth hostel is was really nice (better than all the business hotels I have been to). I would recommend this place to everyone. After I dropped all my stuff I ventured out to see the snow sculptures. They were quite spectacular. There were sculptures of just about everything, even Wallace and Grommit! It was a little strange to see not only the Royal Exhibition Building (ice) but also Spencer Street Station (snow). You can get an idea of how big some of the displays are by the height of the people that are in front of them. My favourite exhibit would have had to be the one for Narnia, the chained bears were amazing. Also at the snow festival was a competition between numerous countries (20+) to make a sculpture in 40hrs. You can see one of the sculpture's "before and after shots". Oh, yes, at Odori they have a replica of the Eiffel Tower, which they call TV Tower. Who knows why they built it. My fingers froze a few times before I decided to call it a night. Oh, yeah, I bought a new camera too, so I could take it skiing. It's pretty cool.
Monday 6th.
I had found out that skiing in Japan was cheap so I headed off to Sapporo Kokusai (International) Resort. It was about an hour and a half bus ride to the mountain. While catching the lifts I met a Japanese guy whose name was very long but he said to call him Hiro. Hiro had gone to college with an Australia girl so his English was really good. He took me down the black run, which wasn't too bad except for the bumpy section. Not sure what the technical name is but it's where you have to keep on turning REALLY quickly around mounds. So, in the end I had skied every run on the mountain. I left pretty tired but happy to know I'd skied the mountain. There's a photo of me next to the map of the mountain runs (in my pink jacket)! Unfortunately I hadn't realised that I had changed the settings so the photos are really blue. That night I met Ria, Terry, Charlie and Te Akonga for dinner. For the second time I had tempura udon. It's so good! Afterwards I was taking the escalator down to the subway and to my surprise; going up the escalator was Tom, a friend of mine from Birregurra Primary School. Tom, Clare (his girlfriend-I think) and I had a quick drink and caught up. It had been 6 years since we had seen each other last so we did a quick six year summary.
Tuesday 7th. (Photo of train - photo of mountain scenery)
Because of the cheapness of skiing I decided to go to Niseko, which is THE place for Australians to go for skiing powder. Powder I have decided is really hard to ski but great to fall over in. It's like falling into feathers. While trying to work out how to swipe my card for the lifts I met 3 guys from Hong Kong, Chris (?), Andrew and Michael (I'm bad with names)(Photo is of Chris and Andrew). They were an Englishman, American and an Australian. They convinced me to seeing/snowboarding with them. I warned them that I was pretty bad and we set off. We skied/boarded through trees and down impossibly steep sections, of which had warning signs. Every now and then I'd get leg tied and crash spectacularly but overall it was really fun. When we reached the bottom, they said "So.... how'd you like your first black double diamond?" Well it wasn't too bad as I was still alive and said so. They then took this as an indication to go on another. So that was my day. I had the plan to ski all the beginner and intermediate runs but ended up doing black. It was so much fun. I even managed to hit a tree... with my head! Whoops. I was skiing behind Michael and was gaining on him and in my bid to slow myself down I hit the tree. So, yes, my aim was achieved... I slowed down quite a bit. Oh well! Seeing that we were pretty tired from the snow boarding/skiing, we stopped off and had two beers. The guys tried to convince me to stay and have sushi with them but I opted out. Oh yeah, the Aussie guy Michael it turns out that he went to the same school as me. He left at the end of grade 6 and I came in year 7 so we knew a few similar people. When I got back to Sapporo I went and saw some ice sculptures. They were really beautiful (as you can see). I was pretty exhausted that night as you would expect.
Wednesday 8th.
I went to the Sapporo Beer Factory and had a bit of a look. I didn't taste test the beer as I hadn't had breakfast and didn't think it was the best idea to drink at 9:30 am on an empty stomach. I did buy some beer chocolate for Yuki which actually tasted like beer. After I went to a shopping mall which was over-rated, walked back to the Snow sculptures and to the Clock Tower that is famous in Hokkaidobut very small and unimpressive. I then caught the train to the airport and bought an amazing amount of omiyage (presents) for friends and co-workers, and flew home. Explanation of 3rd last photo - alot of people manage to see the Virgin Mary in bits of toast, stains on walls and what not.... Who do I see in the snow (on a tree)???? BATMAN! (Yuki thiks it looks like a cat!)
Hokkaido was amazing and I definitely want to go back again next year during the snow season and possibly also in summer as there are many national parks there to explore.
