THE NORTH: Day 3 - White Lover Chocolate

 So while we don't exactly LOVE white chocolate, we are both white people in love. Does that count?

Welcome to Day 3 of our trip where we visited the theme park of the exclusive chocolate from Hokkaido: Shiroi Koibito! The park isn't the ride-type of theme park, but more like a museum to this local and famous brand of chocolate. It reminded me of the York's Chocolate Story tour we took in England, but in a much cuter more involved way.

But first, we had to wake up at the butt crack of dawn of 6:00-ish, like you do when you are 13 hours ahead of your home time. I honestly don't mind staying on this end of the jet lag. Waking up at 6am and going to bed around 10pm is a good schedule for around here. I had noticed the other day that a seafood market I wanted to eat at has a free bus that can be requested to stop at our hotel, so I talked with the front desk and we got that all squared away. What an awesome free service! I can't wait to try some fresh, Sapporo seafood tomorrow for breakfast!

This branch of Karaoke Manekineko must really love Santa!

You know what makes a really delicious breakfast and is open at 7am? Ichiran Ramen, that's what!

Oh, by the way, we really REALLY need to get on the trolly of having our stores and shops on a walkable street underground. Away from the elements, warm in winter, cooler in summer, don't have to worry about traffic. We first need to bring back physical stores and shopping malls and get America back on the trend to going out to shop. THEN we can work on making walking easier underground and but those shopping streets there too. Get on that America!

Maybe don't call our underground shopping street Pole Town in America. We won't be able to resist making lewd jokes about it! [Jeff Edit: This is precisely *why* we should name it Pole Town.]

Shiroi Koibito Park is another easy subway ride from Sapporo station. Only 8 stops away on one train and then about a 10 minute walk, you're there within 40 minutes! As we were walking to the park from the Nishimachi Kita station, Google Maps had us walking one way, but thankfully a local spotted us and told us it was easier to take a different street. Thank you local!

The park was easy to spot as soon as you turned a corner and a large building was no longer blocking your line of view. We knew we found the right place!

But the true charm of the park is hidden behind this building!

We still had about 30 minutes until the park opened at 10am, so we wandered to the soccer fields across the street, bought a drink from the vending machine, and watched the local professional soccer team, the Consadole Sapporo, practice. Sapporo's team are actually sponsored by Shiroi Koibtio and this field is owned by the company and considered part of the park!

Also sponsored by Hudson Soft? I recognize that logo from a couple Nintendo 64 games!

10:00 finally arrived and we made our way into the park/museum to buy tickets. Tickets are nice and cheap, only 800 yen! And that's how much it costs to get into the paid area. It's free to be in the middle, outside part of the park or the first floor of the museum where there's a large souvenir shop and a couple of small cafes. Oh, don't worry, they'll be taking my money from various other ways.

The tour about the history of chocolate and of the Shiroi Koibito and Ishiya Co. Digital projection and cute little movies and shows lead you through the history of chocolate as Willy Wonka Professor Julian Dandino Ishimitty and his two black cats (which they kept calling Spirits or Faeries) Purumi and Ramuru talk about the Four Geniuses of Chocolate, and how they contributed to making the delicious chocolate we enjoy today. It was a very cute and interactive show and tour from room to room. They offered screens with subtitles in English and Chinese, as did most of the signs and information placards. There was a quiz you could take and get a free cookie as well!

{Video I took of cute animatronic Oompa Loompas White Dwarves (that just look like cute little elves in white cat hats) would appear here if Blogger would FRIGGIN SUPPORT MP4. Why even still have the "insert video" option??}

The third floor usually features a window into the actual factory below and you can watch the conveyor belt line as they produce the actual chocolate and cookies, but alas, it is under renovation until this summer of 2026. Instead they added a few more projection shows and some videos of what the floor usually looks like.

At the end of the history tour, which ends at the top, fourth floor, you have the exclusive paid area entertainments: a baking class, cookie decorating, personalized cookie tins, a small arcade, a cafe with an amazing view, and what looked like a train waiting area with benches, and a "magical marche" with photo op spots.

We first put in our order for a personalized cookie tin and magnet in the shape of the cookie tin. Then we tried to get one for Paul and Julie next door, but they won't put other people's photos on items unless you have explicit consent from those people, and alas it was like 1am back at home. Sorry Julie and Paul! We tried! [Jeff Edit: This is what happens when you don't have any photos together with your neighbors - which is a thing I never would have thought of.]

