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.

On the road again... to Akanko Spa

Maybe we should have checked the GPS for an estimate of travel time to Lake Akan National Park before we had a long leisurely breakfast in Sapporo. It turns out the the GPS estimates the trip time to be about 6 and a half hours and up to 10 if you choose a dodgy route. Bugger me it is only 320km. Damn these ridiculously low Japanese speed limits.
When we hit the road we realise that in Hokkaido most everybody ignores the speed limit, even with snow and ice all around. In 80 kay zones the the flow seems to be in excess of 100 kay. Cool. We may be able to do this trip in less than 7 hours. As long as we don't miss the speed cameras that is. The fine is 300,000 yen or over $3000.
Apart from being on the look out for giant bears it is a pretty uneventful trip. We stop a couple of times at Lawson Stations (Japanese convenience stores) to stock up on junk food and we end up doing the trip in a bit over 5 hours and not the 7 hours we were dreading. We had to get to the ryokan/hotel before 7pm or we'd miss dinner.

Tokeidai Beer Garden

Lamb, lamb, lamb and then some more lamb.
Tokeidai is a jingisukan joint or Ghengis Kahn. It is a Hokkaido speciality where you grill lamb on the a helmet shaped grill (Genghis helmet). It is pretty good but you will go home smelling of smoke and lamb fat.

Richmond Hotel Sapporo

Sometimes Japan runs like a well oiled machine. We land. We collect our baggage. We go to the Toyota car rental counter. A shuttle bus takes us to the Toyota car rental place. We sign paper work. We're shown pictures of speed cameras. We get an all wheel drive Toyota Corolla with snow tires. We program the GPS for the Richmond Hotel (English GPS - woohoo!). We drive to hotel (about an hour from the airport). Our car is stacked in the juke box parking machine. We're checked into the hotel by the lovely receptionists. It is now beer o'clock.

Leaving on a prop plane...

After the complimentary breakfast at the cafe in the Richmond Hotel of pancakes, bacon and eggs where the waitress seemed mighty interested in the fact we weren't Japanese ( Australia? Oooooh) we rolled out into the snow and caught a taxi to the airport. The taxi driver didn't seem convinced we'd be flying today. I wasn't convinced the taxi driver would get us to the airport. We'd also asked the hotel receptionist to call the airport to see if our flight would be flying too. She found out that no decision would be made till 9.30AM. Very reassuring.
After a little confusion at the airport as to what and when the flight we were on (there's like two flights a day) we actually took off on time. They get the military out to clear the airport of snow I think. Just before we boarded though we were told that depending on the weather in Sapporo we may have to return to Matsumoto. Sweet.
After an hour and a half of relatively bump free propeller action at 23,000 feet we arrived on time in Sapporo. Almost as much snow in Sapporo as Matsumoto. Hokkaido, the island that Sapporo is the capitol, is known for its cold winters though.