Hokkaido Holiday
Well the christmas holidays have come and gone, so here is what I got up to. Being the idiot I am I decided against everyone's recommendations to go for a trip way up north to Hokkaido. I'd been complaining about the cold weather here so much everyone was sure I was not going to survive. So I put on all the warm clothes I owned... well not quite but I was extremely rugged up, and headed north.
On my own I would have had no idea of what to do or what to see, but I had a fabulous guide. Mariko, a friend from Sydney who has moved back home was kind enough to spend a few days showing me around. I saw snow, snow, and more snow. It was also stupidly cold with a max temp of about -3 degrees the whole time I was there. Of course winter is the time when everyone goes to Hokkaido to go skiing, and without that there are not a whole lot of tourist attractions left open. We managed to fill up the time though.
Of course the masses of snow were very interesting, so I have lots of pictures of lots of snow. Here's a big pile of snow outside Mariko's house.... just sitting there after being scraped off the road. Of course the road was never visible with all the snow and ice on it. Yes that is the road I'm standing on!
We went to a ski jumping place on a tour, it's amazing how far they jump and how steep the landing is. You get no real sense of it when seeing it on TV. Later that day we went to a chockolate factory, the insides which were meant to be the best bit were somewhat underwhelming but there were enough interesting things on the outsides to make up for it.
Apart from the sight seeing trips to things such as glass factories, sake factories and music box shops there's not a whole lot more to tell.... other than my naked frolic with 50+ other men. Yes I went to an Onsen (hot spring), and yes the rumours are true you're not allowed to wear anything in there, even a towel. There was an inside bit which wasn't so great, and a Rotenburo, an outside pool. Of course it was that cold outside that you could sit in the bath and casually reach out and grab some snow from one of the many large piles nearby.
Getting back home was interesting. I had been warned that there may be problems leaving due to snow storms etc delaying or cancelling flights from Sapporo. Well the weather was fine so I assumed everything would be ok. When I arrived at the airport I found out it was snowing back home in Hiroshima and my flight was cancelled. They changed my flight so I could fly to Tokyo and then change planes and continue to Hiroshima. The plane was painted with pokymon... hurrah! Anyways the plane was delayed so we missed the connection at Tokyo. They sent us to another flight which was again delayed, and told us that because of the weather we may get to Hiroshima and have to turn around and go back to Tokyo. Fortunately that didn't happen but it was an eventfull trip home all the same.