This must be it. Welcome to the new year.

The train decathlon that we had participated on our way back from Sapporo seemed to take a little bit out of us when we finally arrived back here in Tokyo. Another point to make was that we had somehow overlooked the fact that we needed accommodation for NYE and assumed (wrongly I might add) that there would be enough around to book something on the day. Taking a stroll around Ueno we checked out a couple of capsule hotels. Full. Either that or they just didn’t want any gaijin staying there. But just when we were losing hope we saw a sign down an alley that said “hotel” and we decided to have a look. They had numerous vacancies, but we chose the cheapest option. Which incidentally was the sexiest option as well. The tiny room and its almost double bed were definitely designed for people who didn’t plan on sleeping. Nonetheless I’m comfortable with my sexuality and it wasn’t going to be the first time I’d shared a bed with Josh.

In many ways it doesn’t seem right that Japan celebrates the new year at the same time as us. For one, their current year counting system goes by the number of years that the emperor’s reign has lasted. Which means that new year’s day reads as 1/1/21. Our choice of location for the inaugural event was the well known Shibuya crossing. We started our night at a bar that was selling beers for 180 yen ($3 Australian – completely unheard of in Tokyo) and then proceeded to munch our way through their finger food menu. There is something quite entertaining about ordering in a non-english speaking bar. Sometimes we know the key words in japanese, other times we don’t. This tends to end up in a game of charades with the waiter acting out the type of animal that we are about to order. Um….Two syllables…..a bird…with a tail…. Chicken! Hai, nimai kudasai! Progressing to the crossing via the subway we found ourselves in a sea of party goers. Thousands of people packed the streets to ring in the new year. The only thing that I found strange was that there was no countdown. Everyone just kind of erupted in a wave of well wishing around 12am. Tokyo’s youth started giant moshpits that would flood onto the crossings every time that little green man popped up. Police feebly tried to stop the jumping and running. Random free hugs were being handed out left, right and centre. But amongst the chaos, in true Japanese style, it was still quite controlled. That was until all the foreigners decided to run and jump on a castle of neatly stacked cardboard boxes. Bloody troublemakers. Apparently it’s traditional for Japanese people to do Christmas and New Years in the opposite manner to that in the west. Christmas is for spending time with friends and NYE is a time for family. Lots of people also visit temples for the new year to pray for good luck and prosperity. We noticed that the next day when we returned to Asakusa.

The local Asakusa temple is quite famous and is situated in a part of Tokyo that is touted as being a glimpse of ‘old tokyo’. I’m not sure exactly what that means, but I’ve interpreted it as meaning that it was really quite nice. Today the temple was surrounded by stalls selling food, pendants and other miscellaneous trinkets. The clear air was filled with the rich, smokey smell of yakotori and the spruikers were out in full force trying to coax people into their stalls with promises of tasty food at great prices. Children played in the mini fishing stalls that had been set up while older punters tried their hand at shuriken throwing for prizes. There was a definite festival atmosphere about the place making the clear, blue skies of Tokyo seem all the more vibrant. Amongst the alleyways filled with colourful vendors there were a few eye catchers. One of these was the chocolate banana stall. I always thought that chocolate bananas were cold, white bananas, covered in dark chocolate. Wrong. These things looked like they were going to a rave! The outside had been dipped in a layer of three different colours of chocolate. The blue, pink and brown chocolate stripes were accentuated by artistic squiggles and the multi-coloured sprinkles that had been added for good measure. I’m surprised they weren’t wearing fluffy pants.

On a much sadder note, Josh and I have come to the end of the road. Our amazing and sometimes spontaneous trip across this awesome country has finally come to a close. Josh will be heading home tomorrow morning and I will head down south to Peter’s place. It has been so cool to have a travel buddy over this last five weeks, and not just anyone – one of my best mates! Anybody that can catch 10 trains over 23 hours to a place where we have no accommodation arranged and still not get annoyed, deserves my respect. And Josh, if you are reading this I’d just like to thanks bro – it’s been awesome and you will be missed.

I will be staying with Peter for 4 weeks so from now on, these posts will most likely be about the nuances I noticed over the course of my trip or things that are particularly weird because I won’t be doing much travelling around. With that said though, I’m sure I’ll be able to find something to write about in the space of four weeks so have little look-see every now and again. Miyazaki ni ikimasho!

