It was raining even worse this morning. Happy Valentine’s Day! I should have brought an umbrella with me! I got up late (vacation after all), and stopped by a bakery on the main stretch. Such wonderful looking goodies. It was really hard to pick one! I also got a coffee nearby at Sprout and ate my delicious cake pastry with it. It was amazing. A strawberry hidden inside with so much pudding cream. Yum! Hung out there for a bit before I managed to catch the next bus at 1:00 pm. The Kutchan station bus schedules were nowhere online so I had to take a picture of it earlier.

After I got back to Hirafu, I went to get some lunch at a cafe that was also way overpriced. Although it was crowded, as one person, it was easy enough to get a seat. I ordered a cheeseburger that came with sweet potato fries. The cheeseburger was very Aussie like instead of American ha. I hung out there for a while watching the rain from my window seat. I ended up walking up to the slopes to see how they looked today. The fog lifted for a brief moment and I could actually see the mountain. I thought about doing night skiing for five hours from 3 pm on, but it’s so expensive and the snow not worth it. Clearly my snow curse followed me and although I came to ski, I wouldn’t be able to at all. After a little bit of people watching, I caught the bus and headed back to Kutchan.


I stopped by a grocery store to get some dinner - sushi - and breakfast . The checkout lady even spoke English there. Afterward, I went by the Tsutaya to hang out at their cafe and got a much cheaper coffee. I got back to the airbnb at dinnertime and ate. After getting ready for bed, I started feeling unwell. My stomach was acting up and I woke up several times in the night.

I woke up to rain, bleh. Last night’s sleep was much better. I wore my fleece leggings and an extra long sleeve shirt and sweater with my pjs and that helped. I caught a local bus from the station to Niseko Hirafu, the ski resort town. With rain, I had already given up on cross country skiing. After arriving in Niseko, the slopes looked horrible, completely covered in mist and fog. I walked down into the town, trying to find somewhere to eat. I didn’t have any proper rain gear, but my jacket and snow pants held up. I ended up at a creperie as most places were pretty full. After a pretty short wait, I got my table. So many of the workers were French! All the lovely accents. The food was amazing. I had a savory galette and then a sweet banana crepe with ice cream. I even got to order in French. Absolutely delicious. I had a nice conversation with the Australians who were my table partners.

The interesting part of Hirafu was how intensely expensive it is - most pricey place I’ve been in Japan (paying around $20 per meal)- and how it felt like I had left Japan. All the signs were written in English or romaji. Westerners everywhere you looked and only English in the background. The most Japanese I heard was at the convenience store. It was crazy.

Post lunch, I stopped by the convenience store to buy some conditioner and I went to a nearby onsen. Most provide shampoo, but my hair is picky and I didn’t want to end up with a nest of snarls. After some research, people said this was the cheapest one and had a nice outdoor bath. The way there was slippery and downhill. I should have gotten some traction pads for my shoes. The onsen had just opened. It was my first time paying via machine to buy my ticket. First time onsening with only foreigners ha. This one mom with her two daughters had clearly never been before - towel clutching - and didn’t even realize they had to prewash until they saw the signs. At one point, this mom whips out her phone and starts taking pics of her daughters submerged in the the water! Luckily another woman told her it wasn’t allowed. They spent like 5 minutes in the water before leaving…

The condition of the slopes

The indoor section was pretty sulfury, the stones covered in yellow. The outdoor part was okay. I think Gunma has spoiled me with its amazing onsens. I got to talking with this lady, F, and her partner afterward. They were such a cool couple from Perth and really interesting. We ended up exchanging info to meet up for dinner later. I then headed off to a cafe to hang out. Gah, such expensive coffee. We had dinner at a hot pot place. It was so much food! I couldn’t finish the end bit when they add noodles to use up the extra broth. Very yummy with all the seafood in it. We hung out for awhile chatting, before I caught the bus back to Kutchan and walked back to my airbnb.