While those were being made, I bought tickets for a cookie decorating class where we got white and dark chocolate to decorate heart cookies with and you get half an hour. Definitely a big hit with kids, but we still had fun as they gave us chef hats and little aprons LOL. Plus, we got what I think is my favorite photo of us so far this trip (and top ten photo of us as a couple overall)! [Jeff Note: See how my hat seems really big? That's because the adjustable strip at the back is, in fact, far too small for my giant head - so it's just kinda... open and sitting there.]

We also won ourselves two little keychains that look like the cookie package from the arcade.

We still had some time until our cookie tin was ready so we decided to have a little snack and break at the cafe. 

It as a lovely, fancy cafe with a huge viewing window that looked at the park's iconic clock tower, the soccer fields, and down in the park's outdoor square below. I ordered a cold chocolate drink with a chocolate brownie with ice cream, and Jeff had hot chocolate with a strawberry and cream pancake/short cake/pound cake. They did a fancy thing where they lifted off the plastic ring, the cream and strawberry design flowed over the cake and made a flower pattern. 

We oohed and aahhed appropriately, and right when Jeff was about to dig in, one of the cafe workers, probably a higher-up, noticed the slightly off-kilter state of the strawberry flower and was like "Ohhh no! We did such a bad job! I'm so sorry!" and though we were telling her that everything was "daijoubu" she ran off to get a translated card that apologized profusely for the state of their product and we can send it back and get a new one if we would like. It was a big to-do over a slightly melty looking design, but were insisted everything was daijoubu and looked oishii and they were finally satisfied. I don't know what content creator tore them a new one over the state of their pancake, but they were scared, apologetic, and ready with a card in English for this exact thing and I hope that content creator gets cancelled for being a jerk.

Everything was really yummy! The ice cream was especially delicious! And so was Jeff's strawberry thing which tasted like pound cake to me. It was at this time the clock struck noon and we found out we had the best seating to watch the magic unfold as the clock tower came alive with a little animatronic show!

When we were finished we took some pictures in the photo op marche, went down a beautiful grand staircase, and exited the paid admission area and down onto the first floor with the souvenir shop. It was time to pick up our cookie tins! They turned out really cute, but alas I didn't take a picture of them before they were wrapped up. Instead, here's our little selfies and photos from around the rest of the park:

There's a tree to the right surrounded by a little wooden fence that says "Apple tree, do not touch" but if you try to touch it a little gopher dressed as a constable comes out and tells you to not touch. There was a gaggle of seniors that were having a good time with that! LOL!

It was about 3:00 and we saw all we came to see and had a good time, but it was time to go back to the hotel, rest our feet, and come up with a plan for the evening. Neither of us were very hungry yet, so we decided to head back to Susukino, where we had Ichiran that morning, and shop at the Mandarake and Suruga-ya that hadn't been open yet. That was about 3 floors of wall to wall second-hand anime merch! Wooosh. I bought some anime stuff from the bargain bins to use as prizes for my fandom club back at the library (I know they like Gojo from JJK anime, so got a couple things of him, and then anything with cute guys or generic cute or anime on it) [Jeff Edit: I had tried to convince Angie to just buy any "guy with white hair in black clothes" and play it off as Wine Aunt Syndrome - assuming that any guy with white hair is, in fact, Satouru Gojo. She declined.]. I found an old Full Metal Panic figurine that apparently came with a DVD way back when it was released, but the DVD was gone and only this little figurine of Kurz remained. I bought it anyway for Christina because I have never seen FMP merch in my life! I bought a little figurine of the Undertaker from Black Butler and some doujinshi (Cloud X Sephiroth and no I did not get that ordering wrong). I'll leave it to Jeff to talk about his purchases!

We have yet to eat the Sapporo staple of soup curry, so we walked to the nearby Soup Curry Sama that I had bookmarked....and it was closed. Boo. Oh, look at that! Cafe Gusto is right next door! DON'T JUDGE US! We were done with walking and it was after 7pm. I had a tonkatsu set and Jeff had his new fave of Cheese ON Cheese IN Hamburg. We shared a plate of baked mashed potatoes and wished for salt for some sorta flavoring.

Then we got back to the hotel and crashed around 10, like clockwork. Gotta be up and ready by 7:30 for our bus to take us to breakfast!

