Sapporo

So as my train heads ever northward it gets colder and colder. It will be three trains to Sapporo. Tokyo - Shin-Aomori then I go underground, underneath the straight of water to Hakodate, then the last train to Sapporo. I somehow managed to miss my first train by like 5 minutes. I'd like to blame it on the rail system like I could at home, but well, I'm in Japan and that argument doesn't hold weight so I had to wait an hour and get all my new tickets. The underground tunnel is 100m under the earth and another 140m of water on top of that at its max depth.
This is the station at Shin-Aomori, if it's cold here it is going to be hella cold in Sapporo! The laneway picture is my hostel, Time Peace Hostel. It is a very chilled out small hostel with the staff living in-house and always has some kind of chilled music playing downstairs, which is toilets, bathroom, etc and the chillout area is a lounge with a bar. It's cosy and I swing from enjoying it to feeling like I'm living in someone else's house. Most of the time there are no English speakers and I seem to be doing some things wrong, which they make allowances for but I feel bad, and I have learnt that giving expressed apologies can just further confuse the situation.


My bed is by the top right window.

So I got a bit lost from the directions of turn left at the vending machine....there are vending machines EVERYWHERE! If you're curious here's what they look like
So I went out to explore and got hungry and found a store which also uses the vending machine style to pay for food, no till necessary! So you go to this machine and put in the yen for what you want and choose it, a ticket pops out then you hand the ticket to the person and they give you your meal, simple.

I'm loving the snow and my hiking boots that I got for tropical weather are really holding out. They are warm and my socks don't get wet, but they still gave me hella blisters I'm still having to deal with on my first day. When I walk around the city I have some great moments that look really beautiful which do not translate to camera. It was snowing hard when I woke this morning, snow is pretty mesmerizing to watch, much like a campfire.

Had I realised that in Japan no one wears bright colours, I may have thought twice on a bright red jacket. I'm like the cherry on the top of a huge chocolate cupcake when I walk around. They seem to be quite fashionable throughout Japan and the style is not too unlike that of Melbourne in winter. There is a strange abundance of short skirts here. Not that I'm complaining, but I thought that when I got to a sub-zero part of Japan that would end. But no, there are girls with short shorts when it is snowing and I have like 30 layers on, crazy.

I had a bad day a bit yesterday, sometimes traveling alone doesn't feel so good, but I feel better today. I guess it is normal and it is still early in the travels, so I will persist on. I have a feeling that Niseko is going to be fun and am actually a little excited to try snowboarding. I hope everything works out...snowboarding in Japan can't be too bad a place to spend New Year's.

Oh! I had my first stack today on the ice going ass over tit on the street! It is not a good idea to suddenly change direction and speed... duly noted haha. A quick dust off with some swearing and off I shuffle not looking at who saw and might be laughing, lol.

I found a shop today that my 13year old self would have loved (I must not be that mature as I loved it now also!), it was filled with air pellet pistols. I took pictures as I need a real pistol license to have them in Australia..so in order to get an air pistol why not just get a real gun then if I have the license, nevermind me I'm just bitter :p There was also a huge collection of butterfly knives and pro slingshots and well pretty much any other banned cool thing from your childhood. I took some pics of the pistols etc the pamphlet had machine guns to like the Sopmod M4, Steyr HC, sniper rifles, even a SPAS12 Shotgun!

For dinner, I got to do what I've wanted to do since being here, which is eat some Ramen! I had thought it was an originally Japanese dish but it is actually Chinese which the Japanese had taken a liking to a long time back. Anyhow, I find a place called Ramen Alley and it is about two shoulder lengths wide with small ramen shops on either side. I finally chose one and had the standard confusion of ordering. Well, I'm glad I had my raincoat on because it was raining ramen when I was eating it..there must be some kind of a trick to it haha. On the whole, it was nice for a cold night's meal, though it burned me (the chef did warn me by saying "atsui, atsui!") a little. It's a fair serving too for about $9-$10 AUD. The strange thing, and in some ways quite annoying for me, is that no one eats or drinks on the run. It is frowned upon for some reason, which is why there are hardly any bins on the street. I mean, you can go to a 7 eleven equivalent and there may not be any bins to put rubbish in, you must have a seat or something to eat generally.

Here is an assortment of random pictures of Sapporo I have taken. I also got some more photos of Shinjuku that I lost, I will be posting them on the "Culture Shock" blog.

OK, so if you got through all of them, then good work See you on the slopes for New Year's!

Oh! I just arrived in Niseko, and the Guesthouse looks amazing! Here are some quick pics for what's to come. Every window I go past has an amazing view. The worries I had about it not being next to skiing could not be more from the truth...I'm smack bang in the middle. The Guesthouse was built by the father here and the family has only just opened their house this December for guests.

S.