Hokkaido Day 1: The Ferry
It's funny how you can't escape the cheesy 70's movies. You're swimming in the ocean and suddenly recall a scene from Jaws. There goes your peaceful tropical bliss. No matter what, the thoughts lurk on the edge of your consciousness. They can't be fought with logic, reasoning or advanced cinemagraphic techniques. Today as my ferry is tossed from wave to wave in the Sea of Japan, I am haunted by scenes from Poseidon's Adventures. The ship tilts, my chair tips over and, as I lay on the floor, I wonder, really hoping, if the ship will right itself in time.

When friends warned me that the Sea of Japan is rough and I should bring seasickness medication, I listened, nodded and laughed hysterically in my head. "I am a sailor! I have sailed the seven seas (or at least a few of them). My ship braved the rough waters of the Indian Ocean, zigzagged around the icy fjords of the North, flew across the Atlantic and outran a typhoon in the Pacific. Seasickness is for beginners, not hardened old sailors like myself. I laugh in the face of seasickness." My friends may have been right. Let me off- I want to walk!

Hokkaido Day 2: The Skiing

I wake up in my warm futon in a small Japanese inn and my brain fights the idea of getting up, after only 5 hours of sleep, and facing the snowy day. Then I remember--I'm going skiing! Everything snaps into double time and I am ready in no time at all. I practically skip down the snow covered sidewalks lined with walls of white that tower over me. Well, I would skip if I weren't wearing so many layers. A thermometer reads minus 4 degrees Celsius. Chilly. I get on a train with a group of JETs from all over Japan. We're going skiing! But this is travel and as I should have learned by now, travel never goes perfectly. The train gets snowed in for an hour and a half. They finally plow all the tracks; we get to the train station only to find we missed our bus. The station manager says it will be an hour and a half until the next one, but the idea of having 40 plus frustrated foreigners sitting in his station for so long must have frightened him a bit. A new bus is arranged and pulls up in 20 minutes. We get up to Niseko, the most popular ski resort in Hokkaido, and it is amazing! What we call powder at home pales in comparison to Hokkaido. Their idea of a groomed hill is when the powder doesn't quite hit your knees. The mountain is huge with 3 Gondolas, 25 lifts and over 50 runs. I don't even get close to skiing all of them. The scenery is spectacular; every chair lift ride is awe-inspiring. Most of the trees on the mountain are birch. The ski resort looks out over a huge valley and in the distance stands Mt. Youtei, considered to be Hokkaido's Mt. Fuji because of the similarity in shape. A beautiful place but still incredibly cold. At one point on the mountain the thermometer reads minus 10 degrees Celsius without the wind chill (which must have been significant because they closed some lifts at the top due to strong winds). Somehow I don't mind the Hokkaido cold nearly as much as I mind Fukui's cold. It is so dry that I have trouble packing the snow into snow balls (handfuls of powder flying through the air just don't have the same impact).

After skiing it was back to the Ryokan (inn) for a quick bath and then out on the town! I meet some friends at the Beer Bar and then we wander to Susukino. Susukino is the nightlife district in Sapporo, but is also one of the main sites of the Snow Festival (good planning). For several blocks are hundreds of ice sculptures. They are lit up at night and very beautiful. Some of my favorites:
- A giant can of beer frozen inside the ice with a sign reading "Kirin thanks you for habitually drinking."

- A house with real fish, sharks, crabs and sting rays frozen into the walls.

- A life-size ice car with the real car sitting next to it for comparison.

- The Bailey's House. An ice house lit with green lights. The best part--inside they serve Bailey's and coffee, we escaped from the snow for a bit and left considerably warmer.

The food in Sapporo is also incredible. Thursday night we went out for the best Yakitori (grilled meat on a stick) I have ever eaten. That was until we pop into a tiny Yakitori shop for a snack in Susukino. They have Yakitori I've never seen before--mochi wrapped in bacon, enoki mushrooms wrapped in bacon, miso chicken, mushrooms stuffed with minced chicken. Yum Yum Yummy! I can't stop. After finishing in Susukino (and being dragged out of the yakitori restaurant), we meet up with more friends, find a cute little basement bar and cozy up to some pizza, beer and good conversation.

Hokkaido Day 3: The Snow (and later The Beer)

I wake up early and once again wage a battle, this time with my futon. I insist that I need to get up, so much to see, so much to do, but the futon wraps itself in a death grip around me and refuses to let go. I finally win the war around 9. I walk down to Odori Park, the main site of the snow festival (maybe 15 minutes from the ryokan). It is an incredibly spectacular day-- blue skies, sunny and happy (if a day can radiate happiness, this one certainly did). The sun hasn't even poked over the surrounding buildings when I first arrive. Giant stages of snow, famous people etched into mountains of white, popular cartoon characters growing out of the ice, they all greet me. There is modern art, traditional art, religious symbols, technological objects, cultural things from around the world, igloos, slides, you name it someone had built it. This stretches on for 12 city blocks. A lot of people are out, lots of families with children. The energy in the crowd is amazing. Everyone is so happy. I am so happy. It takes me a little over 3 hours to see all of the sculptures. I stop by the famous clock tower for a moment (the oldest building in Sapporo I think, it definitely stands out being the old and western in the middle of a modern Japanese city). I meet some friends for coffee near Hokkaido University and then we take off for...(drum roll please)...the Historic Sapporo Beer Brewery.


The Brewery is in a large red-brick building (or series of buildings) that was built in 1890 (with the help of foreign engineers, meaning it looks very western). It houses the only beer museum in Japan (which is saying something for a country that really, really loves museums). We do a quick tour of the museum, learn how to say Hops in Japanese, sample some of the local beers at the beer tasting area and then it is off to the Beer Garden. The Beer Garden was actually my only motivation in coming. The trip through the museum is only meant to assuage my guilt at not doing anything cultural in Hokkaido. "Went through the beer museum, can now check cultural activity off the To Do list. On to the Beer Garden." Hokkaido is famous for something called Gengis-Khan or Mongolian BBQ. It involves lots and lots of lamb on a Mongolian style BBQ in the middle of the table (they try to give you vegetables too but who wants cabbage when there is lots and lots of lamb). Side note: lamb is very difficult, if not impossible, to get in Japan. I have eaten it once in the last 2 years. The Beer Garden at the Brewery has a tabe-nomi-hodai, which means all you can eat and drink for 2 hours. Oh, the joys! I will spare you all of the gruesome details and just say it was an amazing 2 hours and I had trouble walking out when we were finished.

Hokkaido Day 4: The Ferry Again
The rough waters we faced on the way north seem to have dissipated. Clear sailing all the way and not a single sight of seasickness (perhaps this means I can reclaim my sailor status). The cold weather show nso similar signs of moving on though. We sail through my first snow storm on the water. At first I thnki it is a thick fog rolling in, but as it envelops the ferry I realize it is snow. Nothing for it to stick to, but a full blizzard at sea none the less. An incredible sight (from inside with a cup of coco of course).


The boat has an Ofuro, or Japanese bath with giant windows to watch the view from as you bath. On the way up the sea had been too rough for them to open the bath. But today it is perfect. We pass the Noto peninsula of Ishikawa prefecture as I am soaking. A very calming experience to soak in a hot tub while watching snow-capped hills flow by.