I'm gonna go take a shower. Take it away Jeff:

You may see various edits sprinkled through the blog today from me, but I can't think of anything otherwise that was missed. In the comments, let me know your favorite Hokkaido-based confectionary company!

THE NORTH: Day 2 - "Lots of planets have a Hokkaido"

Irankarapte! Have you ever been to ainumosir? (Yes, this is a Katamari Damacy joke in 2026. I'm tired. Roll with it. Or don't. I'm not your dad.)

Today's festivities started with a walk over to the local branch of Yoshinoya for a beef-bowl-breakfast, or 三つビシ, a local tradition going back decades. Then, it was on to a 90ish minute train ride on the Hokuto Shinkansen (not to be confused with the more famous, and more deadly, Hokuto Shinken) to the scenic metropolis of Shiraoi to visit the Upopoy Ainu National Heritage Museum. 

Now, when I say scenic metropolis, what I mean is "a town with less than 20,000 residents spread out over a large area" and "the train station is right next to a large wood and paper mill". Can you feel it? Can you experience it second-hand through my perfect command of the English language? Wondrous. (Angie: If I play the music to the opening of Twin Peaks and you picture tree trunks cut as logs, smell the pine of a Christmas tree lot, and see the town through a haze of misty rain and fog and you would again have a pretty accurate recreation of our initial assessment of Shiraoi.)

After detraining, we assaulted by the wind in the willows. And much like Mr Toad's Wild Ride, we found ourselves wandering along a prescribed path through a former industrial area. About 500m of walking later, we found ourselves at a very lovely history park/cultural museum. It had everything: a museum, a little recreation town showing Ainu construction, a gift shop inside the museum, a theater for shows, and even a gift shop outside the museum!

Just an example of the amazing accessibility efforts this museum put forth: they had facilities for people with a stoma (like a colostomy bag) and also a prayer room? That is wonderful! Good for them!

First stop, a small gatcha machine to pick up souvenirs for some guy on Reddit. If you're the guy from Reddit who asked us to pick up buttons, we've got your buttons. If you aren't the guy from Reddit who asked us to pick up buttons, mind your own business. I'm trying to transact here. 

Said requested buttons from Redditor who had regretted not getting them from the gashapon machine by the entrance. Hope they really like wolves.

Next up, tickets and the museum. It was a very nice building, with an incredibly slow escalator (this is not a complaint, merely an observation - that escalator was *slow*) (My explanation was it was slow so you had time to load the English language guide that we never used on our phones) to the main exhibition area. We learned all about how an indigenous population was stripped of their cultural heritage, punished for speaking their language, brutalized for practicing their religion, and made to assimilate into a larger imperial nation's culture. I am at least thankful this has never happened to any other indigenous group anywhere else in the world. Hang on. I am being informed that it has, in fact, happened dozens of other times across multiple continents. Man, what is wrong with people? Don't do that. 

The exhibition covered the past, present, and future of the Ainu. Lots of very interesting displays, some of which were interactive, that showed historic hunting and crafting techniques. I learned several interesting and horrifying things that I didn't already know (and many that I did already know) about how the Ainu were treated by the Wajin (their word for the people of Mainland Japan which means something like "those you cannot trust" and has sort-of been backwards translated into "colonizer"). 

There was an entire section of Touch Exhibits - the exhibits you can touch - that showed how the Ainu fabric artisans' materials felt. It also included loads of information about the Ainu language and how it is communicated (in Japanese, it is rendered in Katakana - the characters used for foreign languages [which itself is a staggering admission of purposeful Othering by the mainland Japanese]; in other languages, there is a variant using Latin characters) including Braille and Sign variants. A thorough edutainment was had by all! We swung through the gift shop (the one inside the museum) and bought some tchotchkes, including ainu handicrafts and bear jerky! It's jerky, made from bears!

An electric tonkori!! How cool!

I loved the sensory exhibit which was aimed for those with sight or hearing impairment. They had so many creative ways to learn about Ainu crafts and culture through touch. There was a whole area that taught Japanese with hearing impairments how to form the letter "p" and "k" which are letters used in Ainu language in such a way that isn't used in Japanese. There were raised images of the placement of tongue and lips, then a description of how it feels to form the words, and even a mirror to practice forming the sounds with your own mouth!

