Monday, January 12th
Getting Ready
Worked 8-6pm. Picked up ibuprofen from Kaiser for my tailbone soreness.
New mayor Installation Council Meeting 6-7:30pm. It was a fulll day of work.
Drove home, chatted with Liz (my older sister).
Once home, I changed and loaded my luggage into Kiki (my car).
Mom dropped me off at LAX. We chatted with Liz for the Haunted Mansion Tour* on the way to the airport.
*The Haunted Mansion Tour is what we call Liz’s nightly task of locking up the church she lives next to. It’s part of the deal for living in her new apartment. It’s creepy and she does it alone so she calls one of us to keep her company.
At the Airport
I got dropped off at Terminal B around 9pm, the international terminal where I dropped off David but when I arrived there was no counter for Japan Airlines or American Airlines. I tried to use a check-in kiosk and got an error screen saying I needed to speak with an agent. So I flagged someone down and he told me I needed to go to Terminal 4. Stressed, I started fast walking over to Terminal 4 and quickly realized just how effective my heat tech under garments and two layers of clothing were in keeping me warm and toasty. I made it to Terminal 4 and quickly checked in my large luggage, and last minute decided to check my carry on luggage as well, why struggle??
For some reason it wouldn’t accept my Known Traveler Number when I checked in so I didn’t get the TSA pre-check symbol on my ticket but thankfully I had my Global Entry card with me and they let me through with that. There was maybe 1-2 people in front of me in the TSA pre-check security line so I sailed through smoothly. Easy peasy with just my purse and backpack. It was about 10pm when I got through security.
Next was my 17 mile long journey to Gate 157. Thank God I only had my backpack and purse with me. Again, I had like 6 layers of clothing, bottom layer meant to keep me warm in -4 degree weather. I had to take it slow so I wouldn’t sweat. But since I was all checked in I wasn’t feeling too pressured. I do always like the part where you get to the shops and restaurants in that international gate area at LAX, something about it feels so grand. Like an internal Vegas/ Union Square but fancy.
I picked up a water and chocolate covered almonds as a snack since I didn’t eat dinner and made it to Gate 157. Everyone had already taken the spots with chargers and I saw people with their shoes off and toes out so I ended sitting in another gate area so I could charge my stuff and wait in peace. At about 11:25 they started boarding. I went up to the counter and asked if there was anyway I could upgrade to a seat with more room, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to ask and David had done the same. Sure enough, there was an aisle seat in the exit row and no one sitting in the middle seat 😏. For $140, I got the upgrade!
Tuesday, January 13th
On the Plane
Once I found my seat, I took my melatonin gummies and settled in. They provide a blanket and small pillow so I got to work getting myself cozy.
It took me like 15-20 minutes to fall asleep.
At around 1:30am they passed dinner around. I was sleeping but was not gonna miss a meal; also I didn’t eat dinner earlier. They asked if we wanted chicken or beef and I chose chicken. The little meal tray was more full than anything I’ve ever seen on a plane ride. There was a bread roll with butter that was hella good, a little salad with olive oil that had fresh crispy lettuce and bell peppers. A cold noodle side that had shrimp in it; I was hesitant to eat the shrimp at first but everything felt so fresh I decided to eat it and it was fine. That dish was ok, flavor wise was fine but I don’t like cold noodles very much. Then the main dish was a hot plate of what looked like rice pilaf (?) or quinoa or some grain like that, with chicken and veggies sautéed. It was soooo good. For beverages they gave us full cans, I got a ginger ale like I always do when I fly – sky juice! After eating, I passed out again
I woke up at around 9am – wow I slept nearly 7 hrs! I would wake up here and there but for the most part slept all that time. My butt hurt a little but I could stretch and get up to help that. I think what bothered me the most was my feet. Not sure if they got swollen or if wearing these new boots this long was bothering me but my boots started feeling really tight and constricting.
At 9:38 am they walked around passing around warm wet wipes.
At 10:05am they passed out breakfast. It was scrambled eggs or noodles, I obviously went with eggs (Let’s go eggs!!). This meal was smaller and included a little fruit side and a scrambled egg/veggie/hashbrowns or potatoes maybe ??
Thankfully I was in a mall, I spent those thirty minutes walking around the mall, checking out the different shops.
After eating I noticed we had about 2 hrs left in the flight. Not so bad! I read on my Kindle and fidgeted around. Currently reading Black Friend by Ziwe.