Slice like a ninja, cut like a razorblade

Snow, sushi, Sapporo, suntory – sugoi! A whole heap has happened since I last wrote so it might be a good idea cover the main points with a summary and then delve into a little more detail. Since last time when we were in Hakuba we have been to Sendai, Sapporo, Furano and are now back in Tokyo. Somewhere in amongst that was christmas, new years eve and a whole heap of snow.

So from the start the story goes like this. We left Hakuba on a mission to get up to Sendai (a few hours north of Tokyo). As usual, we organised our accommodation as a last thought before leaving and were in a mad rush to try and get the details of the hostel location. My skills of reason told me that we should take the numbers and locations of three different hostels – just in case one didn’t have any vacancies. Upon arrival in Sendai we grabbed the map and headed off in search of our room. Josh was heading up the operation as lead navigator – a move which turned to be sheer genius on my part. The map gave us a rough idea on how to get there, but had left out the important bits. Things like street names and names of landmarks. It had the landmarks on it – just no key to say what the symbols meant. After a whole heap of “I think it’s up this street” we came to the conclusion that we were a little lost. But, with Millard on the case he was somehow able to decipher the map and miraculously take us right to the hostel. And it only took us 45 minutes to walk there with our packs on our backs! Now we had made a booking earlier for a hostel by the name of Maple Sendai. With the signs all in Japanese we had to ask if they had my booking. Negative. That was quickly followed by “Is this the Maple Sendai?” Turns out we had followed the wrong map and gone to another hostel instead. A much more expensive one. The one we were looking for was a 15 minute train ride away. Ugh. We took a copy of a proper map from the hostel and made our way to the train station. We then caught a train and walked for another 45 minutes trying to find the place we were staying. Oh god. By the time we found it the sun had completely gone down and we had spent a good hour and a half with our 25 kilo packs on our backs. Painful, but eventually quite funny.

After Sendai we headed north to Sapporo. We basically used Sapporo as our gateway to Furano – the place we were going to go snowboarding. We arrived at 11:30pm and once again followed directions from the website. This time however, they were perfect. It was probably a good thing too as the snow had been falling heavily on Sapporo and getting lost in that kind of weather would have been a lot less humourous . The footpaths were thick with powder and in most places the snow was at least a foot deep. And just as we reached our hostel it started to snow again. Properly this time.

I’d just like to take a moment out to say how much I like snow. Having never really seen it before this year, I had expectations about what it would be like. Most people would just be like “yes, it’s cold and it’s white”, but I think there’s a bit more to it than that. The snow we saw in Furano and Sapporo was, at times, quite heavy. For me it was so strange to see the little, white drops of frozen water drifting slowly down from above. I have to say though, I really do love snow. I love the way it makes things look when it blankets entire towns and countrysides. I like the way it hangs on the trees. I like the way it falls so slowly. I like the way that fresh layers of thick snow are so enticing to run and run into. It’s strange and beautiful at the same time. It has the ability to make even the ugliest places seem like magical far away lands. And it’s shitloads more fun than rain. I understand that to people from Canada that are reading this it probably sounds like “blah, blah, blah, blah…” but I think it’s cool, okay?

Furano was our ski destination for this trip. Josh and caught the train out there which took around three hours from Sapporo. The small, rickety old train ploughed through fields of white as far as the eye could see. As we got closer to Furano the snow started to fall more heavily and by the time we got out it was absolutely dumping (that’s apparently what it’s called when it’s snowing heavily – yeah it was news to me too). Joining forces with Peter and Suzanne who flew up from Miyazaki we booked ourselves a little four person dorm and a really nice hostel. The ski lift was literally 100 metres up the road. All we had to do was get our lift passes and snow gear and walk up there. Wicked. On the first day up the mountain Josh and I chose snowboards and Peter and Suzanne chose skis. I could barely remember how to operate a snowboard, but after a few hours of falling on my arse I remembered a few things. I managed to work my skill level up to a point where I could go down a few red runs and comfortably cruise down decent inclines. Every day we came back feeling wrecked from a minimum of five hours up the mountain. It was worth it though. The feeling of carving lines in the snow with that easy back to front movement was something I had never experienced before. So awesome. I tended to have at least one bad accident a day though, finding myself in the scorpion position on several occasions (legs behind the head sliding on your stomach). A couple of times I thought I’d concussed myself after slamming my head so hard that my goggles AND beanie came flying off. But it was just a little bit of brain rattle. My worst one would have to have been on the last day. Right as we were coming to the end of a run it became all icy and there was no grip. I lost control, the board bit into the ice and I fell so hard on my coccyx that it made a tingling sensation in the front of my pelvis bone. It was pretty bad. Overall though – I thought I was going pretty good. But that was until I saw Josh. This man was a snow shredding machine! It was amazing. After a day or so he was looking pretty comfortable. Beyond that, I don’t think I can remember him falling over at all. I was completely covered in snow from head to toe and he was pretty much dry. All I can say is that if you look up “natural” in the dictionary there should be a picture of Josh with a snowboard. Peter turned out to be pretty good too. For a man who had never seen snow in his life he managed to get the hang of skiing without any lessons. Respect. Overall the snow was amazing. The thick, powdery icing sugar was so nice to carve up and it also helped with the falling over. More forgiving than concrete.