The floor of some of the sensory exhibit

Next up, a few demonstration buildings. The first was a craft hall, but there was a class already in session and we didn't have tickets, so we could only pop our heads in. Angie thought she saw them making Mukkuri (mouth harps, made of bamboo or hyacinth wood). What fun! We then sauntered on to another hall, this one showing off Ainu dance and song. We had just missed the performance for that time period, but the women running the demonstration used the opportunity to "practice" their dance again. It was very kind of them, though kind of awkward since the group before us had been like 10 people and this time it was just Angie and I. There was also an opportunity to try on some traditional Ainu clothes, but we were all bundled up due to the weather so we politely passed. 

While in the next building, an up-sized version of the inside of a traditional Ainu home, the guide (who spoke to us in English) asked us some questions about what we'd seen. She recommended a showcase that was going to start soon, only to realize that it was five minutes from then and literally on the other side of the park. "Go! You must run," she cried out to us as we made our way out of the home. I still do not know if it was her way of getting rid of the only foreigners in the park or if she truly wanted us to experience the show. Either way, thanks to her we had a destination and a timeline. 

We walked briskly across the park and made it to the event hall mere seconds after the start time. Technically, this was a ticketed event. But the woman who was standing outside asked a few questions and then turned around and jogged inside. I didn't hear all of it, but I did hear "we have guests without tickets, *foreign guests*" (Angie: I heard "ii desu ka?" so whatever she asked her coworker, she asked if that was okay) and then the place was abuzz as they directed us into the closed hall so that we could experience the show. 

What followed was a demonstration of traditional Ainu dances, songs, and a bitchin' Mukkuri solo. It was a good time. While we didn't understand most of the spoken words, it was still good to watch folks perform their historical artforms. (The performers really had a set of pipes! It was very moving and powerful!)

On our way out, we hit up the gift shop (the one outside the museum) and purchased some more small souvenirs (and a t-shirt for me). We started out walk back to the train station, stopping briefly at the locally-ran Buy Our Local Stuff store. Then, the 90-minute ride back to Sapporo. We did not buy tickets early enough, so we had to sit across the aisle from each other the whole trip. 

This was actually my snack on the train ride to the museum this morning.

Dinner was Tokyu Hands Department Store's Food Hall, called Food Show. We picked up some sushi and fried things, (Angie: Sushi, negima yakitori, and fried menchikatsu and a creamy crab katsu) then headed to 7/11 for drinks and dessert. Mind you, it's like 34F outside with 30mph winds - so this entire endeavour may have been fruitless. But we acquired some drinks and dessert, so I guess it was fruitful after all. Damn. What a rollercoaster this blog entry has been. 

We originally planned to hit up Karaoke after dinner, but our old bodies are too cold and tired to venture out again tonight. 

And now, here's Angie with the corrections. (I have made the appropriate corrections or side-notes in bold. I will only add that the menchi katsu had gristle in it and was inedible, the negima yakitori was the best, the sushi was decidedly fine, and the creamy crab katsu was actually very yummy! Night night!)

THE NORTH: Day 1- Easter Island, Buddha, and shopping

 

Hello and good morning everyone! It is I, Angie, bringing you this excellent blog post about our first full day here in beautiful Sapporo! Spring has not yet sprung here in Hokkaido, but that is fine by me because that means cool weather, not becoming a sweaty gaijin, less laundry, and I get to wear my cute new jacket!

We're doing our best to beat jetlag using the app Timeshifter, and here's hoping it continues to work! Even though we've arrived we're doing our best to wake up and seek light or darkness, take melatonin, or have caffeine when it says to. So according to the app we were to wake up around 6 am? Easy peasy when you're jetlagged and crashed around 10pm! Seek darkness until 8am? Not as easy when the sun comes up around here at 5:00am and the bright glow of our phones and this tablet screen are on. 

Now, I don't know if you know this about me, but I LOVE planning vacations, what to pack, itineraries and the like. I've found that I really enjoy planning one activity per day with the option to keep it loose and have the option to not do something or switch it with another day's activity, and then spend the rest of the day exploring or shopping or relaxing. Day one went without a hitch as our activity was:

The Makomanai Takino Cemetery!

But Angie, you're saying, why would you want to go to a cemetery? I mean, have you MET me? Also, many cemeteries are beautiful gardens or arboretums and places with beautiful nature! I'm sure you're picturing grave stones and mausoleums, but how about Easter Island heads?

Oh, ha ha! I swear I didn't even PLAN this, but we went here when it was still Easter back at home! Happy Easter y'all!

