As promised
One of my goals is to travel as much of Japan as possible, including hitting up the 5 main islands. I live on the biggest and best, Honshu. North of me is Hokkaido. Southeast is Shikoku and southwest, sitting on top of Shikoku like shrimp on sushi is Kyushu. Then WAY down south there are some little islands that make up Okinawa. This past February I hit up my fourth island, Hokkaido. It is a place known for being cold most of the year, producing good beer, crab fishing, having lots of cows and unpaved land for said cows, and producing 80% of Japan's cannabis. So I figured at the least it was going to be fun. Crab, beer and cheese for everyone!
I went to the northern territory during the coldest month of the year for a specific reason, the Sapporo Snow Festival. It is a HUGE annual festival which draws hundreds of thousands of people to the small city for two weeks every year. Ice blocks are brought in a week or two ahead of time and groups carve out a new creation each year. You walk through the cities central park and admire these gargantuan sculptures. Some are as high as 40 feet, all have a different theme. Enjoy the pictures
Throughout the city there are other small events happening like smaller ice sculptures. In the neighboring port town, Otaru, the citizens make lanterns out of ice everyday and light the city up by candlelight each night. It is spectacular! There we enjoyed the freshest sushi, glass blowing demonstrations and international beers. I highly recommend banana beer.
Sapporo beer is one of the top 3 brands here in Japan. So naturally we had to take the ummm cultural tour? If you breeze past the displays on the history and cultivation then you soon arrive to the bar where we enjoyed 3 half pints of beer for 6$! Ooh and we got some of that famous cheese too. It was great. This facility also sports one of my favorite activities in Japan. BBQ!!! It is carried over from Korea and what you do is sit at your table and cook your own meal over the open grill in the center of your table. The unique thing about this place is the meat is all lamb. Yes glorious baby sheep. I am salivating at the thought. It was great! For a set price per person we could eat as much as we liked for 2 hours, and drink as much of their beer as we could get down. Just beer and lamb. Doesn't get much better.
So what else is there to do up there? Well not much else besides eat, drink and be merry. I did find the best English bookstore I have ever seen in Japan! This is like finding oil in your backyard. Usually the best you get at a shop is 2 shelves of titles you have already seen a million times. This store, located near the main station, had an entire section, floor to ceiling, multiple shelves! I spent hours looking around and picked up two great titles; "I Am A Pencil" which is about a teacher and his class doing a creative project (really good if you are a teacher, otherwise probably bore the pants off of you), and " 'Tis" the sequel to "Angela's Ashes". Both great books if you are interested in Irish American immigrant stories.
So that is my trip. A few of the more magical moments. I fell and gave myself a concussion, my flight did not land the first night due to a snow storm so I spent it in a airport hotel on the southern coast of Japan, and I learned that beer flavored caramel is about as gross as you can imagine.
Random van we came upon. I think she is making a statement
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