Time traveled and landed in Tokyo at 4:30am Wednesday
Wednesday, January 14th
Tokyo (HND) Airport
Used the bathrooms for the first time! Wow!
I knew there would be bidets everywhere but they play water sounds while you pee, it’s an advanced bidet system, and you wipe down the toilet seat when you’re done using a little spray 😌. Even though they’re putting me to work something about that feels so wholesome. There were other cool features but those were the highlights.
A 1.5 hr journey began that kickstarted my feelings of adventure. It was logistically not the most fun but felt like I was figuring out puzzles. I needed to pass through customs/immigration, collect my luggage, then travel by shuttle outside the airport from Terminal 3 to Terminal 1 – all while most things were in Japanese and it wasn’t abundantly clear that was the order in which I had to do things. But I followed my gut and crowds and made my way through. Even though I had a connecting flight, I basically had to leave the airport then re-check in and register my luggage and all that. Kind of confusing, and I even heard some people behind me had to run back and get their luggage because they didn’t realize the airline was not going to be transfer it over for us. In the end, I made it through all that with an hour and a half to spare before my flight to Sapporo.
Waiting for the flight to Sapporo felt like the longest wait of all. In the end it was only an hour and a half but I think I’m just ready to be in Sapporo and done with the travel logistics part. I was trying to figure out what to eat and couldn’t decide so I went with this leftover churro bar from the dinner on the plane:
Saved me and was free! Also look who I ran into:
Got a glimpse of the outside, beautiful morning view:
Now we’re preparing for takeoff to Sapporo ✌🏽
Landed in Sapporo at 8:56am.
Waited for luggage for about 20 minutes then started my journey to the hotel. This part ended up being almost 2 hrs and the toughest part! I took a train (JR Train) about a half an hour to Sapporo Station then from there I needed to jump on the subway to get near the hotel and walk like 5-10min. But getting the subway part figured out was tough! There’s less English in this area and since I’m tired I was not as much in the puzzle solving mood 😋 I ended up buying the wrong ticket, panicking and asking Customer Service for help and they used a tablet to translate and help me. Phew! Oh and I also ended up needing to exchange money in order to pay for the tickets, which took some time as well.
The subway ride was shorter, and nice.
Everything was carpeted, very clean. Once I got off the subway though, I was physically on the struggle bus! My big luggage is hella heavy and there weren’t always elevators or escalators to get me up the floors. One kind man helped me because he saw me struggling and carried my luggage to the street level BLESS HIM. Then I made it outside and it was beautiful! Snowing!
When I arrived at the hotel, I told them I was staying with David, they already knew because he had told them ahead of time. They checked my ID (passport), charged me $254 and gave me a key.
Here’s a tour of our room:
Got ready for my day and chatted with Liz from like 11:45-12:45pm. I was sooo tired when I got to the hotel but I was starving and wanted to go on at least one adventure. Oh I also realized I lost one of my gloves in my traveling journey, I’ll have to get new ones because this cold is fierce!
While chatting with Liz, I downloaded the app Tabélog, which is like Yelp for food. I found a sushi restaurant called Sapporo Sushi Yokota that has a Michelin star and had a lunch omakase reservation available. I have always wanted to try omakase at a sushi restaurant, this was my chance!! In case you don’t know, omakase is when you let the chef decide what to serve you and when, so they just make different dishes and keep bringing it out for like two hours. Ariana Grande mentions omakase in her song Ordinary Things 😋. It was about 20 degrees and snowing, so this was my outfit:
I walked to the restaurant – beautiful but so so cold! I had to keep my hands in my pockets to keep them from hurting.
It was like a 10 minute walk from the hotel. It was on the 4th floor of a building that wasn’t easy to locate and I had to use the Google Translate camera to figure out where to go. The building also had some gentleman’s clubs in it so I was really thrown off at first and thought I was lost.
Once I got off on the 4th floor though, it was so quiet and serene. It was a small restaurant with about 12 seats around the chef and 4-5 little private booths.
I was nervous to take photos because I ended up being their only customer for my meal. This meant I had two chefs making fresh food right in front of me the whole time and the wait staff stood behind me ready to help the entire time. I felt a little anxious with so much attention and it was so quiet, but I also tried to just focus on the food and experience that fully. It was the best sushi I’ve ever had by far. Mostly sashimi (raw fish) but also things like tempura and miso soup. I can’t remember everything I ate but I remember having tuna, trout, mackerel, and caviar!