After four days in the snow it was time for us to pack up and head back. With Josh needing to be back in Tokyo to fly out on the 3rd of January we decided that we would head back to Sapporo and then make our way back from there. The train ride back was like a trip through Siberia. Everything was white and halfway back it began to snow so heavily it was hard to see any further than five metres out of the window. The wind whipped the snow into a frenzy of cold, white noise that looked a lot like the snow storm channel on an old disconnected tv.

Sapporo was still covered in snow when we got there. If anything it had more than when we left. Piles that had been cleared from the roads and footpaths were sitting like mini mountains on street corners everywhere. Some were taller than me! Over the course of  the three nights we stayed in Sapporo we managed to get a good feel for the place. One of the highlights was the Sapporo beer museum (I know, I know, it sounds too good to be true). The displays of old advertising boards from 1900 were cool. As was the sample set of tasting beers you could get in the bar. Cheap and delicious. Downstairs near the merchandise shop there was an ice cream bar selling squid, corn, red bean and stout beer flavoured treats. Seeing as though it was -3 outside didn’t really feel like ice cream, but I would have chosen the beer one. I would have had to. Apart from the museum we spent a lot of time just trudging through snow looking at the streets of Sapporo. Our first night was a little bit of a shock. We left the hostel in the mid afternoon and hadn’t really thought about the duration of our expedition. As the sun began to set, the temperature began to fall so we ducked into a nearby alley for some ramen (soup and noodles). After a steaming hot bowlful we felt as though we had warmed ourselves up enough to face the elements – oh how wrong we were. Stepping outside we were blasted with icy winds that chilled us to the bone. Then snow started falling. Soon enough the weather took the shape of a storm with the cold blasts becoming one constant wind tunnel. Tiny snow particles pelted our faces and the hazard of slipping on the icy roads crippled our travel speed. Trying to form a ninja style face mask with my hood proved futile as the white flecks flew at us from every angle. Ill prepared and definitely underdressed for the occasion (only wearing a t-shirt, a hoody and jeans!) we found ourselves scrambling from shop to shop, stopping at random intervals to warm our hands in nearby seven elevens. The blizzard-like conditions lasted all the way home which was around twenty minutes walk. We arrived back at the hostel to see the owner watching the weather on tv. Apparently it was -8! The saddest thing about it was that I met a guy from Toronto there who said that the weather here was a little better than Toronto’s. Oh dear.

So with our rail passes running out just a day after arriving in the snow, we had the dilemma of how to make our way back from Sapporo to Tokyo (1200km). The Shinkansen was now too expensive for us to take and the planes were all pretty expensive as well. Our only other options were to take a ferry or get a special train pass that gives you unlimited travel on local trains for a period of five days. After my little ferry episode in New Zealand earlier this year I was put off that idea. Especially since people we spoke to told me that it was really rough and that the weather was bad for around 6 hours. One couple said that the waters were so rough they had their 19 hour trip extended to 41 hours! Ouch. It looked like the train was our only choice. So after consulting the info people at the train station we were given a list of the trains that we could catch. Because we could only take local trains from point to point, they said our journey was going to take 23 hours. And we had to change trains 10 times! It was hell, but I would choose that any day over six hours of life threatening waves on a ferry. But that’s just me.

Okay, I think that there is probably more information than most people can handle in this one post so I will leave it there. But I still have a few more stories about new years eve and some comments on japanese culture so check back soon.