It is day one.
The first thing I noticed was the
snow. Yes, snow does stick out for me, seeing how I live in a country where the only chance of it ever snowing is if everyone, simultaneously, were to open their fridges and pray for a miracle. But don't get me wrong. I've been to Finland before, and I've seen snow, but that was... SNOW snow. This is actual snow, a pervasive element trying to work its way into a system which starts pretty much dry and green and has now allowed this THING to turn it grey and dead. But yet, very, very beautiful.
We started out in Singapore airport with a 1 am flight. The flight itself took about 6 and a half hours, and landing in Osaka Airport at 8:30 Japan time was great, especially when we had to scramble for a 9:45
connecting flight to Sapporo,
Hokkaido. We landed in the Chitose Airport at about near noon. The first thing I see is
Japan's Pride. It was very shiny. It was another one hour by bus to the hotel, and by the time we were ready to leave that day it was about 2. Pity that in winter, the sun sets at 3.30. Today we would go to the
Chocolate Factory, and then Shopping.
The chocolate factory was some ways away, in a place called
Miyanosawa, which, roughly translated, means 'Miya's Sawa'. There was plenty there, including
drinking cups, stuff
made out of sugar, a
crystal tree, a
giant fountain,
sugar birds and, as promised,
hand-made negros. Damn, those
negros love chocolate! In the end we went to a cafe where I had
Hot Chocolate with Baliey's, for that extra added spunk, and went down to the gift store to buy something called a
Baumkuchen, which is a local delicacy which is the LARGEST CAKE ON A STICK EVER.
Then we went back to the main shopping districts where we found the
Ramen Street of RAMEN, too many toys, a GAMERS store, a big arcade with weird games like
CS Neo, and some super pod gundam fighting game, and also lots of stuff. I bought things. Later we went to this basement of the supermarket, which is famous for having some
really nice foods and also
other foods. It was
very supple, and indeed, it was
VERY XMAS. There was more
Baumkuchen, which I bought and
ate.
tomorrow I will have moar. But for now... that's all I have.