Greetings! Been a while!
First of all congrats out to Ed Milovic out there who is now a proud daddy! Also thanks out to Griffin who let me crash at his hotel room (the very lavish Cerulean towers in Shibuya which drew many ooos and awws from the locals at the pubs) and also bought me a nice western style buffet breakfast.
Ok, where did i leave off..hmm..So i ventured back from Sendai back down to Tokyo to meet up with Grif. Unforunately, Somehwere between his and my email systems there was a a HUGE delay and he JUST got my email about 5 hours after i said id be in tokyo. Luckily, I hung around a smidge more than id said i would and he popped up!
So Sendai turned out to be a pretty cool spot, albeit a little slow on the night life. Of course, its probably going to be pretty darn hard to beat Tokyo where just about every night ive visited a pub ive found some cool people to hang out with.
So Grif ended up leaving Tokyo on the 13th, so i activated my railpass and took off to Aomori which is on the Northern tip of Honshu. This was the first time i rode the Shinkansen (the Japanese bullet trains). Theyre pretty darn fast (it took about 2 hours to get to Sendai vs the 7 it took me via local trains which is the cheapest method in lieu using a rail pass). So it took about 4-5 hours total to get up to Hachinohe which is where the Shnkansen line ends, then another 1.75 hours to get to Aomori. Unfortunately, little did i know that this weekend was a holdiay weekend (i only know cuz grif mentioned it) and EVERYTHING was booked. Blah. Funny because Grif actually offered to let me make calls from his room. So, after walking to about 6 different hotels and calling about 2 others. I gave up and went back to the station where i was looking for a cozy park bench (The lonely Planet has a nice little sidebar about this EXACT same thing happening to one of the guys, although THAT was during some sort of festival in august). So, lucky for me, the bus stop benches are in this nice covered area....However, I went in the station to check one thing out and lo and behold, a 10:45PM train to Sapporro that takes 8 hours!! woot! Its where i wanted to end up anyways, so i booked it. Lucky thing too cuz the wind started to pick up....
So the Japanese trains typically run like clock work and are ALWAYS on time. Only this time, the train ended up arriving in Sapporo a little late, which worked out fine for me cuz i dunno what i was going to to in Sapporo at 6 in the morning anyways. It wasnt until i met a German dude in the hostel (who was on the same train) who explained that it was because of a typhoon (that apparently hit S. Korea pretty hard) that the train was delayed (so thats why it was so windy in Aomori....)!
Hohum, so, starting out at 7AM in Sapporo, I made a good day out of it. The best deal ive had so far, is a place called Kaitaku no maru which is a collection of old buildings (Early 20th century) from all over Hokkaido. 610 yen. The had actors dressed in old style colthing, a tea ceremony thingy with a manju, and bunches and bunches of cool buildings to walk through. The bus out there was also free cuz of my rail pass!
So other things in Sapporo I saw were a nice little park, the old prefecture capitol (where i stumbled across a dude jacking off in the garden!), and also the local mountain top which had a soso view of the city cuz it was a bit hazy.
Sapporos also famous for its Ramen, so i went out of my way to grab a bowl before i left! Compared to the ramen i had in tokyo, it was only soso, but I think it had more to do with the broth i chose. Out here, theres three different kinds you can choose from: miso, salt, and a third one i forgot. I had Miso in Sapporo, and i dunno what i had in Tokyo (it was a milky white) but that was definitely the best ramen ive ever had! I dunno if i can ever eat that instant noodle crud any more!
So, after a night in Sapporo (spent the night in a hostel next to the train station, and on top of that, 2 of the dorm mates came in at 1am sounding drunk or something cuz they were loud as hell despite 2 others sleeping) I came back down to Hakodate where i am now. Not too much here. Its a harbor type of town slightly reminicent of smoehting like fishermans warf (touristy). Theres quite a few western buildings here because it was one of the ports opened upon Commodore Perry's arrival (with his Black Fleet).
So, next stop: Nagano! Ive got a train to catch at 3AM(!). Dont know what im gonna do till then (10 more hours....), but i decided to do this night train thing every now and then to save time and money.
Posted by eric at September 15, 2003 12:46 AM