I ended up ordering a beer, not sure if that’s proper sushi eating etiquette but I really wanted to try Sapporo beer. I ordered the Black Label bottle, and it was delicious!! New favorite beer unlocked. It is smooth and not too strong and I liked the flavor. Paired well with the sushi. The meal ended up costing around 8400 yen, or $53 USD. Not bad. In the end I made a little bit of small talk with the chef and waitress and told them this was my first meal in Japan. They asked me where I was from, I said the US but family is from Mexico. They were more impressed with the Mexico part 😏. I told them I really enjoyed the food and experience with them and that I would be back before I left. They were really sweet.
I finished eating around 2pm and walked back to the hotel area. I stopped at a little store to pick up snacks and a sandwich – I was so cold and tired that I wanted to get to the room and just chill the rest of the day.
I ended up passing out for a few hours and woke up to David calling me to ask if I wanted to go to dinner with his friend Conrad and his girlfriend Katie. I said heck yes!
As I was getting ready I don’t know why but I had the feeling that I needed to tell David which restaurant I went to for lunch – right as I sent that text, he text me where we were going for dinner and it turns out it was the same place! Ha. They made dinner omakase reservations.
They arrived like 30 minutes after he called which gave me time to freshen up and get ready for date night.
I ended up wearing my nice floral dress which I could wear with all my warm undergarments.
We walked together to the restaurant, I was excited to be able to guide them to the spot 😎
When we arrived I was pumped to see chef again and said hey! I’m back. This time they sat us in one of the private room areas. Once we were seated I learned we had reservations for the premium omakase experience, yay!
I had a really nice time with the group. Katie is 25 years old and finishing up her journalism degree at UC Berkeley. She has been snowboarding during her time here and also got her hair done. I told her I want to get a facial and would want to do skincare stuff and she said she would be up for it. She also loves to drink lol, we had lots of beer and sake.
Since we were in a private room, I felt more comfortable taking pictures of the dishes. Below you can see the menu, and all the food we had.
This meal ended up being about 40,000 yen, or like $253 per couple. Pricey but my goodness so good and SO much food.
The standouts for me were the Monkfish clear soup, salmon roe/Snow crab/Sea urchin/caviar, and cured mackerel sushi. I did not like the Monkfish liver and couldn’t finish it, I’m a texture person and it was just not for me.
After finishing up we walked back to the hotel. We stopped at a 7-11 (my first time) and picked up drinks/snacks.
We got back to the hotel around 11:30 pm and all went to bed. David and Conrad have to leave for work at 9:30 am so we couldn’t stay out.
Thursday, January 15th
The plan today is to workout at the hotel gym, go out and find me some gloves, eat ramen, and see what shenanigans Katie and I get up to.
I woke up at 5 am and couldn’t sleep so I rolled around in bed and updated my notes. At 8:38am David and I got up and got breakfast in the hotel – which was a really good spread!
The breakfast buffet cost $20 per person and is all you can eat.
After breakfast David left for work and I checked out the gym. It’s a solid gym with a few treadmills, weight rack, and strength training/workout machines. I rested from about 9:45-11:15am then got ready and worked out from 11:45-12:45pm.
I stretched, ran 4.4 miles, and stretched afterwards. I was worried about my tailbone since this was my first workout since my fall (fell off a horse on Saturday), but it was fine! It’s still sore when I bend/unbend but when I’m standing/running/sitting it doesn’t hurt. Anyway, this was my longest run since I started running again and I’m so proud 🥹
From 1-3pm-ish I showered and got ready to venture out.
At 3pm Katie and I went to get ramen for lunch. The ramen shop was located on the 4th floor of a 5 story stationery store called Central 😩
The ramen was incredible!! We tried to get 3 bowls, because Katie reallly wanted to try the miso soup but the man there (who was very nice) said it would be too much food. We shared both bowls and sure enough, we were SO full by the end. The the broth was hearty and just fatty enough with incredible flavor, the noodles were perfect in texture, the meat was tasty and had good texture as well, this was my favorite ramen so far.
We also had a beer with the food which filled me up. My second beer on the trip!
After eating we shopped at the stationery store for like an hour.
I can’t speak highly enough of this place, I need to spend a whole day here, there is SO much to look at. I can understand why they have a ramen shop, you need to take breaks for eating otherwise you might pass out looking at everything for 8 hrs straight.