I didn’t sleep that well because I was much too cold. Japanese blankets are always a bit too short for me and the cold air drifted up through the floor and air mattress so it was hard to generate heat despite the down quilt. I realized I had a vent open on the wall for the kerosene heater and promptly shut it. The weather report looked horrible. Warm and rainy. Not sure if this skiing thing was going to work out. Cursed I say.

I decided to catch the train at 12:30 ish to Otaru to explore that coastal town and see their snow light festival at night. I walked slowly to the central area of Kutchan to get some lunch. The mounds of snow looked even better by daylight. There were spots that were taller than me. The town was pretty empty as I wandered checking out what I could eat for lunch. I ended up in a empty ramen shop by the station. As I was now in touristy land, they had an English menu. Four other salarymen later joined me, slurping away. Hokkaido is well known for its ramen and it was indeed yummy. I still had some time before the train so I went to get a coffee at the cafe across the street called Sprout. It had a hiking, outdoorsy theme and sold hiking gear too. Tons of hiking books and National Geographic magazines were spread on the back shelves.

After sitting down, I double checked my train time and realized I had misremembered the departure time and had already missed the train by several minutes. I’m so far out in the middle of nowhere, the next train was an hour and a half later. I hung out at the coffee shop for the whole time and got to have some interesting conversations with the other tourists there. This just meant I’d have less time in Otaru and no chance to go to the outlook on the peninsula or visit the aquarium to see the penguins walking outside. It took a little over an hour to get there. Otaru was bigger than I had expected. I walked around and down to the canal it was famous for and to the ocean! Seagulls! A sweet Japanese lady offered to take my photo in Japanese when she saw me attempting a selfie. I got a pancake sandwich - dorayaki - with sweet potato ice cream for a snack, but it didn’t have a strong flavor. I also checked out the glass work in the glass shops. You could even make your own glass bead.

As dusk crept up, the hoards of people - especially Chinese - increased. Everyone was squeezing into the best spots to take photos of the lanterns on the canal. I really enjoyed the frozen flowers and berries inside snow and ice. The second section of lights was especially spectacular. I couldn’t stop taking photos. I had dinner above a fish market. I really wanted the scallops, but they were all sold out so I had to settle for mackerel. Surprisingly, it wasn’t that great and seemed a bit over cooked.

Today was a holiday so no school, but I had to get up at the crack of dawn this morning - jk, it was before dawn - to catch the train at 6:20 am so that I could get my 7:15 am bus to the airport so I could catch my flight to Sapporo, Hokkaido at noon. It takes the bus about three hours to get to the airport because it lies so far away from Tokyo. After this, the curse kicked in and things went downhill. When we were about an hour away, I got the notification that my flight had been delayed three hours due to “ship arrangement” - whatever that means. Vanilla Air gave us the option for a full refund, or an alternate flight within the next two weeks. I had already paid for the bus ride and my airbnb, plus arranged my PTO so I decided to stick with the trip despite losing three hours. I had wanted to spend those hours at the snow festival in Sapporo, but now barely at an hour and a half to see one site. I wish they had delayed it earlier so I could have spent those three extra hours in bed.

We arrived at the airport. It was my first time at Terminal 3. I ended hanging out at the food court for a bit, eating a egg sandwich since my breakfast had been so long ago. Check in still opened at the old flight time, so I thought it’d be better to hang out past security. No baggage to check as I was flying on a budget airline and didn’t want to pay extra. I didn’t have to show my passport at any point during the process… it was weird. I didn’t realize that there was nothing past security but the gates. Whoops. Luckily my area had a small concession stand so I could get an onigiri and something to drink for lunch since I had four hours to waste her before they started boarding. But there was electricity and comfy chairs, even sofa thingys where you could sleep. After a bit of mobile browsing and Japanese studying, I played on my DS and time just flew by ha.

