The day started bright and early with a hangover. And the despair of losing my camera.
Luckily, the fresh, cold air and hot breakfast buffet helped, even if I was still a bit woozy as we headed out of town on our ski shuttle bus for 3. That's right, the full-size charter bus took 3 people up the mountain! HA!
Of course, we foolishly assumed this meant we might end up having the mountain to ourselves, forgetting the joy of school trips and ski school. In the end, though, we did pretty much have most of the upper mountain to ourselves and it was AWESOME!
Did I mention that skiing is a great hangover cure?
We chose to ski at Teine because it basically had two mountains we could ski for 6 hours for 3700 yen, and the fact that it was only 45 minutes out of Sapporo. Not only that, it was used for some of the slalom and downhill runs during the '72 Olympics, and it has crazy beautiful views of the city.
Oh. And the ocean. Nobody told us about that, and I don't mind a bit. That surprise was well worth the wait! I mean, I could practically see Russia from my house! (wink, wink).
My brother has told me about this awesome race in Seattle called the Ski to Sea, where the relay of 8 or 9 people on 6 different types of transportation goes from the top of the mountain to the ocean... And I thought the Japanese should definitely adopt that idea at this place.
Anyway, we started out the day renting our skis (which they were so kind as to have in giant foot sizes for Evan), and then working up our nerves on the bunny hill courses on the lower hills with 8 million people. Did I mention that there's an amusement park at the top for summer -- bizarre! Anyway, somehow we learned that we got to cut in front of everyone in the lift lines with our passes, and we never questioned that decision. That privilege was AWESOME!
After a couple wimpy runs from me, we jumped in the express gondola to the upper mountain with a bunch of kyusai (9-year-old) kids. Naturally they spoke very little English and it was then I figured out how little conversational Japanese I speak. But they were awesome and adorable, especially this one kid who kept saying, "Whhhaaaaat?" And "doko?doko?doko?doko?doko?doko?" (where?where?where?) and cracking us up. We do understand enough to know that one kid basically said to the other, "They're Americans. Of course they can't speak Japanese," which probably could have made me mad, but didn't. Cuz they're right.
So we get to the top of the mountain and see the beautiful view for the first time, take some pictures, and make our way down what we hope to be the easiest trail, only to discover ourselves at the top of quite a scary blue/black. Luckily we found a narrow but slightly easier side trail to get down, but the long run that followed didn't do anything to boost my confidence. And so, about an hour in, as we were returning to the top, I was getting frustrated with myself.
So I started skiing down the back bowl where the actual easy trail was, and Evan and I separated for a bit. Somehow not having to compete with or impress him really forced me to suck it up and stop being a wimp, and I suddenly found a couple trails in the back bowl I really liked. And thus began our love affair with a certain course for the next few hours. We basically skied there all day, with very few groups to get in our way. About 1 some fresh powder started falling which was awesome since the slopes were just starting to get a bit icy.
And I absolutely had to stop and eat PB&J at the top of my FOURTH mountain in Japan. The first in Hokkaido! YATTA!
From there the day just got better and better and we made our way down the mountain to the lower one, stopping along the way to call and change our bus reservation to the 5 PM one. Now how that was ridiculously easy to do, despite not speaking Japanese, yet in 3 days I couldn't actually get 10% of the people I asked to help me find my camera, I'll never understand. But I'm thankful we didn't have to hang out in the lodge for 3 hours with nothing to do!
Once back in town we ventured down to Ramen Alley for a DELICIOUS post-skiing dinner of Sapporo miso ramen. Man was that noodle bar oishii and cheap!
On the way home, we stopped to gaze at the finished ice sculptures at the Susukino site, along with a couple receiving their finishing touches. They were stunning, though I have to say I think, in the end, I like the snow sculptures better.
You can't really complain about the chainsaw and firetorch though! AWESOME.
Back at the hotel, I started making some phone calls about my camera and made a little headway with the police, but no really avail.
So we headed up to the 14th floor to the onsen where we soaked and relaxed and zen-ed out whilst overlooking the gorgeous snow sculptures for the next day's festival.
It doesn't get much better than that, folks!
Day 4, Friday. Odori Koen Site, Sapporo Beer Museum, TV Tower, Sapporo to Tokyo.
Friday dawned with grey skies, but super delighted spirits! It was SNOW FESTIVAL day!
After a final delicious breakfast and checking out of our hotel (I'm pretty sure they missed something cuz they only charged me 40 yen for all my phone calls, including one to Urayasu, as well as our 500 yen per person onsen visit... but we didn't complain) we walked across the street and began our journey through the Festival!
And look who was right across the street watching us every step of the way... AHHH! I can't ever get away!
Basically, the sculptures were as amazing as we had expected, but breath-taking in that must-be-seen-to-be-believed sort of way.
My favorite was the Asahiyama/Maruyama Zoo Sculpture because the detailing was just AMAZING.
Similar to Hiroshima, there were tons of school children practicing their English and interviewing foreigners, and we humbly obliged them. Luckily we didn't have to rush through the day, or we'd have been up a creek!
About 20 minutes in, a random Japanese man came up and started talking to us, and translating to some of the students. He seemed quite interested in chatting with us and offered to walk the loop with us. As we learned a bit about him, he seemed nice and harmless, so we let him play tour guide for the next few hours.
It turns out, we were hanging out with an 80-year-old man (!) who basically was just bored and likes showing foreigners around the touristy areas. He gave us all sorts of information and stories, and we learned about his daughter and granddaughter in New York and his grandson who recently came back to Sapporo for university. Basically, he was the kindest, coolest grandpa ever (besides my own, of course).
It started to snow quite heavily halfway through the morning, but we trucked on through till he took us to a cheap little Japanese cafeteria for lunch. We would never have found this place without him, but basically it was a cafeteria in the bottom of an office/government building. But for 560 yen, I had miso soup, rice, sushi, pickled vegetables, and tempura in a set. Talk about a bargain! It was fantastic too.
And then, he took off to go play Go, the Japanese chess-like game. That's how he spends his afternoons, and we had a great new friend to remember!
The sun came out a-shining, but it was still -10.2 C, and we thought we'd head to the Beer Garden for one last attempt at finding my camera. By this point, the restaurant had been called 5 or 6 times, and they were quite annoyed at being asked, but we perused the grounds to no avail. We decided since we were out there again (and had chased a bus 5 blocks and failed to get on it to get there), we'd take a tour of the free museum that unfortunately was not nearly as cool as Coors. It had some interesting memorabilia, but was definitely not a factory tour of the process.
Still got some good beer to bring home though.
Then we headed back into town to go up the Sapporo TV Tower and have a great view of the Festival. Saw some awesome snowboarders on the jump in the middle of the park, and an incredible performer playing an electronic organ. She was INSANE!
Finally, we headed down to the international competition section of the park (where 16 teams compete to build the best sculpture in 3 days) to have some delicious Iranian Kebab Pitas for dinner. It's experiences like meeting the owner of the stand who speaks 4 languages and lives in Japan selling kebabs, that make me grateful for and ashamed of my own life all at the same time.
Seriously. He speaks 4 languages. And sold me a delicious kebab. I don't get it.
And from there, it was a journey back to the airport for souvenirs and our short flight home.
Basically, it was one of the best trips I've ever taken and merely a sampling of how much that island has to offer. I can't wait to return someday and explore more!