I bought a few things as gifts and picked up some new gloves. It was a sunny day without snow so I didn’t end up needing the gloves but I was glad to have them just in case.
Next we went to a jazz club bar called Bossa Club de Jazz.
The walk over was beautiful!
On our way to the jazz club, we passed the Onitsuka Tiger store, a popular sneaker store. There was no line to get in so we stopped by.
The sneakers were cool and I considered getting some but didn’t find color ways that I really liked.
There were only a couple of people at the Jazz club for most of our time there (5:15-8pm or so).
It was a dark and cool atmosphere, jazz playing through the speakers and an all you can drink menu for ¥1850. Récords, jazz memorabilia, plants, and cigarette smoke surround you. Katie and I had a good time drinking and chatting for almost 3 hrs. Learned we have a lot in common and both love to have a yap session over drinks. I’d like to come back when there are live musicians, I think that’s more on the weekends.
Next we went to a big department store called Don Quijote.
This was busy busy and packed with goodies. Multiple floors of everything from skincare, to stuffed animals and stationery, to clothing and purses. I picked up some sunscreen to try back home and a couple of small gifts.
After Don Quijote we ventured out into a big shopping area to walk around and explore.
I started getting hungry again so we went to a steakhouse called Beef Impact.
I had my first dinner of the night at 9pm here. A delicious filet on a bed of onions. Katie got a hamburger steak, which was more like ground beef.
We were finished with dinner at around 9:50pm, and started heading back to the hotel. It was only a 10 minute walk.
The boys text us that they were done with work and heading back to the hotel while we were on our way home. Halfway through our walk back we realized Katie forgot all her shopping bags at Beef Impact and had to go back to find them. We panicked a bit because everything started looking the same and we couldn’t find the place. But eventually we used Google Maps and found the place, luckily they were still open and we retrieved her bags. Phew!
We made it back to the hotel and dropped off our items, then the guys had decided they wanted to go to dinner. I said I’m in!! Katie hung back to get some rest.
We went to a ramen spot in Ramen Alley called Ichi Kura.
Here we squeezed into a small warm shop and chowed down on some ramen. I ended up going with miso soup, since I had wanted to eat that at lunch.
The broth here was not as scrumptious as the last place but still tasty! It was a nice way to top off the evening. Also, such a nice cozy meal in the cold weather 🥶
We finished dinner at about 11:22 pm and walked back to the hotel together.
Friday, January 16th
Woke up at 6:20am. I think my sleep schedule is starting to get back to normal.
My morning ritual has become waking up early and writing about the previous day/reviewing photos for about 1-2hrs until David gets up. That’s what I did today as well.
Around 8:30 we got up and had our usual breakfast in the hotel restaurant. This time I had:
I’m pretty particular when it comes to breakfast, I like having eggs, an oatmeal, yogurt/granola. I don’t like eating foods I consider to be lunch/dinner foods for breakfast, with the exception of dessert! I will eat cake in the morning 🙂 The breakfast buffet has pho, miso soup, and fresh tofu dishes and I did not like the idea of eating those for breakfast BUT today I decided to try pho. It was a hit! For one I had to put it together myself, they provide all the ingredients but you boil your own noodles, pour broth, and assemble ingredients/seasonings. This I enjoyed. Flavor wise it was delicious! I liked the feeling of warm soup early in the morning, felt like a good thing for my digestive system.
I didn’t have much of a plan for the day other than to do laundry. David and I had accumulated a full load of clothes and after breakfast I set out to take care of it. I found a coin laundromat about a 7 minute walk away from the hotel.
First mistake was not bringing coins to a coin laundromat. I ended up spending about 30 minutes trying to figure out how to pay for using the machines. I only had large bills and their coin machine would only take small bills. Then there was a QR code you could scan to pay electronically except the five listed forms of payment were all apps that I didn’t have and after multiple attempts, couldn’t set up accounts for. I was SO frustrated, which is silly and I laughed about it afterward. I’m in a beautiful city without a care in the world and got so angry about not being able to operate a laundry machine, I was just being a brat.
In the end I dragged the laundry bag out of the place, convinced I’d have to head back to the hotel to fix the situation. But right as I stepped out, I see a 7-Eleven and have never been happier to see a convenience store. I ran over, bought an egg sandwich and a drink, and got my change.
I was able to get the machine going, which was a washer/dryer combo, and saw that it would take an hour to do the job.