Makomanai is also a sculpture park with some fun replicas and, most importantly, The Hill of the Buddha! 

This was actually just recently built in 2015 and in summer the whole hill is covered in lavender! It must look and smell wonderful! We did get to enjoy some lavender as ice cream in a little shop no one else was in.

Speaking of no one else, there were tourists here, but the parking lots were pretty empty and we were able to easily find seats on the bus. It is definitely off season right now since nothing is blooming and the snow is almost melted away (there's still some on the mountains and higher up). Jeff and I agreed though, we would much rather be on vacation and at these destinations during the off season when it's not at peak beauty to avoid all the crowds. It's so much better this way. Plus, I like the colder weather!

Speaking of weather, the WIND at Makomanai was INSANE! It was almost like being back at the Isle of Sky! It was SO WINDY! Or as the German tourists--with stupid chad-bro older sons that were climbing on the Stonehenge and should know better-- would say: "sehr windig!".

It was also so BEAUTIFUL there! I love when I get to see mountains with snow on them, especially since I'm used to seeing hilly Cincinnati or flat cornfields of Ohio. But the sun was shining, the wind was winding, and it made for some beautiful landscapes:

Getting to and from Makomanai was really easy. It took about 1.5 hours to get there but all it was was a train from Sapporo to Makomanai station, and then a bus up to the cemetery. Have we mentioned how much we love the transportation in Japan? It's great.

New bird unlocked: white wagtail! They were constantly chirping and chatting and one just kinda continued to hover in the air in the never-ending strong wind!

When we got back to Sapporo station, we decided to hit up the local Pokemon Center! This Center's official Pokemon are Alolan Vulpix and Sprigatito:

Unlike my Pokemon experience at the Shibuya Pokemon Center back in 2024, this one was not very crowded (it wasn't empty by any means, but you could easily walk around and look at the shelves and browse), and it was very cute with plenty of Swablu and Altaria merch for me to spend my hard-earned money on. Money well spent I tell ya!! There were employees going around with these newer line of plushies that have an arm that waves (or makes muscles in the case of Machamp) when you squeeze it, so they were going around saying "konnichiwa" in cute voices with the plushies. There were also puppets which I didn't buy, but if there had been a Pokemon I loved as a puppet I would have bought one in an instant! The lady at the cash register asked if I like Swablu (Chirutto) and I was like "Yes! So cute! Kawaii desu!" Points for me being able to have a simple conversation! Also, I'm looking into the Japanese name for Altaria and I am LOVING the fact that part of her name comes from Tyl, a star in the constellation Draco. That makes me love Altaria and Swablu even MORE!  Overall, an adorable and pleasant Pokemon Center experience. We have the one in Sendai (Tohoku Pokemon Center) that we can go to next week!

We took our purchases back to the hotel. By now it was about 3:00, so we rested our feet a bit and made a game plan. Neither of us were hungry for dinner yet, so we decided to hit up a couple of anime stores in Odori (one stop away from Sapporo station on the subway) and then have dinner. We went to Jungle where I discovered my next creative attempt to make my own Shido merch/content: plushies. They were selling felt and embroidered applique chibi eyes and mouths (that you can custom color with marker or paint). I can sew! Let's DO THIS!!

We also hit up Animate, Lashinbang, and Book Off, and ended the night with a delicious meal at Cafe Gusto. Jeff was now able to try the Cheese on Cheese IN Hamburg, and I had a mentaiko carbanara and some roasted veggies. We both quaffed delicious melon Coca-Cola (my first soda in MONTHS and it was SO GOOD).

By now we were hobbling around with sore feet, ankles, hips, backs and joints like the 40-year-olds we are (or will be soon) and crashed in bed at the hotel after enjoying a really lovely hot bath. OMG, I love coming to Japan and enjoying a soak. They even have some bath salts, so I tried the rose-scented one. Not overwhelming and very relaxing!

Oh, we also picked up a "small" bit of sweet treats for dessert at the local Hokkaido conbini: Seicomart. And when in Hokkaido, one gets all the Hokkaido milk and butter-inspired treats! My ice cream bar with the sweetened condensed milk center and the Hokkaido cream cookie sandwich were delicious! The fuwafuwa egg pastry was decidedly mid.

And on that note, Jeff, how was your dessert? Anything you'd like to add to this blog? 

I have some general observations and commentary!

