Hokkaido Trip Breakdown
September 14, 2003
Day 1
Well our flight was uneventful. I threatened Eri that I would make kissy faces to the flight attendant (and thus embarass Eri). We got the best cheap seats available – the ones near the emergency exit that have lots more leg room.
We arrived in Hakodate around 2:30 and after checking in at the hotel, we went and had some shio ramen. Not bad. After that we went to this place that had some red-bricked warehouses. They must be old or had some big significance because they were touted as a big deal. There were some cool shops in them and we had some great food. Scallops were mega-huge.
Around dusk, we headed up Hakodate Mountain. The lift wasn’t very exciting as Grouse Mountain’s lift was 4 times higher and longer. The view of the city though was beautiful. This city is surrounded by water on two sides and you can see all of it on the mountain. The night view was breath-taking. Also, we caught the sun setting among some clouds and I’ve never seen a redder sky. The clouds glowed and some of the water was evaporating so the mist was an eerie red sight too. This was one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever seen. You can bet I took many pictures.
After some more seafood for dinner we returned to the hotel. I spotted a monitor and automatically darted for it as I was only able to read the first part of Dennis’ update on my phone. It wasn’t an internet kiosk. Instead it was a very cool, very techy digital picture printing and formatting booth. Seeing this was the first time I’ve seen one of these and seeing I had just taken some very beautiful pictures on the mountain I decided to try it out. Fatal mistake.
We were able to see our pictures but about 10 seconds in, an error occurred. This error fucked my 21 pictures so that I couldn’t view them on my camera anymore. I know the data is still there because the number of shots remaining was the same (if they were deleted, I would’ve seen “27″ left instead of “6″). I was terribly disappointed.
My only hope lies at home – I hope my computer will allow me to keep these pictures. If not, I’ll try a photo recovery place.
The weather way up here is so much better than in Osaka. It was a cool 25 degrees.
Day 2
We got up relatively early and walked around the fish market area. The thing with Hokkaido is that there doesn’t seem to be much but seafood. EVERYONE was selling crab, cantaloupe, sea urchin, big clams, and squid. I say everyone because EVERYONE was selling the same thing. It was ridiculous – imagine going to the next booth and having the guy try to offer you a sample and then harass you into buying the same stuff that the last guy just tried. I shook my head at the poor business model offered here. If anything, I’d set up a booth and sell bricks of cheese just to offer some alternative.
Oh yeah, I forgot to mention that the things being sold here were fucking expensive. The crab was about fifty bucks for I would guess a 15 pound crab. The cantaloupe was sold in boxes of 4 or 5 for up to one hundred dollars. Yes – that’s 20-30 dollars for a cantaloupe. I have to admit though, the cantaloupe I sampled was really sweet and good.
After lunch we didn’t do much because Hakodate is a pretty small place. We bought some books and had some coffee and got on a train to Sapporo. Three hours later, there we were.
Sapporo is the capital of Hokkaido and it has all you expect in a big city. Having lived in a mega city for the past 11 months, I knew all there was to know in Sapporo so I think we were pretty bored here. We saw the same old shit everywhere. Only redeeming thing? The weather was bliss compared to Osaka. We were pretty tired after that long train ride so we walked briskly around downtown to see what there was to do.
We went to this Clock Tower house that was suggested in our guide book. Not only was it closed but it was just an old western style house that had some historical significance a long time ago. In English, this all meant, BORING.
After having some more coffee and this time, a donut, we went to a place called Otaru. It’s north of Sapporo and I suppose you can consider it to be like the New Westminster of Sapporo. It has this stupid river that was surrounded by lights. The place used to be some sort of warehouse area (again). Actually the buildings were pretty cool. Some were built like 1800 western style, some were asian style, and some even looked like medieval castles.
One shop was called, “Nani kore” which translates to, “What Is This?” It was a really cool antique shop that sold old American junk. There was a rack of really old comics where I quickly searched for keywords such as, “Issue 1″ and “Spiderman”. Sadly, this modest, old collection had a lot of junk. There was a really old X-Men comic where Archangel still had those white feathery wings.
For dinner we walked and walked and walked because each place we wanted to go to was either closed or all reserved up (put up a sign if you’re all reserved). We ended up going to a seafood restaurant that was very understaffed. We waited about thirty minutes and when we finally got our table, we noticed other empty tables were still not cleaned up. I think I saw 2 waitresses running around mad while the soccer team of chefs looked at them idly. Idiots.
The food proved to be very expensive and good. We had a seafood thing again but this time over a barbeque thing. They gave us pretty much 1 piece of all the fish and junk they had. I have to say, the clams in Hokkaido are deliciously awesome. They’re massive suckers too. We discovered one cool thing tonight though. If you heat salmon roe, they will explode! Ikura, as they’re called in Japanese, are those red, translucent eggs about the size of a pea. I’m not talking about the really small eggs you sprinkle on top of shit but the bigger ones that are squishy and liquidy. Well, on a whim, Eri threw one into the barbeque and about 5 seconds later, we heard a small Pop and up blew some ash. Cool! I excitedly exclaimed. I took another one and threw it in. Mine didn’t land on the coal, it landed on the wood that sat above it. Mine took longer to heat but mine went Boom. We were laughing our heads off as the other customers turned and looked at what we were doing. We blew up a few more but the best one was not in the coat nor on the wood but rather, on the metal grill. That sucker was loud! Now, an opportunist would see some sort of weapon to be had here. No one will ever question you if you bring a sack of salmon eggs onto an airplane and find some way to heat them up.
Day 3
Our last day in Sapporo, we wanted to do some touristy things but as we found our yesterday, this city kind of sucks. It’s like Osaka but smaller and less hot so whatever we want to do, it would be to a smaller scale here anyway.
We went and had really good ramen – Sapporo’s specialty is ramen. Then we went and bought some souvenirs for her family and coworkers. I bought a couple things but I’m weighing whether to give to friends or keep them all to myself. I bought some cantaloupe pocky (only available in Hokkaido), some chocolate covered strawberries, some sort of buttery cookie. All things had something Hokkaido about them, go figure.
We hit another book store and bought some more books. Looking at the pile now back home, we bought 2 English books for me, 5 manga for Eri, 2 English manga for me, and 1 English magazine. I also nabbed a couple free magazines from the hotel. I have never bought so much reading material in a span of 3 days before and that goes even for school.
Strangely enough, there was a typhoon heading up to Hokkaido today. It was the first typhoon that would hit Hokkaido in five years and it had to come on THIS day. I was a bit scared it would delay our flight and we would be forced to stay another day but at the airport our fears were alleviated. It only delayed a bunch of incoming flights.
So, we got home around 10pm on Saturday and the heat back here sucks. That’s all I have to say about that now.
