In continuation of my previous blogpost on my Japan trip, here's what I did for day 4:

Our mission for the day was to look for sakura - that was the main highlight of the trip anyway.








Next, we went to Okurayama Olympic Ski Jump Stadium. I didn't even know anything about this sport until I came here. Some pictures:





So we took a cable car up and it was kinda thrilling cause our legs were hanging mid-air. I didn't dare to move while I was on the gondola, tbh.


We went up to the Okurayama Observatory deck (The Start House) and had a good view of Sapporo.


There's a little kiosk selling soft serve ice cream, dubbed as one of the best in Sapporo. Truthfully, ice creams are everywhere in Japan and we only managed to try a few but this was really quite nice :)


 Going down

Aside from getting to see some really beautiful scenery and enjoying the great weather, one of the highlights of this trip has definitely got to be the CRABS! So, for lunch, we went to a seafood market and had gala seafood lunch.


Each of us took turns to hold a giant crab and took picture. The crab was 4.8kg!



We had crabs the previous nights as crabs were offered during the international buffets but I didn't fancy much as the crabs were more to the salty kind (as I've mentioned previously, Hokkaido's food are saltier than the other regions).

However, this. The crabs were different, they were huge, meaty, tastes sweet and warm! The previous crabs we had during the trip were served cold.

 One big piece of salmon each for everyone!


 Abalone!



So before we devoured the crabs, the kind people at the restaurant actually taught us the correct and fastest way to eat the crabs. In the end, since we were all too slow (by their standards), all of the experts kindly lend us a hand instead. So we pretty much just ate without much work.


Another view of the crabs as more food filled out tables.

Sake

 We also ordered an extra tuna belly. IT WAS AWESOME.




There were more activities for the day cause after that, we went to Mitsui Outlet Park Sapporo Kita-hiroshima. So basically, you can find a lot of branded stuff here at discounted prices. But honestly, not everything is exceptionally cheap.

I only bought a GAP hoodie and that's about it. Or was it because I was a cheapskate? No...





 We had Chinese for dinner :)










It was...alright. Not my favourite and I think Chinese food (whatever style) is better in Malaysia. Like, nothing special and easily forgotten.

We had dinner super early because we had to catch a flight from Chitose to Haneda Airport in Tokyo. Unfortunately, when we reached Tokyo, it was raining and the airport had a terrible system where tour buses can only park at a designated area there isn't any shade. So, basically, we were on our own to walk under the rain, cross the road with our trolleys and baggage while we attempted to hold an umbrella (that we brought ourselves). Makes sense ke? I admire Japan for being systematic but sometimes the system makes no sense.

Anyway after that, we checked into our hotel, Tokyo Dome Hotel. It's one of the nicer hotels we stay.




There were a lot of students/young people and other people in Tokyo Dome hotel itself because they were fans who were supposedly waiting for some celebrities. Tokyo Dome hosts professional baseball games and a lot of celebrities also come here for shows and more.

So, we were quite hungry since we ate lunch early and though it was raining, we're not going to miss the chance to wander around our hotel. So we walked around and found this random ramen shop. We were quite noob, as we didn't realise we actually need to 'order' by using a vending machine. We went into the shop asking for the menu, hahahaha, how embarrassing.


Pick the item you want to eat here, put your money and get the order sheet. Then, pass it to the chef. Basically, there is no need for communication.



Not bad actually, though the one we had at Ippudo the day earlier was better, no doubt. Our tour guide told us that ramen is the "cheapest" kind of food because shops will give out up to 2-3 portions of ramen for free. So apparently a lot of students will probably have light lunch and have ramen for dinner.



It was a wet and cold night but it was nice wandering around like that.

Read Part 3 HERE.
Read Part 2 HERE.
Read Part 1 HERE.