The strawberry ice cream bar war lovely. A nice, simple strawberry flavor. I always forget that Japanese Peanut Butter (seen in the Legally Distinct Uncrustable in the bottom right) is just some peanut powder in actual butter. Still tasty, just not the taste sensation I was expecting. 

Cafe Gusto was definitely the correct choice for dinner. It was warm and filling, with a straightforward ordering process that I can get behind. 

I am uncertain if this is a Me Getting Old thing or a Me Being Persnickety thing, but the selection of goods at the local anime and games related stores so far has definitely been catering towards a different genre of weeb than I am. Historically, the focus at stores was on the last year of Seasonal Anime. Now, it's on recurring media properties (V-Tubers, eternal Idol Shows, and perpetual Shounen Nonsense). Which, to be clear, is completely reasonable. Is this because I've become more specific in my wants as an aging person? Or is this a lack of taste in The Youths of Today?

Multiple times in the last 24 hours, I've had an I'm Not Like Other X moment: complaining about tourists, complaining about weebs, complaining about Americans. Each time, it's obviously hilarious, but sometimes it does make me reconsider potential behaviours to make sure that I am not - in fact - Like Those Other Weebs. 

The weather here during springtime in Sapporo - apart from the wind - does seem to agree with me well. Even when it was Sunny, it wasn't Too Sunny. 

Somehow, every trip, I accidentally grab a Barley Tea instead of Black Tea at a convenience store. This time, I got it out of the way on Day 0. Here's hoping I'm good from here on out. 

Well, time to get ready for another day. It's raining and cool today, so we'll see what adventures await. 

Be well, stay safe, and have yourself a merry little Christmas. 

THE NORTH: Day 0 - So Many Planes, Trains, and Automobiles

 As I write this, it's the morning after our travel day. Which is the evening after our travel day, back home. But time is meaningless is this sort of cat and squid game. 

Waking up on the 14th floor of a luxury hotel in the third-most-popular prefecture for Japanese people to vacation to is an odd experience. The view is nice, the weather is brisk, and we had konbini dinner last night. [Tuna Mayo remains unrivaled in the onigiri department.]

How did we get here? Well, it's a tale as old as time. 

CVG > ORD. ORD > NRT. NRT > CTS. 

Oh, you wanted like, details and anecdotes and stuff. Okay, sure. 

Did you know they took out the Starbucks in favor of a Dunkin' Donuts on Concourse A at CVG? Definite downgrade. They can't make a chai latte to save their lives. Otherwise, the seats at the airport were comfy, we breezed through security because we have righteous hearts and therefore never have to wait in line for more than a few minutes [Editor's Note: More to come on this stance later in the blog.]. 

The flight to ORD was on United, which meant that it was the most Medium Airplane Experience possible in These United States. Nothing awful, nothing awesome. Just a 5/10 plane time. I do not like that they don't allow you to print paper boarding passes at the kiosk and expect you to use an app. This is one of my severe-est Boomer Traits(tm). I want a paper boarding pass, because what happens when your app invariably crashes? Or I run out of battery for my device? Or there's an EMP or something? Boarding passes were loaded up for all three flights, despite my protestations to the contrary, and off we went. 

Jeff's legs waiting in Chicago. His torso has yet to deplane.

ORD. Man, ORD and I do not get along. Not just because I Was Right about the electronic boarding passes, but also because Chicago Hot Dogs are a pox. As soon as we deplaned from our United flight, the next two segments of boarding passes just... disappeared from the app. Why would that happen? What awful design is this? After a moment of mild panic, we went up to the All Nippon Airlines counter at ORD and they reprinted the boarding passes for us. Like United should have done in the first place. [There is a time and a place for eco-friendliness. International boarding passes is not one of them.] (This is Angie, hi! Thanks to Eva at the ANA counter for printing our boarding passes and also double checking to make sure my checked bag was on board! She was so patient and sweet!)

Here's what Chicago looked like when we were coming in to land. Just the Sears (Willis) Tower and some other skyscraper poking out of the fog and clouds.

The ANA flight from ORD to NRT is always a loooooooooong time. You can watch the entire Lord Of The Rings extended edition trilogy and still have almost two whole hours of flight time left. Madness. So you can imagine my consternation when I saw this for my In Flight Entertainment. 

[ANA uses a Red Hat Linux fork from 2006 to manage their IFE in 2026. This is hilarious to me.]