We had to hang out a long time on the runway as well, on this cramped airplane. My knees were rubbing against the seat in front of me. I finally made it to Sapporo and rushed off to catch the airport express into the city. There was no point in dropping my stuff in a locker as I only had two hours to explore before catching my train to Kutchan where I had an airbnb room. No time for dinner either so I just grabbed a muffin and a bun from the bakery and ate them while waiting on trains. I ended up at the Odori site as it’s the largest part of the snow festival. Although it was only about 20 F (-6 C) out, I was sweating from all my layers and from moving quickly. The ground and streets were quite slippery. I nearly fell hard, but managed to windmill my arm to stay upright while pulling a muscle, ha. Odori park was huge and absolutely impressive. Snow sculptures, people, and food everywhere. The towering, elegantly crafted ones were the best, especially those with light shows. I think my favorite was the Ruins of St. Paul's in Macau. The facade was so intricate. My second fav was the new shinkansen exhibit. The light show was really beautiful. Also there was a giant snow stage featuring a Winter’s Tale, a trick ski/snowboard jump, the Attack on Titan titans attacking Sapporo, and others. Walking was definitely slow due to the ice and herds of people, but it wasn’t unbearable.

I caught the first leg of my 2 hour train journey to Otaru and then transferred onto another train to Kutchan. The second train was completely filled with Westerners. All the people visiting for skiing. I’ve never heard a whole train car of English before. When I got off the train, I had to pay for my ticket in cash. The automated card system only worked up to Otaru. My airbnb host offered to pick me up at the train station when I arrived at 10:45 pm. The mounds of snow were unbelievable. I’ve never seen this much snow just laying around. It was also really cold! Only 7 F (-14 C) at this point. My host was great and the place nice. Happily to finally go to sleep after being up since 5 am.

My two friends, N and A, that I met during my TEFL course in Prague, were in Japan for their honeymoon so we met up in Tokyo! They’re originally from the UK and teach in Vietnam now. I took the bus to Tokyo which sadly required an early morning. It was amazing to see them again. It’d been about two years since I last saw them. We went to hang out in a cafe and catch up a bit. They were very impressed by Japan and I can’t blame them! I didn’t have any plans so we decided to check out the city together. It was a bit easier for me to direct them around since I had internet access. We first went to the Imperial Palace Gardens. My first Japanese sakura were already blooming! (only a little bit) Walking through the plum tree alley was gorgeous. It’s plum blossom time and both pink and white trees had bloomed.

Both N and A seemed interested in checking out an owl cafe so I tried to track one down that was open and relatively close. We changed our minds though because it was $20 for an hour! Just too expensive. I will try again another time. Tsukiji fish market area was nearby so we headed there for a fresh sushi lunch. It was fantastic. The area was pretty cool to see, a bunch of huge chopped fish heads. Post lunch we stopped at the Meiji Shrine that was located on beautiful wooded grounds. I finally remembered my seal book so I got another stamp there. There was even a traditional Shinto wedding going on while we were there. It was interesting to see her headdress and their outfits.

We headed back to Shinjuku to try and stop by a cat cafe. This also failed as they were fully booked and didn’t have an open slot till three hours later when I’d already be gone. Instead we got drinks and donuts by Mister Donut, finally my first time going there. It was also crowded and we had to wait to get a spot. Tokyo is a pretty quiet and calm city in many areas. It’s always surprising to me because it’s so populated. I led N and A to the Tokyo Metropolitan Government building so they could enjoy a free night view of the city, before saying goodbye to catch my bus.

Then the mess began. I easily got to Ikebukuro station with 20 minutes to spare, but I only knew where the bus had dropped me off. I read through the signs, checked maps, used google translate, but couldn’t figure out where the pick up stop was. I even crossed the street and checked around the corner where a bus stop was marked on the map, but there were just local buses. A sweet Japanese couple came up to me and offered help. I guess they had noticed me walking in circles. At this point, it was already 7 minutes past the departure time so I knew my bus was gone. They helped me out though and brought me to the stop - which was around the corner and some meters past the local bus stop, grr. They even came with me to the train station so that I could get on the right line to Takasaki, although that much I knew how to do, ha. The problem with the train was the Takasaki line was having delays due to some weird track noise. It ended up being a 20 minute delay by the time I got to the station, so I missed the next train back to Tomioka and had to wait again. Finally made it to my bed at 11 pm, wah.