2/8-2/10 – Day 1 (Kinda)

2/8 – Wednesday was… well, Wednesday. Lots of packing, wrapping up things needing to be done before going on a 3 week trip, and running around because you can’t find the piece of luggage you know you have. (It was in Aislyn’s car trunk for some reason.) Then going to the airport and flying out at 9pm to LAX. Then a 3 hour layover there.

2/9 – Thursday was, a plane? The whole day? Because we got on the plane at midnight and arrived in Japan on…

2/10 – at 5am. We arrived at Haneda airport and after finally making it through “quarantine”, immigration, and customs we met up with Tomoe, who had so kindly woken up at 4am to drive to the airport to pick us up. After grabbing something to eat and getting our JRPasses we headed for where we were staying. And guess what? Can you see?

Ok, it’s kind of hard to see in this picture. But, it’s snowing. In Tokyo/Yokohama.

The journey after the journey

Anyways, we had plans to go to the snow festival in Sapporo. Here’s a picture to give you a visual on the distance.

But I planned it a little differently. My plan kind of went like this.

So, we left Tokyo at 11am. Awesome Tomoe dropped us off at the station. First off, Kamoi station to Shin-Yokohama station. Then to Tokyo station via the shinkansen (bullet train). Then to Morioka station way up north via a different shinkansen. Then back to a local train back south to Hanamaki. That way we can take a plane from Hanamaki to Sapporo. (Technically, it’s Shin-Chitose, but close enough.)

And you know what? It actually somehow all worked. Mostly.

And this all happened with no internet except with what I could get from every major train station we went to so I could borrow their wifi because since the last time I was in Japan they closed the Bic Camera (like Best Buy) in the airport and I couldn’t get a sim card for my phone. So thank goodness GPS works every where for free.

So I did say mostly, because this happened.

There was a lot of snow in Hanamaki. We arrived at the airport and got checked in and they informed us that our flight might be cancelled due to weather. In fact, the other 3 flights were already cancelled. We waited for 30 minutes past when our flight was originally supposed to leave before they finally said that we would be able to go. So thank goodness for that. Hanamaki, I believe doesn’t get many foreigners, and the flight attendant made both Aislyn and I feel very welcome. She even gave us this super cute note. 😊

(Picture Pending)

After the flight I told her that this was Aislyn’s first visit to Japan and she broke out a ton of JAL (Japan Airlines) goodies to give to us.

So we arrived in Chitose and after a short train ride and a 20 minute walk in snow we arrived at our Airbnb which we somehow managed to get checked in and stumble into our room to fall into a well earned rest.