Saying Goodbye To Sapporo (Day 5)

I wonder if my readers have been bored of reading the Japan trip that I have tried to share out so far? I hope you guys are still catching up to things that I have been writing. Thank you for your tremendous support. I don't know if I am getting less and less readers or perhaps I am not getting any anymore these days, so if those who still came by for a visit, do drop by a comment or perhaps to my cbox over to the left.

Picking up from where I left, the last of the Sapporo morning were spent at the hotel after an adventurous day the day before. Waking up rather later than usual, we headed down for breakfast at the cafe. Surprisingly, there are not many people around, probably because it's not the weekends.

Hokkaido (北海道) is a great place for farming as the climate is cool and also the land is made of volcanic larva. It is a great place for animal breeding too where Hokkaido is famous for it's cow milk. Why so? Well, the greens are really fresh where by the cows eventually lived a very good life in Hokkaido, massive fields of grass as well as fresh air and water all year long. So if you are in Hokkaido, definitely you will need to go for the Hokkaido milk. How do we know if we are drinking Hokkaido fresh milk? Look at the packaging on the picture I included above. It tastes different from the fresh milk which we can find it at any deparment stores.

Sakura season might not have reach Hokkaido yet, but the hotel offers Sakura flowers (さくら) that was potted and displayed around its hotel lobby and cafe area. There are 2 types of Sakura eventually, the pink ones that everyone other than Japanese seemed to love and the white ones with sides of pink that everyone doesn't seem to notice.

After breakfast, we stroll around the lobby area trying to capture pictures of the sakura blossom where we assume we will no longer able to see once we get to Tokyo as the Tokyo climate are getting warmer. Sakura doesn't survive in warmer climate hence that's why Sakura flowers shed once the season is over.

Back to the room, we packed our stuff for the one last time and we checked out earlier so that we could spend sometime at the airport. We took the Rapid Airport train again. There weren't so many passengers on board the train, probably because its already 11am when we board. We reach the airport around 11.40am and again we have to drag our heavy bags to the departure hall to check in our luggage.

Reaching at the Japan Airlines (JAL) counter, we tried to check in several times only to turned away by security and the JAL personnel. Dad was rather upset and after being turned away for the 3rd time, dad just headed directly into the business class counter and started questioning why we aren't allowed to check in. After looking at our airtickets, the friendly stewardess apologises quickly and informed the security in Japanese to let us check in at the counter. This is the first and most outrageous conduct of Japan airport personnel I have ever seen.

Dad still being frusfrated over the incident, had his moody mood throughout the next few hours before our flight to Tokyo. However, it doesn't stop me from wandering around the New Chitose Airport. The airport, which was opened in the year 1991, replaces the Chitose Airport (now serving as the Japanese Military AirForce base). The airport became Japan's first 24-hour airport in 1994 which enables it to service international flights. New Chitose Airport lined up third place across Japan airports besides Narita's first and Haneda's second place in terms of passenger hauled.

In the center of the airport, there's a huge shopping area which encompassed a lot of souveniers as well as fashion labels. As dad and mom settled down for a cup of coffee (which I think dad really needed one to cool himself off from the heated argument earlier), I strolled around the airport to take pictures. I stopped over at the Kinokuniya bookstore (it's not huge but it still serves plentyful of books) and bought myself a few Japanese manga there. I also stopped over a Japanese drug store to get my dear some Integrate (by Shiseido) cosmetics which she deemed to be only available in Japan and Taiwan.

We made our way to the boarding gate an hour later, passing through the security without any problems. We settled ourselves down in front of Gate 16 while I continued my scoured around the boarding hall to take pictures of the surrounding area.

I've also developed a liking towards its vending machines, I don't even know why but the drinks displayed sure is tempting.

Flight JAL 3042 bound for Narita International Airport made it's first boarding announcement at 1.30pm. I guess it's time for me to say goodbye to Hokkaido and boarded the plane as the weather outside continues to rain which started in the morning. The flight is full, even for first class. The flight departs on time at 1.45pm and headed down south to Tokyo. I guess I will stop here as there's more to write soon once we reach into Tokyo. Do stay tuned for the next post.