Sappppppppppporo

oishiiiiiiiiiiiii

No grey roads. No dark rooftops. No green grass. White spread over like a sea on land.

All in little more than an hour. The flight time from Haneda to Shin-Chitose airport. Probably the first ever trip that I planned more than two months before and executed. Though till last day was wondering if my wind-cheaters would do the trick to keep me warm at Sapporo. Thank God I did buy proper jackets, gloves and water-proof shoes on the 11th hour. Or a little earlier than that.

Sapporo as a city does not look any different from an average Japan city. The JR announcements sound similar, ticket gates and displays look familiar. People have similar faces, they cross the road the same way and even the mini skirts and knee high boots keep presence unaware of the mercury around. Even in the sub zero temperature, high school girls still wrap wool only on the upper parts of their body.

Difference, a few too. Like the interesting road numbering. All roads are North-South and East-West. And from the center of the small city, the road numbers North 1, North 2, East1, East 2.. West 1, West 2 etc. So easy to locate. Our hotel was close to N2W2. Just look for Kita2 Nishi2. Good. And because of the one ways, road crossings become green for orthogonal crosses everytime. That means you can cross a road diagonally. At least practically.

Kids had the best time in life. Snow, snow, snow and snow and more snow and still more snow all around. Pickup, make a snow ball and throw. Do that again. Yet again and again. I have been warning them on the ice flakes on the sidewalks which could be dangerous. Until I actually lost grip and fell down myself. Well, it was not as dangerous as it could have been:) Thank God.

Satoland was real fun. The entire farmland covered in snow and a lot of activities for kids. Like huge slides. Like the snow-man workshops. Like the bamboo ski lessons. Rolling over the snow slopes. The snow sculptures at Satoland and Oodori and the ice ones at Susukino did not catch much attention and it looked very normal with so many around. But they really look superb in pictures. They say they bring in around 400 to 700 truck loads of good snow from other locations of Hokkaido for this festival.

And the sashimi and grilled crab - yummmmmmy.