Trip to Korea and Japan: Day 8 - Clocks and Horses

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Planning a trip six months ahead is hard, so playing with margins I ended up with booking 10 days in Sapporo. Having struck a gold mine by getting the assistance of Professor Mark Hudson in finding help locally and him fixing contacts with the museums, doing paperwork and so on, I now suddenly have a very clear plan with some time for extra preparations and postdata-handling which means that I have time for playing the tourist also. First day in Sapporo, I decided to go and get my tickets for my trip to Tokyo next sunday, to have that out of the way. Which is a good thing, because it actually took me almost 2,5 hours of walking and asking around before in the end getting a phone number to call and then do the rest on the day of departure...

what I am doing is buying a package called "Pacific Story" that gets me by bus to Tomakomai on the southern end of Hokkaido, then an 20 hour overnight trip with a sleeping bunk arriving close to Tokuo at Oarai, and finally a bus transfer into Tokyo station in the evening. This is high season, so the price is 15900 yen (1060 SEK/150 USD) but still much cheaper than the alternatives.

After that I went to the local Apple store to get a power adapter for my work computer, which I really has no use for otherwise, but do have to have now. I also photographed the Sapporo Clock Tower which is a classic local attraction

After going home for a short midday rest, I went back downtown to visit Sapporo Factory which is teh old local beer factory which has been converted to a large four building interconnected multi-store building. I found some really nice presents for christmas and birthdays, and watched the average "Fast and Furios 6" before returning home.

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Trip to Korea and Japan: Day 7 - Sapporo via Seoul

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My week in Ulsan has come to an end, as I am now in Sapporo, Hokkaido. Ulsan was a nice stay and I got what I came for, my IR rock art data at Cheonjeon-ri, and some more. The hot and humid weather may have affected my top list, which was department stores and going to the cinema, but the best day was still the help and hospitality shown me this sunday when I went on my trip to the countryside to find my rock art.

I was unexpectedly given a total six hours of transfer time in Seoul when the Ulsan airport service suggested I could as well go 3 hours earlier when I was already (yes too early) at the airport. ALso, as I lost my luggage on the way to Ulsan due to a uninformed ticket agent at Arlanda airport in Sweden, I was rather supicious this time when the girl at Ulsan told me they would transfer my luggage from Gimpo to Incheon airport. When I suggested I wasn't quite sure if I could trust this, she said something along the lines that when going from local to international flights, *then* its OK. So I took a chance and it later proved to be fine. What to do when stuck outside Seoul with time to kill and no large luggage? Well ofc I took the bumber 5 (purple) subway line to Dongdaemun and my beloved Doota deprtment store. 

If you are the least interested in modern asian fashion at reasonable prices this is the place to go, and the floor for men gets me every time I go there. You can finder cheaper or more international fashion brands, but nothing beats Doota at providing for us in between, that want something extra and different from home, but at the same time don't have to go broke. I actually didnt have that much money at all, but just watching gave me energy. ;-)

Korean Air actually had the best ever onboard magazine I had ever read by far. Reviews, a 10+ page theme number on Kafka, etc, it was actually quite worthwhile to read.

Burgers at Doota...and yes, I did buy one t-shirt, but damn it was so nice. ;-)

At my place of stay in Sapporo, which I booked through airbnb. More on this later on.

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