Last of the snow....or is it?

Outside our "Austria in 1910" themed hotel

This photo doesn't really sell the place

It was great to be back in Sapporo.  As I've said before, it was my home for a year and a half so I get all nostalgic and shiz when I go back,  and walk around going "There's good old BIC Camera where I bought this sorry excuse for a computer"; and "There's the 7/11 where I once bought a cherry blossom Kit Kat".  The good times.  Life was a blast, obviously.  The snow was on the melt.  I forgot how yucky it was at this time of year.  Dirty freezing puddles of repulsive black water everywhere + all the random crap that's been frozen inside it for half a year floating around in it. Condoms, vomit, dog poo, chicken bones (all the major seedy groups).  Then there's the bicycles - sticking out of giant piles of ice.  How could you lose a pushbike to a pile of snow I hear you ask?  Easy - go boozing, have an extended karaoke session, stumble out in a blizzard, forget where you parked your old mate, and it's cactus until spring.  I lost mine.  I thought it was nicked - but perhaps it was one of the rusty numbers that reemerged in April.  Bicycles are one of the only two frequently knocked off items in Japan.  The other is umbrellas.  Leave your wallet in the toilets at the train station for an hour and you will be sure to find it sitting where you left it, but duck into the supermarket for a packet of seaweed on a rainy arvo, and you'll never see your beloved brolly again.

Chilly chilly Sapporo

Anyway, at this time of year when I lived here, I bought these sharp gumboots to combat the street lakes of filth - they were fluro yellow with green love hearts or something - subtle I know, I like to blend in.  Anyway, it seemed like a good idea in theory, but once I traipsed through icy puddles of grossness in them, sneering at all the chicks with miserable looks on their faces, suffering in their pink ugg boots (who were wearing them for what would now be the last time), I came to realise that gumboots are completely devoid of insulation and my feet were constantly absolutely freezing. I ditched the stupid things and bought a pair of pink ugg boots. Even though they quickly became repugnant on the outside, they strangely remained cosy within.  Anyway, the difficulty of negotiating the streets that have been covered in a metre of packed ice that has started to melt, is tempered partly by the approaching excitement of a long awaited spring.  Life in Hokkaido during winter is tough.  But the promise of spring is fleeting, and suddenly and without warning the temperature will drop, more snow will cover the city and all the puddle will freeze over again.  People will get their snow shovels out of the attic, pack their shorts back into mothballs and the department stores will shelve their cherry blossom promotions for another few weeks.

This is as far as we got 

Good news for the snowboarders though.  We had one last day on the slopes at the local mountain - my old fave - Kokusai (pronounced "Cocks Eye", and thus known as "Eye of The Cock" by me and my old gang).  This resort already had a base of 5 metres, and then copped an extra 70 cm of fresh powder overnight.  It was magic.  Or could have been.  The bloody midgets chucked a wobbly and refused to ski after an hour - we got a call from their ski instructor just as we were about to board the gondola.  There was no childcare in such a tiny resort.  We were shafted good and proper.  We had two of the most expensive runs of our lives.  Oh well, we can't really complain after such an insane season, yet of course I will anyway - fuck you, you snivelling little sooks - get out there in minus 16 teamed with driving snow, and ski dam it.

Sapporo isn't exactly teeming with tourist attractions.  Flick through a tourist brochure and top of the list is seeing a clock tower.  The Number 1 listing on Trip Advisor is the Hokkaido university campus.  Listen here - if you go all the way to Hokkaido to look at the grounds of a university I would seriously check your mental state.  Either that, or you are officially the most boring person on the planet.  Number 4 on Sapporo Must See's is Sapporo's underground pedestrian space.......and again, I'd just stay in bed.  The beer factory is on there too....slightly more promising.  However, your joy is squashed by the next suggestion - Visit the "Former Hokkaido Government Office Building" - Wow! - I sure will.  Right after I watch paint dry and cut the lawn with a pair of scissors.  Though, I guess if you bump "Visit the Beer Factory" to the top of the list, you could really have the good times at the goverment offices after - think Christmas office parties and photocopy machines.......The word Sapporo itself draws it's name from indigenous Ainu terminology meaning "river-lined-with-large-reed-bed" - say it like it is why don't you....doesn't really scream excitement though does it?

Feel the buzz in the air

I seem to remember the one I coveted as just a head????

Also, I got to have a good old reminisce and remind myself of all the little things I love about Japan.  There are a lot, but let's start with the hair salon.  It's such a pleasure.  Often when you go to the hair salon in any western country it can be a bit intense and often intimidating.  The music is blaring techno, the place is bustling, the stylists are cool teenagers with pink hair and multiple facial piercings.  They make you feel lame if you just want to keep the same look.  What is it about hairdressers?  It's like they live to cut off as much hair as possible.  You constantly have to ask them to back off with their fricken snip snips. I understand - all I wanted as a child was one of those "Pretty Cut and Grow" heads that you could go to town on - I was constantly in trouble for giving all my dolls crew cuts.  But I didn't go on to make a living from this fetish.  Once when I went to the salon in Australia and said I wanted a short hairstyle, the stylist asked if he could put it into a pony tail and cut the whole pony tail off.  I shrugged, so he did, and all the other workers gathered around to watch and cheer.  It wasn't a good move.  I ended up looking like bisexual Danni Minogue during the 80s.  Then I wrote a thesis in month, naturally sitting on my arse and eating leftovers from my afternoon shift at my bakery job.  I then got asked a few times if I was pregnant and/or interested in pussies.  Dark days.