Thankfully, we never show up unprepared and both had enough media downloaded on our various devices, just in case the IFE was down. Thankfully, her screen worked and mine was back up and running within an hour.  (Angie: The IFE was just fine, it had lots of new movies. Jeff doesn't prepare for long flights like I do, which is to say: correctly. You gotta plan ahead of time what you want to do and almost schedule it. I had looked up the IFE movies and made a list of what I wanted to watch, I had pre-downloaded movies on my phone, I had my sleep stuff all ready. So therefore I was sufficiently entertained by trying to sleep for two hours (did not succeed thanks to Demon Teething Toddler yowling and kicking the seat behind me and Loudly Talking Chatty Lady in the row next to Demon Toddler. Noise cancelling headphones could not completely overcome this combined racket), and I got to watch the new movies Rental Family (I love you Brendan Fraser!), The Anaconda, Wicked For Good, and then Godspell on my phone. Happy Easter!)

In flight meals were, strangely, not that great. Historically, ANA has some very good in-flight meals. I got the chicken with barbecue sauce with rice and succotash, Angie got the shrimp tempura (Angie: Which was pretty yummy! I liked my meal). We try our best to always get different meals, just in case there's an Airplane The Movie sort of situation. One of us has to be cognizant of the chaos, should it erupt. 

Breakfast was equally medium. I got the Beef and Pork Meatballs with Penne, Angie skipped it because of tummy troubs (Angie: Luckily it was the usual tummy troubs. I just get so full of toots when you yeet me above 32,000 feet). I mostly got it for the potato salad, but the meatballs were pretty decent. 

On to Narita! Customs was a long and wandering line. Most people had the foresight to fill out their customs declaration beforehand via the Visit Japan Web website. Those who didn't (or couldn't) were able to fill out a paper form. You know, a thing that you should have readily available at check in. Looking at you, United Airlines. You dweebs. (Angie: We also chatted with the guys in line behind us, who were, of course, from Cincinnati LOL. Two friends doing the usual Golden Route of Tokyo, Kyoto, Osaka, on their first trip to Japan. Hope they have fun!)

Because the itinerary was planned so thoroughly, we arrived with about an hour and a half to hang out at our gate. The domestic departures area at Narita is *diminutive* compared to even the domestic departures gates at CVG. There were like 7 total. A-G. That's it. This is one of the busiest airports in the world and there's only 7 gates for domestic transfers. Bananas. [This is 100% because they have a robust rail network and that like 1/3 people in Japan live in the Tokyo area. That'd be like if the population of NYC was 115 Million people, for context.]

Dinner of champions!

Flight to Sapporo! It was fine. As is tradition, we both basically slept in 15 minute bursts, followed by a few minutes of wakefulness, followed by another micronap. We arrived early, the boarding and deplaning were done in like 5 minutes each. Very efficient. Five stars there. (Angie: Yup, it's always that last flight that I finally can sleep on a plane because it's been awake for 24+ hours and needs a forced reboot.)

Next, a train to the main station in Sapporo. 40 minutes of standing after nearly 24 hours of sitting was... not super great on our legs. But we did it. The air was *brisk* when we got to Sapporo (41f, compared to the 75f we left in Cincinnati, and the nearly 80f that it felt like all the planes we were on were kept at) (It was delightful and refreshing!). Then we walked to Solaria Nishitetsu Sapporo hotel. We're on the 14th floor, which means I will not be looking out the windows much. We grabbed some food from Lawson convenience store (shout out to the two readers of this that are old enough to remember when Lawson had locations [and their corporate headquarters] in Ohio) and returned to our room to relax and sleep. 

There is a very nice view of a park and a Mystery Building. The beds are a bit firm, but I was able to get about 5 hours of sleep. The showers made up for any issues at all, though. Water pressure strong enough to flay the flesh from a cow and the controls let you take the temperature up to like 120f. Just what we needed. 

Ooooh! I love the view from our hotel room! There's still snow on those mountains!

We're off to get breakfast here in a little bit. And now, here's Angie to fill in the details that I invariably missed out on. (Angie's comments have been added, appropriately labeled, and bolded). Now off to start the day!

Okay, so the mirror in the bathroom here at the hotel is basically a ring light and it's the same size as my pupils and makes it look like my pupils glow! LOL! So get this cross-eyed photo of me still slightly sleepy but fresh and clean with shower and makeup!