I pick up a couple of pastries (¥410) from a local bakery and head down to Tokyo station nice and early for my 1:20pm train to Sapporo, it’s a very busy station, but also vast and spacious so you don’t feel to crowded out, though rush hour might be another story. The pastries filled a gap but by 11am my stomach is telling me it wants food – I must now be over my jet lag as my appetite has returned. I find a small little cafe inside the station, a typical one where you get your ticket at the machine, hand it to the cook and wait a matter of seconds for your food. The machine is a struggle at first, some of it is in english but the instructions of which button to press when aren’t clear. I’m ordering curry and rice (¥740), but it’s not accepting my ¥1,000 note. A kind Japanese lady steps in and after a few attempts we both realise you just insert the note after adding food to the list, and the bottom button on the machine is just if you’re using a card, not to finish the order!
I grab a coffee in JR cafe (¥470) to bide the time before heading to the platform. It’s good coffee, earth just how I like it. I then head to the platform, and learn something else new – there are two lines marked 1 & 2. I’m thinking they mean first and second class, but they’re for the first train and second train. As I have standard JR pass, I’m standing in line 2 like a tit while everyone is boarding the train despite me being there first. Only when I ask a family if they’re getting on, they tell me they’re waiting for the next train, I get what the lines are for!
Despite not having a window seat until a my neighbour gets off, the views are spectacular as soon as you leave Tokyo, snow covered smaller towns and cities without all the high rise blocks, mountains either side, forests galore. By the time I reach Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto it’s beyond dusk, and I have to take the slower train to Sapporo in the dark.
Arriving in Sapporo, I locate the subway and ride to Odori using my Icoca card ((¥330) and walk up to Wise Owl Sapporo. Initially I’m strolling in a large underground shopping mall, but as I have no GPS, I head up to the streets which are mostly clear of snow on the main drag, but not so much on the side roads. The city looks amazing with all the neon lights. As I’m walking up a side road to the hostel, three young girls in hot pants & bikini tops are waving at me from behind a window! What kind of city is this? When I check in I ask about breakfast, and there seems to be some confusion – I guess people don’t get out of bed so early round here! I’ll find a bakery in the morning, I prefer my noodles later in the day!