Disaster Sapporo

After a great BBQ with the colleagues, I spent Sunday (16.9) relaxing at home and managed to recover from my hangover. I also made plans with Sidney, a fellow volunteer from Germany. We agreed to meet in Sapporo on the free Monday at 10 o'clock.

That's why I got up extra early, because it takes almost two hours by train. So I boarded the train at 7 o'clock to arrive at 9, as it is the only direct connection from Kucchan to Sapporo. Everything went smoothly. I bought my ticket, got on the right train, and bored myself to death for two hours until I finally arrived at Sapporo station.

Since I arrived an hour before the agreed time, I used this time to explore the station. It has four exits and a lot of shops, which I probably would have visited all if they hadn't opened at 10 o'clock. -.-

So I spent my time in a bookstore and bought myself something to drink at Starbucks. I also went to the tourist information office and got various brochures. Then I waited... and waited... and waited... It was 10 o'clock and I was looking forward to finally having breakfast with Sidney. But she didn't come. So I continued to wait. I sent her message after message on WhatsApp. Conveniently, almost all train stations in Japan have free Wi-Fi.

Unfortunately, I didn't get a response. So I kept waiting. When it was 10:30, I had hope that she would finally come. Because her train runs every 30 minutes. But no, she still didn't come. At some point, a tourist told me that for some reason the trains were partially not running. So I had no choice but to keep waiting. At some point, I explored one of the department stores at the station. It somehow has 7 floors, with stores for clothes, kitchen utensils, accessories, and so on. So there was a lot to see. I killed another hour there. At some point, I decided to go back to our meeting point. Around 12 o'clock. Then we actually found each other. Her train was 2 hours late... for whatever reason.

After we finally found each other, we decided to go somewhere for breakfast. Easier said than done, because Sidney is a vegetarian, she doesn't eat fish or meat. That means our options for food drastically decreased. At some point, we agreed on an Italian restaurant (a shame, I know v.v), because we saw a vegetarian dish on the English menu.

By 2 o'clock, we were finally done. The food was very good and the service was very nice. After that, we chose an arcade because Sidney wanted to try one of those claw machines. Since I didn't really have a fixed plan of what I wanted to do, I agreed. First, I asked our friend Google to find out if there was an arcade nearby. There was actually one in a building adjacent to the train station.

I think we spent almost an hour in that building, although part of it was because of me. There was also an electronics store, and I wanted to check the prices for a Japanese notebook... But for some reason, the Japanese love Apple. There were few computers that were not from Apple, and in the end, they were all too expensive for me. On the other hand, I'm considering getting a Japanese tablet. They have a large selection and sometimes the option to put in a SIM card. But I haven't decided yet.

Since my train was already leaving at 5 o'clock, I didn't want to go too far from the train station. Simply because I know my orientation and didn't want to risk getting lost somewhere. So we explored the underground shopping passage near the train station and ate ice cream at Cold Stone Creamery.

And that was the end of the day. Looking back, it's quite frustrating that I didn't see much of Sapporo besides the train station... That's why I have already decided to look up places I really want to see for the next time. Apart from that, I will probably have breakfast before or during the journey to not waste any time.

Sorry for being a bit behind with my updates... I'm working on it...

Best regards
Janina