Anyway, in Japan the salons are chic and stylish.  Classy and refined.  You are made to feel like a respected friend.  They show you a list of services with prices - clearly highlighting the price difference between having a cut from a senior stylist and a lowly one.  This is in sharp contrast to The States.  I have been nailed here before.  You don't realise the "top of the tree" is cutting a centimetre off your fringe and then you get nailed with a $400 bill when you leave.  It's horrendous.  Then you have to tip everyone.  The chick that showed you to your seat, the one that washed your hair, the colourist, the stylist, the one who dried your hair, and the one who swept up the hair sprinkle off the floor - they all stand in a semi circle blocking the door, and you have to go around tipping them all.  Let's put it this way - you don't want to be making a habit of heading down for a dye and cut every month.  You have to save for two years to get a blow dry.

Ah Bolly Bolly, I miss you already!

But not in Japan.  The salons have cute names like "Bolly Bolly".  And the stylists are all cute too.  Smiley and caring.  A dye job and cut cost me $80 and they threw in a free treatment as "service".  The one chick does the lot, and she would be actually offended if you tried to shove a tip at her.  You get a couple of massages (one at the sink and a shoulder one in the chair) with those tiny gentle hands.  They put a blanket on your lap when they wash your hair, plus the electric chair tilts you softly back to a padded edged sink.  It's like heaven.  I used to nap off at this point every time without fail.  Yeah, so that was good.  One tiny tip though - don't go for a radical change at a place that doesn't speak your native lingo.  I once tried to make the transition from black haired to fair at a Tokyo salon, and ended up with striped and patchy orange and black locks, and a pair of bright orange eyebrows.  It's the only time I have ever cried in the hairdressers chair (I usually save the weeping until I get in the car).

And who doesn't love a giant Hello Kitty

I also appreciate the other forms for caring for total strangers from shop assistants and the like.  If you buy perishable goods, they are packed with ice packs.  But if you buy ice cream, they pack it with dry ice - the prefect amount too, as it evaporates by the time to get home but your ice cream stays frozen.  The enthusiasm from sales assistants is unrivalled.  It's like they are so happy to be at work caring for you.  Everyone loves their jobs - from train station cleaners, to carparking space directors, to CEOs - they are all proud to be of service.  There uniforms are immaculate, their smiles are sincere, their arigato's are heartfelt.  You know you are back in Japan when you see a perky woman in a spotless apron scrubbing the front part of each stair in a department store, with steel wool and a smile on her face.

a wide selection of finger covers

Even having your period is an interesting time in Japan.  Firstly - tampons are not in huge demand.  Everyone seems to strangely love a pad here.  Those tampons you do happen to find are almost always those annoying applicator types.  Just not successful.  I can never get those things to work.  I either end up with a piece of plastic hanging out my jexi or the whole thing fails to load and I have to get it out of the tube and give myself the middle finger treatment anyway.  I always have to go to the big chemists to hunt down the do-it-yourself ones.  But this is where things really crack me up.  Included in the pack is a  collection of small plastic finger covers so your own finger doesn't have to make contact with the inside of your fanny.  God forbid you should have to touch your insides or get gross period blood under your nails (actually that is gross maybe they're really onto something).  I also like the diagram included pointing out where each hole is (just on case you shove it up your arse by accident), and an explicit diagram of your fanny which could actually be counted as porn.  I wonder if guys have ever wanked off to these diagrams....it's possible.....

If it's not on, it's not on

Notice the arrow with "Don't go here" written next to it...or maybe it says "arsehole"

Wow, this makes it look so much better than what it is

We were staying in a hotel which had the specific theme "Austria in 1910".  They had really gone to a lot of effort - art deco wood carvings behind the desk, the furnishings, the naming of each room after a famous artist from that period. There were also Klimt pictures all over the walls, sketches by Otto Wagner.  The Jugendstil movement at it's finest.  All done within the typical Japanese style.  Very entertaining.  Every night we trudged around the corner in the snow to eat piles of izakaiya food and drink what wold be my final beers of the year (I only drink beer in Japan).  Slimming stuff obviously.  Then on the way home we would carry the sleeping girls like sacks of potatoes and try not to slip on the ice.  People die in Sapporo every year after a nasty ice slip, and I was not planning to be one of them.

Couldn't make it through dinner

But why linger any longer.......days of rain was sounding the death knell for our snow honeymoon, and thus it was up and off to Tokyo.....again.  Time to dump the snow gear and get jiggy wid spring time, where sakura (cherry blossom) viewing would be in full swing.  However, apparently it snowed heaps after we left.  Fuck it, we should have stayed just a few more days......it's hard to let go sometimes.  For consolation, just pray with me that Tokyo will have released their seasonal varieties of Kit Kats.  If you've never had a cherry blossom Kitty, you've never truly lived.