Day 7 - At Home (Sapporo)

6th February, 2003 - After a strange night...sleeping in separate rooms as is good and proper for an unmarried couple ?:-( ... the next morning I was greeted with freshly brewed coffee and Okaasan's signature sakana dish... a beautiful Hokkaido salmon that was just sugoi oishii! (really, really yummy). I have to say... the next week was going to be a very good time for my stomach - but a very bad time for my waist. You might also see (in the bowl at the front) a strange thing that looks like baked beans... it's actually a fermented soy bean food (at least they called it food), called Natto. This is one of the Japanese greatest joys... but for us Westerners - somewhat like eating a pungent sock. First time around wasn't so bad... but you learn quickly! ? ; )

We had a pretty busy schedule in Sapporo. This was a bit unusual in that it was a side trip for me... but going home for T-chan... she'd been living in Adelaide, Australia for about 7 months and was quite homesick. But this was also an important time for the two of us... how would T-chan's parents react?


Well... time would tell that. First things first... i needed to get me some shoes. I had thought that I had brought some good walking shoes with me to Japan... but the first thing that T-chan's family did was insist that I go out and buy some special shoes. Normally in Sapporo, it's very icey in winter... and that's dangerous for walking. They have either stick-on spikes (attached to normal shoes), or you can actually buy shoes with inbuilt metal claws for gripping the ice. After a short trip to Shoe Plaza, and about 2500 yen later (a cheap $30 AUD) T-chan and I were ready to explore the city. It was Yuki Matsuri time... the famous Sapporo Snow Festival.