I only have brief notes for our final two days in Japan.

They consist of three things:

1. Food (Ramen, Chocolate Factory, and the Sapporo Beer Museum)

2. Shopping

3. “Getting lost”

We then flew back to Sydney, where we went from freezing winter back to summer bushfires.

At the time we had no idea it would be our last overseas trip for more than three years.

The day we left Niseko was an extremely cold -14c and very icy. When leaving our accomodation I immediately slipped over on the ice. Fortunately I wasn’t too hurt and we didn’t have to wait long in the cold for the bus to Sapporo.

The bus ran from the mountains of Niseko through to the northern coast of Hokkaido island and then inland again to the city of Sapporo. While reading my guidebook, along the way, we decided to get off early at a fishing town called Otaru, where we had some excellent fresh fish and seafood for lunch.

After wandering around Otaru, we the caught a train to Saporro. Our accomodation in Saporro was a traditional Japanese Ryokan inside a modern apartment/office building. Where we were welcomed into our room with a traditional tea ceremony. Overall it was a great experience and something that was certainly different to places I’ve stayed before.

The planning of our trip was very last minute, in fact, we didn’t book our accommodation in Niseko until we were already in Tokyo for a few days.

Because of this lack of forward planning, we ended up staying in a small village called Annupuri, which my guidebook did point out was an area with less tourists and more locals.

As it turned out, our stay in Annupuri was fantastic. The hostel where we stayed was family run, with a fresh cooked breakfast each morning, and a very friendly host who we communicated with through a very well thoughtout flip chart of common questions he gets asked.

For our first day of skiing we caught a bus to the Grand Hirafu ski area, as we had booked ski lessons in English for my wife. While my wife learnt to ski, I ventured up the mountain and very quickly discovered a mix of both ice and powder.

One thing that was particuarly different about skiing in Australia is the “expert” runs would be similar to a blue run in Australia, except they had not been groomed. I very much prefered this style of run.

On our second day of skiing we decided to ski at the Annupuri resort. Overall both days skiing was excellent and I would love to return to ski more.

We awoke in Hakodate to a winter wonderland. It had snowed a lot overnight and the city was blanketed in white.

For breakfast we headed to the Hakodate Morning Market, where among all the variety of seafood, squid was very much the central theme.

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After a week in Tokyo it was time to travel north to the island of Hokkaido.

From Tokyo we caught the Shinkansen and to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto and then a local train to the centre of Hakodate itself.

When we arrived in Hakodate it was very cold, and lightly snowing right at sea level.

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My notes from my sixth day in Tokyo simply read: “Shrines – lots of old ones and a cool random walk”.

Looking back over my photos from the day, that essentially sums up the day, we went to many different shrines across Tokyo.

Tokyo DisneySea is a unique Disney Theme Park. I very much enjoyed the day, despite the overcast and cold drizzle we had a few times across the day.

Our trip to see Mount Fuji was not planned. Much like the rest of our trip, we decided what to do each day, while eating breakfast. By the time we had decided we were going to go to Mount Fuji it was around midday and we quickly hoped on a train from Tokyo to Hakone-Yumoto.

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Tokyo is big. Very big. Unlike other cities it doesn’t have a clear bounds of either the CBD or the city itself. It’s simply a sprawling metropolis with many different areas to explore.

We began our second day in Tokyo by walking along the shopping strip of Omotesandō, and then exploring the grounds of Meiji Jingū.

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In December 2019 I went for a two week trip to Japan. At the time I had no idea it would be the last overseas trip I would take for more than two years and just how much things would begin to change only a month later.

On the morning of my first day in Tokyo I explored the area around Ginza, the Tsukiji Fish Market and the Hama-rikyū Gardens.

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