Trip to Sapporo - Day 1: Christmas and Snow in Sapporo

(Click here for all trips)
After spending a great weekend with my children celebrating Swedish Christmas in a great and rainy Sweden, I took farewell and started my trip to Japan and Sapporo. Having done a number of long-range flights the last two years, it went as well as expected, i.e. a few spurts of sleep and lots of movie-watching. I had also loaded my Samsung S4 with AKBingo and Japanese dramas but to my surprise didn't Finnair have any place to charge telephones or computers! This was probably the first time in 12+ night-flights that this has happened for me. Otherwise the most interesting that happened was in Nagoya when I had only 1h20m to change planes, which would have been OK if the baggage drop hadn't taken forever. Instead I did get a little stressed out until I was past the passport check.

Sapporo indeed had snow, and sun, so it was a wintery landscape and city that greeted me. Even though the Japanese don't even nearly celebrate Christmas like in the West, there wed quite a number of cozy decorations. And at Nagoya airport a gang of personnel had dressed up as Santa Claus, a Christmas Tree, and so on, waving at passengers from outside as they we entered the plane.

At BUIE Gakuen, after taking a detour downtown to eat and check out some christmas happenings, I spent the evening eating and enjoying the company. And we saw the movie "The Hangover", which I had actually never seen. All-in-all an enjoyable arrival.

 Nagoya airport, situated in a lake, had a spectacular view of the mountains (hard to convey here though…)

 This time I took the bus instead of train and subway to BUIE Gakuen, and it was really simple and excellent. Buy a 1000 yen ticket at the airport machine, go to busstop 14 just outside, and then get on (you give ticket when you get off), and then it's about finding the right bus stop. But as the phones GPS works if the wifi is turned on, you can check against your address. My stop was the second Toyohira stop (3-8). The bus says the stops in English.

 Finally, a white christmas!

BUIE Gakuen, here I come

Francois wants me to see this. Interesting...

Sapporo Tower

A performance, one of several I saw.

Nice meal downtown. Aaah, finally the Japanese dining I have been looking forward to.

"A Panda Claus". This at one of the fashionable department stores… Kawaii desu ne! (^_^)

 "små söde" = small and sweet, a danish style restaurant/cafe

 Cultural differences - Observe the calendar, while the 23rd is a red day (the emperor's birthday), christmas goes by as (calendar-wise) normal workdays.

 I combined the western tradition of christmas presents with the japanese tradition of giving presents when you have been on a trip, omiyage, to surprise my fellow residents with some small presents. Enthusiastic examination on which to choose ensued… ;-) Merry Christmas!

(Click here for next day)

Trip to Korea and Japan: Day 26 - Top 5 List

(Click here for first day, yesterday and all trips)



It is hard to sum up such a long journey to two countries and three cities in a top 5 list, but it can still serve as a focus for what I, at the moment at least, see as my top 5 experiences. In the background is of course a multitude of memories, people and places mixing together in a weave of emotions and impressions, but these five rise above the others in my mind's inner eye.

1. BUIE Share house Gakuenmae. The people of this place really stuck a chord in me and maybe done what years of anime, manga and studies of Japanese culture couldn't do - made me really (really) decide to try to learn the language. Kenji and all you other guys, you were really good friends.

2. Sapporo and Hokkaido. The climate is better than Tokyo, the people better looking, and the shopping and eating is really fantastic enough. If I ever live in Japan, you could do worse.

3. Japanese food. There is a paradox that while Japanese groceries are often quite expensive, you can find simple dishes which taste really great. And the sweets...the Japanese really has a sweet tooth.

4. That day in Ulsan. The day I went looking for the petroglyphs outside Ulsan really redeemed the Korean's to me as I honestly never had felt that much of an connection (like I do in Japan) to the ones I had met. The bus driver gave me directions and a free ride, the two ladies at the exit post near Cheongjeong-ri treated me with water and peaches when I was in need, and it was just a really nice and warm feeling.

5. Bying miniatures in Akibahara in Tokyo. To go to nerd heaven with no cares about what you should do as a grown man is sheer fun. I and my (also grown up) sister went there and shopped fantasy miniatures, comic books and toys like any other japanese otaku. Wearing a fresh 2013 AKB48 t-shirt didn't make it any less fun when in Tokyo.