11:30 p.m in Jozenkai, Sapporo. Zac's asleep, we just finished watching John Carptener's The Thing, I'm in my underwear and scared. On with the blog! Sapporo is fantastic. It's just like Portland! We're staying in Jozenkai hot springs a little more than 12 kilometers outside downtown Sapporo (like how I'm using the metric system now? I'll actually stop doing that now). Our condo is kind of small, but we have a full functioning stove and rice cooker. The only thing is our routine right now is eating rice almost every meal and using the 7th floor men's onsen (hot spring) two times a day.
The view from our room in Jozenkai. I like it.
Jozenkai is filled with nearby mountains and hiking trails (just like Portland) and downtown Sapporo doesn't contain a lot of flashy lights like Tokyo (just like Portland) -- ooo! -- and also has a lot of places to get locally made beer (JUST LIKE PORTLAND)!
Zac and I decided to explore the local hiking trails that the nearby Mt. Yuhidake had to offer. The hike took about two hours and was about 580 meters (I lied about the metric thing) to the top.
At the beginning of the hike there were a lot of these concrete barriers, which Zac and I assumed were to help prevent floods... but we could be 100% wrong.
Initially it was hard to deceiver exactly where the trail was. Incoming Zac hiking action shots.
Some of the sections of the hike had rope so you wouldn't slip and fall down the mountain... TO YOUR DEATH! Certain sections did get kind of sketchy, though, I slipped and fell on my butt... twice! Also more Zac hiking action shots. Wow!
Some parts were really steep -- LOOK AT ACTION ZAC USE HIS FORWARD MOMENTUM TO QUICKLY MAKE HIS WAY UP THE SHARP INCLINE OF THE TRECHOROUS MOUNTAIN!
Nearing the top of the mountain we reached a gorgeous vista. I actually said "wow" it was so wow-inducing.
Prettyyyyyyy...
After about another 20 minutes of hiking Zac and I finally reached the summit of Mt. Yuhidake. Water was drank and Kind Bars were ate.
Candid photo of Zac attempting to swat away bugs attacking him at the top of Mt. Yuhidake.
Also, during the middle of the hike this walking stick/wizard's staff appeared in the middle of the path before me. It helped me to the summit of the mountain. It was the best walking stick ever. I did not decide to bring it back down. I believe it belongs to the mountain. I will miss you.
We ended the day with a trip upstairs to the onsen and a viewing of John Wick. Keenu Reeves is an underrated actor with a sad and unfortunate past. He's great.
The second day in Sapporo we took the bus into town and essentially just wandered around for a bit. Nothing special, except Sapporo, I suppose. It feels so much like Portland. It kind of rained, then stopped, then kind of rained again, then stopped, then got sunny towards the end of our day, then got cloudy again. No wonder we're sister cities.
The rest of this blog is just gonna be a photo dumb. I mean, that's why you came here, right?
This is some sort of peace treaty statue-thing outside of Sapporo's historical building. It's to show the peace between Japan, Thailand, and Singapore. Aren't they good buds.
Instead of crows like in Portland, Sapporo (and most of Japan) has ravens. Raven's are freakin huge. I actually took the photograph for my grandma, Barbara. Her and my grandpa love crows and ravens. They named their beach house Ravenswood. In this photo are some Ravens and wood. Ravens + Wood. Ravenswood!
F*ck the ducks... amirite guys?
Another grandma pic! Grandma requested I take a picture of a row of Ginkgo trees. Did you know Ginkgo trees are some of the oldest specie of trees in the world? They are actual living fossils! Neat-o!
Street shot of downtown Sapporo. Nice and grimy -- like Portland!
Drinking some Sapporo beer at the Sapporo beer garden in Sapporo -- SAPPORO, SUCKA!
Did I ever mention the insane amount of vending machines in Japan? Well, there's a lot.
The shiny teal building was something actually really cool. From afar it was waving and looked like water. Initially, Zac and I thought it was a big LED screen, but when we walked closer we saw it was just individual pieces of shiny plastic. I've never seen anything like this before, so I thought it would be interesting to share.
Zac on the bus back to Jozenkai... five minutes later we realized we took the wrong bus... we get lost a lot here.
We're going back to Tokyo in a couple days! I'll update the blogamatron then! l8tr m8s