I also learned that the detergent is pre-loaded so I didn’t have to worry about purchasing that separately. Once I set it up, I set a timer on my phone, called Liz, and headed back to the hotel.
I ended up chatting with Liz for nearly two hours, updating her on my trip and hearing about her latest developments. I hung out at the hotel, ate my sandwich and headed back to the laundromat.
Once I was back in the hotel. It was about 12:45pm and I was ready for a break. I ended up spending 2 hours junk journaling, an activity I tried for the first time on this trip! I brought my mini photo sticker printer to include images from the trip and also had been saving things like boarding passes, luggage stickers, train tickets, and receipts for this purpose. Here’s a peek at one page of my journal:
My friend Veronica lent me picture corners and washi tape, which came in handy. I also purchased supplies at the stationery store. I felt like a little kid doing craft time for a bit and it was just what I needed to feel rested and relaxed.
Once I was done with that, I needed a caffeine boost. I headed down to the lobby to the cafe I hadn’t checked out yet. Once there I realized they specialize in sweet pastries/ cakes but also serve coffee. I went with a strawberry shortcake and cafe latte. Both were good and a perfect little afternoon pick me up.
After coffee I met up with Katie and we hit the town. First stop, a German pretzel shop! We happened upon the cutest little pretzel shop that was stocked with German beer and wine as well as various types of pretzels. We went with mulled wine and shared a cheese pretzel shop- delicious!
I unfortunately didn’t take any photos of the mulled wine or pretzel but trust me, it was delicious. The shop owners were so nice and welcoming and shared that the shop JUST opened up a week ago. I’ll be coming back with David before we go, he loooves pretzels.
We did have a mission on this outing, which was to pick up matcha and a knife for Katie, but took our time and explored as we went.
After mulled wine and pretzels, we set off in the direction of the matcha shop and ran into the beautiful Sapporo TV Tower and park below it.
The area surrounding the TV Tower is beautiful, the snow covered wide open square felt so communal and like a magical winter wonderland. I wonder how many times I’ll say winter wonderland when describing Hokkaido.
To get to the matcha shop, we headed down a set of stairs to get to Aurora Town, the first of two below ground floors that span a large part of the whole city. My understanding is that these were built when Japan hosted the Olympics to allow for the flow of large amounts of people. Now it’s home to shops, restaurants, and other service businesses. The lowest floor is called Pole Town, which thoroughly confused me when I first got here, you see the entrances all over the place like this:
Anyway, back to Aurora Town! As we were trying to find the matcha shop, we found this leather goods shop and both were enamored with their items.
I ended up getting a gift for Liz (which I won’t spoil here) and Katie picked up a pencil case.
After this we realized the matcha shop was actually located above ground. Despite the navigation challenges, I’m still glad we got to explore a bit of the underground city area.
We thankfully weren’t too far off and made it to the matcha shop!
This place was great! They had so may different types of matcha for sale as well as offering matcha drinks and ice cream! It was too cold for ice cream but I definitely tried the matcha and it was some of the best I’ve ever had. We both picked some out for friends and headed back out to the next stop: the knife shop.
This store had an amazing selection of knives of all types. I’m not knowledgeable when it comes to knives so I don’t have the words to describe the types and materials but it seemed to have something for everyone. The mood was serious and quiet in there so I didn’t take any photos. Katie ended up finding herself a knife that she is excited to use as her daily cooking companion. Score!
With our mission complete, it was dinner time! We decided conveyer belt sushi would be our experience for the night and quickly found a spot.
To be seated you had to pull a number and wait for your number to be called. Our estimated wait was 40 minutes so we went to an adjacent spot for a drink and appetizers.
I went with garlic shrimp and a grilled oyster. The shrimp was ok and the oyster was delicious! I’m a happy woman eating all this seafood, I’ve loved seafood for as long as I can remember. I remember eating raw and grilled oysters as a little girl with my dad, one of my favorite memories with him. I’ll eat almost anything from the sea, except monkfish liver 🙂
After about 30 minutes we went back to the line for the sushi restaurant and were seated shortly after. The setup was that you order dishes from a tablet at your table and they bring you the food as it is prepared.
We’re slightly bummed that the conveyer belt was not used to deliver the sushi BUT the food was so good we didn’t really care.
We had quite the feast, ordering by tablet is dangerous when you’re hungry and eating amazing sushi!
