A Warm Hello from Sapporo

This morning, we were comfortable in a capsule hotel near Akihabara in Tokyo. Tonight, we are cozy in an internet cafe in Sapporo, after a long set of three 3-hour trains. The trip combined to 10 hours long, so we can spend 8 hours wandering this northern Hokkaido city before heading back on another 10-hour train ride. The ride back will have a lot of sleeping involved, as we are staying awake all night until we get on the trains.

Right now, I am catching up on email, blogs, and listening to A Prairie Home Companion. There is not much I would rather do right now.

Earlier, we searched for a place to eat. We found a couple very drunk locals, and asked crudely: "dokoni PAA-BU deska?" He led us to a wonderful little restaurant/bar with excellent kebabs and sake. A particularly good drink was the apricot liquer with soda. Afterwards, we had a challenge to navigate our way to an internet cafe. We were directed to "5 North, 4 West," which we thought were directions, but then got lost and asked for directions somewhere else. They gave us a map, and when we arrived to the place, we saw a street sign, and realized that 5N4W is an address...

I am really enjoying the piles of snow around the streets and sidewalks. Since Sapporo was designed with the help of Americans, it reminds me of a midwest town. It is not quite the same as Lincoln, however. Even though Hokkaido University is nearby, there is not much nightlife right next to it. It seems we would need to walk 12 blocks south before we would find more nightlife. We got enough earlier, and the internet is all we need. We are such nerds.