Japan Part 13 - Sapporo Ice Ice Baby...

After semi agreeing the day before to go with the family for a day trip to Sapporo instead of skiing, my biggest fear materialised as the weather at Niseko was 100% blue skies and sunshine. As Homer Simpson once said - d'oh!

Chowing down on (yet again) some bacon and eggs - we were watching some truly bizarre breakfast television - Japanese style. In between the 8 minute news story on some hotel owner who didn't put disabled ramps in his hotel (or something) - there were cutaways to some big Japanese strong-man who enjoyed spending his time breaking non-stick frying pans with his bare hands. Also featured was a old, small Japanese guy who could do tricks with billiards (including smacking 100 yen coins into cups with billiard balls). There was also some guy who was in (what looked like to be) a giant condom. He bounced around for a couple of minutes before breaking out of the big condom. The two hosts were cheering the guy on.

I had mentioned to Taeko that you could get the HNK news back in Australia (via a digital set-top box) - but she says it is boring and prefers these sort of news shows - with minimum news and maximum weirdness! (Fox News...!).

Instead of catching the train to Sapporo (my mum was accusing me of being "stingy" from not wanting to pay for the expensive express train)... we had booked tickets on a 8am bus to Sapporo. The roads around Niseko are interesting to say the least. Most roads are covered either by road or ice and no cars wear "snow-chains" - they all seem to have winter grip tires. That may be all well and good - but there are a lot of drivers who hoon around at high speed around the place (maybe practicing Sega Rally in real life?). I find all of this a little strange as we all had great difficulty walking across roads at Niseko - fearing that we would slip on black ice.

When we eventually arrived in the middle of Sapporo (after passing thru endless bumper-2-bumper traffic) - we all checked out the Sapporo Snow Festival. The Snow Festival has not only giant sculptures and building replicas made out of snow but also a few big ice statues. Although the festival (on the whole) was a little on the commercial side. Most of the big festival sculptures had commercial backing from a giant Narnia movie piece (my mum had claimed she had never heard of Narnia or the Lion, the B###h and the Wardrobe and the subsequent pi$$-weak movie), noodle companies (sculpture with some aliens promoting instant noodles), or Melbourne tourism. I kid you not - there was a giant replica of Flinders Street Station. When I think of great Australian icons - I tend to think of the harbour bridge, Uluru or the Opera House - not Flinders Street Station (with the red light district around the corner). But on the whole - most of the sculptures were very impressive - including a detailed replica of some Shinto temple which was awesome.

There were heaps of "mini" sized sculptures - many of the them were based on various cartoon characters. Ant unfortunately missed out the five different Snoopy statues. I had Taeko take my picture next to that cute thing from the movie "Gremlins". There were a couple of curious sculptures of this "famous" Japanese comedian - but I thought it was just Flava Flav from Public Enemy.

Apart from the sculptures - there were a few other crazy activities to keep us all amused. There were a couple of music concerts happening including a lame J-Pop Girl Band whose backing track kept cutting out in the middle of songs and they all stood around looking confused. One of the members must of had a cold or something - as she was wearing one of those face-masks to shield others from her disease. Despite her illness - she was still dancing around the stage looking like she was in a J-Lo video (shakin' that a$$). There was a slide for tots made out of snow. The tots were dressed up in "puffy" ski gear - which made them look like beanbags being pushed down the slide. There was some American Military Band playing with an over happy / wholesome conductor being translated into Japanese. I had walked past them after their performance - and the conductor was talking to the translator saying "those girls can fit so much into their mouths". I don't think he was talking about food.

As Sacha had inappropriately dressed from Sapporo's weather (he had only brought one thin jumper) - we had to stop at a "Warming Hut" where Taeko was asking directions from the locals on how to get to our bus stop (sure fire way of getting lost). There was this old Japanese dude who gave my mum an origami pair of "lips" - I wasn't sure if he was just trying to crack onto women(?). He also gave a pair of lips to Taeko.

We made tracks over to a big mall near the JR Station. My mum has this crazy fixation for Japanese Noodle Soup - despite the fact that everytime we eat it - she spends 20 minutes flossing her teeth because of her adult-bracers. Because of this fixation for noodle soups - Taeko took us to (what I describe as) "the Disneyland" of Noodle Soup in the mall. You enter into a labyrinth of noodle soup shops - each with their own little theme and menu. We went to a pork noodle soup shop which was situated next to a steam train (which had a big sound show every 5 minutes - complete with "mooing" cows). This all very much pi$$ed us off - but none of the Japanese seem bothered by the horrible noise pollution.

After lunch - we splitted up and arranged to meet at the bus stop 10 minutes before our scheduled departure. Taeko went to buy her parents some crabs (of the seafood variety) as a present. The seafood (according to Taeko) is really famous in Hakidiao and everyone gets it couriered back to Tokyo.

Sacha was keen to check out "Bic Camera" - a big electronics shop which has CDs, DVDs, video games, TVs, MP3s, washing machines and even japanese "massage chairs". There was a rather big selection of massage chairs in the store - where a lot of locals were "testing" out. They are like a recliner - but only electrical and it gives you an all-body massage (including feet and hands). I thought it was comfortable - except for the occasional sharp jabs into my lower spine. One Japanese guy looked like he was having convulsions in the chair (his whole body was shaking around).

Our bus ride back to Niseko was painfully slow - as we got stuck behind a tractor going at 30kms/hr for half the journey. I was sitting over a heater (I didn't know this at the time) - and was stripping down to a t-shirt, wishing "I wish this bus driver would turn down the heat!". My parents thought "what the hell is he doing" as they all thought it was too cold on the bus.

We got back to Niseko around 9ish and went to a "Jingus Khan" BBQ restaurant - however I think they mean "Genghis Khan". We all ordered a "meat platter" except for my mum who just ordered "meat" (sin rice or anything to eat the meat with). It was all messy and hard to do whilst trying to eat and drink at the same time. Also - there was some old crazy senile guy running the place who kept forgetting to bring out menus. Of note - I don't think I saw one Japanese person at the restaurant eating (except for Taeko of course!). You probably already know that you shouldn't tip in Japan - but when we paid at the restaurant - the woman gave Sacha, Taeko and me a 5 yen coin. According to Taeko - this means that she wants to see you again (although 5 yen is worth about 5 cents Australian - so they would need to pay me more to get me back).

After stuffing my face full of beef at the restaurant and saying "no dessert" - but when we headed down to Saikeo Mart to pick up some supplies for the next day - I bought an ice cream...