It was a wonderful new experience, I would definitely recommend it and would return again if I get the chance to.
After dinner we ended up at the jazz club again, such a nice place to relax, have a drink and chat.
A short video to hear the vibe:
There weren’t live musicians again, but the music was still great! I might have to come back again just to see if I can see a band play live.
After a drink and chat, it was time to head back to the hotel.
We made our way back and parted ways when the boys arrived from work. Another day complete!
Saturday, January 17th
This was the day I spent the most time on my own. It felt LUXURIOUS. I nearly cried in the morning of gratitude, it really hit me when I was eating breakfast how special it is to be doing this. I know I will always remember this time in Hokkaido.
David had an early call time (6:45am) so I didn’t get to see him in the morning.
I went to the hotel breakfast spot, as is my routine now, here’s what I got:
Breakfast view is stunning everyday:
I did some journaling, really helped me ground myself for the day ahead.
I considered going to the gym but instead opted to go out shopping 🙂 I wanted to go back to Don Quijote and pick up skincare gifts for my family and other random trinkets for friends.
Some views from my walk to Don Quijote:
Once inside, it was like a fever dream again. It’s about 6 floors of everything you could ever think of and more.
I was there for about 2 hours and found some cuties for my sisters and a bunch of skincare items. Thankfully I brought my backpack so I was able to carry it all in there once I was done.
Next I set out for Central, the stationery store. I wanted to shop but also was ready for lunch and they have that ramen shop on the 4th floor that is my favorite.
Some views from my walk to Central:
For today’s visit to the ramen shop, I got the miso ramen and one shumai. I’d say my rankings of the the ramen at this shop (all delicious!) woukd be #1 Tekka Ramen, #2 Shoyu Ramen, and # 3 Miso Ramen. It was busy so I had to quickly sit down, eat and get out. No pictures this time.
Next I spent about an hour walking around and getting gifts for people. I did buy myself a cute handkerchief 🙂
I was amazed not only with their inventory, but how much you can customize their items. Remember those 4-1 pens that had like blue, black, red ink? Here you can select the casing and then pick the 4 colors in the pen! Same with notebooks, in one model you can pick the cover, spiral color, and sheets of paper. Amaaazing.
After Central I walked back to the hotel and relaxed in the room for a few hours.
I met up with Katie and we tried to get into an onsen (hot spring/spa) but were not able to enter because we both have tattoos. There were no exceptions, which was a bummer but ok because at the end of the day tattoos are taboo here and I am a guest.
We switched gears and set out to find dinner. We found a bowl place for a quick dinner.
It was pretty late after dinner so we went straight back to the hotel and were done for the night.
Sunday, January 18th
David worked early again (5:45am!) so I was on my own for the day again.
Had breakfast again in the hotel breakfast buffet. I’m going to miss this hotel! We leave for another hotel tomorrow.
Today I tried a glass of Hokkaido milk for the first time. It was delicious! It took me back to when I was a kid, a heavy milk drinker. I’m talking nightly before bed I had to have a sippy cup full of warm milk. I remember the sensation of the cup and coziness of the warm milk as I prepared for bed. I can’t believe I waited four days to try it!
Something that has stood out to me here is the dinnerware – porcelain and ceramics galore! I’m obsessed with the green ceramic mug pictured above that I’ve used for breakfast everyday. There are a few different colors but I exclusively have used the green – my favorite color. I’m thinking I’ll try to find a similar set when I get back home.
After breakfast I set out with 4 destinations in mind: Don Quijote for one last gift, Zoff for eyeglasses, the central municipal library, and the Sapporo TV Tower.
Some scenes from my walk over to Don Quijote:
I stopped by Don Quijote and efficiently found what I needed. I was out within 10 minutes.
I walked over to Zoff, which I discovered was located in a mall called Covono Susukino. Zoff is an affordable eyeglasses store that includes the glasses and an eye exam for around $90-$100 USD. What a steal!
I showed up without an appointment and they helped me right away. They asked for basic info like Name /DOB/Email and then passed me through for an eye exam. The neat thing was that the majority of the eye exam is done by a machine! Rather than having an optometrist ask again and again, “which is better? Option A or Option B?,” they sat me down in front of a machine that handled the testing on its own. I had a joystick and a button to respond to its questions. I felt like I was living in the future!
Once the examination was complete, they had me pick a frame, then charged me for them. I opted for a blue light blocking lens and paid $103 for them; they asked that I return in 30 minutes.
