Catching the Flight

I woke up bright and early at 4:15am in order to get ready to catch the train. As I packed everything the night before it wasn't too bad. I just grabbed my stuff and left the house. My host family made some onigiri which they left on top of the microwave instead of inside the fridge (which is right below it). They don't believe in keeping food fresh apparently. At the airport I first found Sheung Sheung, and then we found Bridget and Melissa who were waiting for us. We all got checked in and hopped on the plane. The flight was surprisingly short and surprisingly large. We flew on a 747, the same size aircraft that we took from the US to Japan! It was packed with people too.

I should mention that before this trip I did not know Bridget or Melissa at all. They are in my program but I never really got to know them or hang out at all. Shueng Shueng is the exception in being one of my best friends over here.

We got to Hokkaido and I e-mailed my teacher saying that I was not going to be in class . I gave prior notice but figured it would be fun to do it anyways.

In order to go to Hokkaido so cheaply, we signed up for a tour with the JTB tour group. With one price it consists of breakfast and dinner every day, a hotel room, and the 2-way plane ticket. What we did not know is how much busing around there would be. It turns out that we drove halfway across the island and back.

We found the group waiting for us at the arrivals gate. We were of course the only foreigners there. The trip is entirely in Japanese which I am betting that most tourists don't apply to go on. We made sure everyone was there and got on the bus.

We visited a whole bunch of places. I didn't have an itinerary so I really don't know where we visited to be certain. I will however put up all the pics (hopefully today) with proper titles of the places that we went to.

The onsen that we eventually ended up at was really nice. It was sad though because I had to go by myself. I guess that is the problem with vacationing in Japan with 3 girls, you can't use the public bath with them >_< Our room was huuuuge though! We had two entire rooms, one for sleeping and one for relaxing. It was a really nice restaurant. The dinner that we got was excellent as well. I would bet that it was a $30 meal or something close to that. Great Hokkaido food!