Kate’s Quests

Friday I took a flight to Sapporo to meet D.J. and the boat. It’s an hour and a half flight north (ten hours or so and more expensive by train). We then took the express train about a half hour north west to Otaru. That’s where the boat had pulled in and we were able to get hotel reservations. Sapporo was PACKED because of the snow and ice festival that was going on. The weather here south of Tokyo is in the 50’s and sunny. There it was in the 20’s and sunny. Beautiful. Also, before I forget – there are a ton more photos on Flickr. Click on the tab to the right to look at even more photos of the festival.

We ate at a Yakuniku restaurant after dropping my stuff at the hotel. That’s where you cook meat on a grill in front of you. It was yummy and after walking around a little and checking out the small light festival we went to bed. The hotel room was HOT. We were on the 11th floor and had no way to open the windows. It was so amazingly hot and stuffy – sleeping was pretty horrid both nights.

Saturday morning we ate at the complementary breakfast. This was my first exposure to a real Japanese breakfast. It was not all that surprising, but interesting nonetheless. They had hard boiled eggs, seaweed, meatballs, miso soup, fruit cocktail, cornflakes, rolls, salad, dried salmon and french fries. Interesting, huh?

We then headed into Sapporo to check out the festival.

The crush of people was a bit much. I’m used to it, but I’m quickly getting tired of it. Getting shoved and pushed makes me wonder how they treat each other. I got the feeling that they push me because as a foreigner, I wouldn’t understand the Japanese phrase for excuse me. Instead they shove me out of the way. Between the shoving and pushing and the looks we were getting, the whole area seemed quite racist. Both of us got the distinct feeling that we weren’t welcome. Especially in the quiet town of Otaru.

There were quite a few of these bars. We came back after dark and got a couple of shots of hot Bailey’s. We stopped by the next hut too and got some champagne. I had a glass of Dom and D.J. enjoyed a glass of Moet. Aren’t you jealous?

Then after dinner we came back to see everything all lit up.

D.J. especially enjoyed this picture of the guy fishing.

After a very long night of wandering we returned and slept fitfully at the hotel. Sunday we just wandered a little around Otaru, got some sushi lunch and dessert at the Otaru brewery and then headed to the airport.