While I waited, I walked around the mall.
I went back and picked up my frames, which fit perfectly but unfortunately did not seem right in terms of prescription. I put them on and felt like something was off but thought it was just the new prescription I needed to get used to. I also had been wearing my contacts every day so I chalked it up to wearing new glasses. But once I left and walked around some more, I realized it was blurrier and more disorienting than I could handle. I went back to Zoff and they were so nice about it. Using the translator app on my phone and their translation device, we figured out the issue. They redid part of the examination to confirm the prescription, but also added adjustments for my astigmatism. I had to wait again for 30 minutes in order for them to fix it, but it was perfect because I was ready for lunch.
I went up and did a couple of laps around the food court area before landing on a spot that had ramen. I ordered a spicy ramen with dumplings. It was delicious and just what I needed to continue my adventure.
After lunch I went back and picked up my new frames, I could immediately feel the difference. They were perfect!
I set off for my next destination: the Sapporo Central Municipal Library! (Or so I thought). The walk was about 10-15 minutes above ground and below ground in Aurora Town.
I reached the destination, which was below ground and found I had accidentally navigated to the library’s Aurora Town counter, not a full library. A bit of a bummer but I learned something new! And at least got to see books at the bookstore. No problem.
I exited Aurora Town and found myself very close to my next destination: the Sapporo TV Tower.
There is an Ice Town Snow Festival coming to town that was actively being set up as I walked by the TV Tower. I hope I get to see it before I go!
As I walked over to the Sapporo TV Tower, Jeanice texted checking in and wondering if I wanted to meet up. She is the wife of one of David’s colleagues that I met earlier this week. She said she was at the Sapporo Factory and I excitedly agreed to meet her. I thought this was the Sapporo Beer Factory and had been wanting to visit all week. I checked the maps and found that it would be an 18 minute walk.
Here are some shots from my walk over:
When I arrived, I realized this was not a beer factory, this was the name of another mall! I panicked and confirmed that this was where she was, hoping I wouldn’t need to backtrack 20 minutes. Thankfully, I was in the right place! The Sapporo Beer Museum is what I intended to visit but this worked out.
I met up with Jeanice, who had been hanging out in the beautiful atrium area of the mall where there was a meetup of some sort with a Japanese boy group called Lienel.
We ended up chatting and waited to see the band greet their audience. It was so exciting, even though neither of us had any idea what was going on. After they came out we walked all around the mall, just chatting about what we’d been up to on our trip and life in general. This was our first hangout and I can’t think of a better way to get to know a new friend 🙂
After exhausting the multiple floors and picking up some cute figurines from coin operated machines, we decided to head back to the mall I went to earlier. I told her about getting new glasses and she wanted to do the same.
Some shots from our walk:
I had fun helping her choose some frames and when it came time to wait for 30 minutes, we went upstairs to eat dinner in the food court area. We decided to go with a sushi spot.
I had a dish of three different types of tuna and rolled sushi Sujiko and cucumber. We had a really nice time together and I enjoyed getting to know her. Definitely would like to hang out more when we get back to LA. (if you’re reading this, hi Jeanice!)
Our last stop was a shrine that she told me about at dinner. I don’t want to say too much because I haven’t read up fully on the topic, but from what Jeanice explained, these are places where you can go and make prayers/wishes.
Out of respect I only took a picture at the entryway but the place was beautiful and peaceful. Jeanice walked me through how to respectfully approach and make my prayer. It was a really moving moment and I’m grateful to have experienced it.
Afterwards we headed back to the hotel and stopped by a family mart on our way. The coke I had at dinner was so crispy fresh that I bought another one, a cup of ice, and a cookies and cream ice cream cup.
I only had half of each but man, it was glorious.
Tomorrow is David’s birthday! Time for bed 🙂
Monday, January 19th
They ended up wrapping the show last night so David doesn’t have to work today! What a nice birthday surprise 🙂
It was the first day we got to enjoy the breakfast buffet together without rushing. I had my usual 4 course breakfast 🙂
I had my usual 4 course breakfast 🙂 The only item I forgot to take a picture of was my pho (2nd course :-P)
After breakfast we went back to our room to get ready for the day.
We hit the road shortly after and made a first stop at Don Quijote. David had done a fast pass through the store before but had not yet thoroughly shopped. We went through all the floors but didn’t find anything this time around.
Yazmín Vive 