We say sayonara to Sapporo and konichiwa J class

Dropping off the car at Toyota was as easy as saying "Domo arigato Mr Roboto" and takes about as long. Within 5 minutes of handing over the keys we're on board the airport shuttle bus and at the airport in another 10.
We check in and board a lovely big 747. We're in "J" Class so we get to sit up the pointy end of the jumbo. "J" Class only cost 1000 yen more. It was an early bird special and is something akin to premium economy or budget business. All this for an extra 12 bucks.
The skies over Japan are pretty busy. For almost the entire hour and a half flight from Sapporo to Tokyo we see other planes crossing our path below us. There is a little tiny plane way below us in the photo below. Taking photos of the other planes distracts me from thinking about mid air collisions and shit. It doesn't happen very often after all. Does it? Does it? A daft part of me thinks that if they ever find the wreckage of this plane they may find my camera and a lovely shot of the plane that brought us down. I think I'll have another beer.
Most domestic flights in Japan go to Haneda International Airport and not Narita Airport. This suits us fine because Haneda is actually in Tokyo and is on the same side of Tokyo that we will be staying, in Roppongi. Narita is about 60 km out of town and is way on the other side of Tokyo.
We get to use yet another form of transport from the airport. This time it is the monorail. Not a pokey little tourist transporter like we have in Sydney but a decent mass transit commuter transport. From the monorail terminus we're only one metro stop away from Roppongi which is where we will be staying for our last couple of days in Japan.

Snow in Sapporo is sweet

We walked home in the snow. I like snow. Specially because we're on holidays and we're only visiting. If we had to live in it and work in it it may be a different matter.

Ghengis Kahn crawl - Matsujin was ordinary so we went back to Tokeidai Beer Garden

We felt like meat. Lots of it so it was jingisukan or Ghengis Kahn again. We wanted to try somewhere different to last week so we went to Matsujin. Matsujin is a jingisukan joint but it is like a franchise compared to the rougher around the edges Tokeidai Beer Garden we went to last week. It didn't start well. First the girl asked if we knew what to do and we said yes and she still went and loaded up the grill with all the vegies and meat and then poured over all the marinade. After last weeks experience we didn't think the grill was hot enough anyway so as soon as she turned away we picked off the meat because it was just stewing on the grill and waited for it to heat some more. As soon as it looked hot enough we threw on a piece or two of lamb and hoped for the best. The helpful waitress returned and turned the heat off for us thereby not allowing our meat to grill and it just started stewing again. We figured out how to turn the heat back on again and got it smoking but the magic had gone and so had the flavour so we just finished up, paid and left.
Still hungry we decided we go back to our mate at the Tokeidai Beer Garden and just order a smaller version of what we had last week. We did that and it was awesome. They still had the 60s and 70s greatest hits cd playing too. We were able to watch the snow still coming down outside. It felt like Christmas... except we don't get snow at Christmas in Australia, and there were no presents, and it was March, and there was no Turkey and we were in Japan.

Back in sunny snowy Sapporo

It is good to be back in the big smoke of Sapporo. Here, at least, we can get a decent coffee. But you're at Starbucks you say? Yes, the coffee snobs have conceded that Starbucks coffee, at least in Japan, isn't too bad. While we're in Starbucks it starts to snow and big beautiful flakes the size of small cars float down. It's still snowing by the time we got back to our Hotel. We're staying at the Richmond Hotel again and they've even given us the same room we had a week ago.

Back on the road to Sapporo

After breakfast it was time to leave gorgeous Sounkyo. We'd watched a couple of the tour buses being farewelled. Half the staff at the hotel go outside and give a display of flag waving to say goodbye to the guests. All we got was a lady in a kimono bowing.
My search for the perfect coffee in a can continues. They're all so sickly sweet but at least they're hot. I still love how the vending machines dispense both hot and cold drinks.
The GPS has also been programmed with all the secret nazi bases too.

The last dinner in Sounkyo

Back to the fisherman's hut for dinner again. We walked passed the group buffet where the tour groups were being treated to a drumming display. Meh, we had another sumptuous feast.
We got to grind our own wasabi paste again. This time it was white wasabi. There is nothing quite like fresh wasabi. Forget that stuff in a tube we get in Oz. We've since found out that most of the wasabi in a tube is made from ordinary horse radish, food colouring and flavouring. Apparently some wasabi is being grown in Tasmania now and each root goes for between $7 and $15 and can be found at Harris Farm stores. You beauty. We will be checking that out when we get home.
We left a cutesy note in the visitor's book.

A spectacular walk along the gorge to see the gorge

It is billed as a spectacular gorge walk to see Sounkyo Gorge in all its glory. Unfortunately that is probably in the summertime. We couldn't get passed the visitor's centre. The path up the side of the gorge for the walk was covered in a couple of metres of snow. So much for that. We made do by checking out the spectacular frozen waterfalls - Ryu Sei No Taki and Gin Ga No Taki. We found the best place to photograph these spots too. There's usually a small stand set up in front of the said spectacular view so school groups or bus tour groups can have group photos taken. They think of everything the Japanese.
Our afternoon cut short we decided to wander around Sounkyo. Everything was closed except for the Seicomart convenience store. The Japanese convenience stores, AMPM, Seicomart, Lawson Station and even 7/11 are pretty good and reliable and one or another are just about everywhere. Plenty of booze and porn. What else do you need? We, though, bought ice cream, coffee and milk and then it was back to the hotel for iced coffee. Well we thought it was milk. It turns out that it was some sort of lemon flavoured milk concoction. Only one thing to do then. We turned to the ever reliable hotel vending machines for some milk. Even though the snow was dumping down it was a relatively mild -2 degrees C today according to the snow man out the front of the hotel.