Hokkaido Day 1

Sarah and I went to Hokkaido last week!  It was a blast.  I decided to do more picture posts, but seeing as I came home with more than 500 pictures, I am going to post day by day, plus a special post about the crab dinner Sarah and I went to eat!

Let us start with day 1.  I got up at 3:00 in the morning to catch my taxi to Nagoya airport where I met up with Sarah and we boarded a plane to go to Sapporo!  I should mention that we did not have IDs checked as we went through security.  Crazy!

So, we land in Sapporo, hop a train from the airport to Sapporo station and then transferred to go to our swanky hotel.  It was nice.  I have gotten used to staying in more hostel type places with dorm-style rooms and shared bathrooms, so this hotel was excellent.  Delicious breakfast included, nice view, comfy beds, TV, etc etc etc.  wonderful!  However, a sign of a good trip?  Giraffe lockers!  This is what greeted us in Sapporo!!

Anyway, so we check in and then head out to find dinner.  Being smart, we decided to walk, but since I am bad at maps, we took a bit of a detour, saw a cool park with a pretty white house, and then eventually ended up at a ramen shop where we ate famous Sapporo miso ramen. yum yum.

 While we were eating, it started to snow.  Sarah was ecstatic!

I was not so thrilled...

 But Sapporo is really pretty.

 
 After dinner, we found part of the snow festival: the ice sculptures!!  Incredible!

There were several blocks of sculptures

Those are real fish...definitely a new way to keep your fish frozen...

Stay tuned for part 2!