I love Hokkaido!

I just had a wonderful trip to the north of Japan in
Hokkaido. I visited Sapporo, Otaru, and Niseko.
Apparently, I feel right at home in the cold. The
snow was absolutely beautiful! This first batch of
pictures is just of the snow in Sapporo. The first
night I arrived, there was a big snowstorm. I have
found that long speeches and conversations in Japanese
somehow only translate into one sentence. On the
airplane, we were about to land when the stewardess
came on and said many things in Japanese, and in
English said, “Ladies and gentlemen, the captain has
decided not to land.” Well, I looked around at the
other passengers, and no one looked alarmed so I
guessed there was no danger. Later she expounded by
saying that there was too much snow, and we had to
wait about an hour for them to clear the runway.
After landing and taking a train into Sapporo, I
walked to the hostel in a big snow flurry with a huge
smile on my face. I just love watching all the snow
float around. One thing I didn’t like is the slippery
ice. A ten minute walk turned into a 30 min walk as I
inched across the roads. I discovered quickly that
walking slowly is important after giggling at people
slipping and falling, then of course immediately
falling myself. But that only happened once! (the
falling part, not the giggling of course)
As you can see in the pictures, I am SO glad I don’t
have to ride my bike in Hokkaido! Or drive for the
matter. Yes, those are cars under all that snow.
All the kids that are playing are at school. Can you
imagine learning how to ski on the playground! They
looked like they were having fun.
The last picture was at the snow festival where
somebody made a snowman with crab claws for arms. So
cute!
The roads were pretty dangerous as Susanne and I
discovered after getting into a cab to go to the
Sapporo Brewery for dinner, and promptly got into an
accident. It was very minor. A woman bumped us from
behind. But we had to give all our info, and wait
around for another cab. But luckily our 920 yen cab
ride turned out to be free!
In the next few blogs, I’ll have pictures of the snow
festival in the next blog.