Out With My Best Girls (March 2012)

I'm a lucky girl here in Oki... definitely have some of the best friends a girl could ask for :)
Lyndsey, Jill, Nicole, Diana and Julie are 100% my rocks here... this duty station would not be nearly as much fun without them!

Here are a few of my favorites:

At Infinity: Do the Shisa!

I didn't think I could fit in the picture. Just silly :)

At Flex: Home of the best Salty Dogs!! 

At Oh Yeah Pizza Bar: Great pizza and fun bartenders!
Oh, and the bar happens to be the building next door. Loud yet entertaining :)

At Yogurtland! Yummo!

Sapporo Skiing (February 2012)

The next day in Sapporo, we decided to go skiing at Sapporo Teine. It's not a huge ski area, but it was great snow and easy access from our hotel. Sapporo was the host for the 1972 Winter Olympics, so there were some really great runs there. Chris even got to mogul it up!

This girl in the train station let me wear her really cool cat earmuffs :) 

We're the newbies! And this was Orlando's first ski ever :)

Cool view of the ocean & the city of Sapporo from the ski hill

Jill and I at the top of the hill.

 Here's where the Olympic torch was in 1972!

After a great day of skiing, we decided to head to the famous Sapporo Bier Garten for all you can eat and drink (mutton & beer). All I can say is Meat. Sweats. Yes, we definitely had our share of great meat and beer!

We were told before going to wear clothes that you don't care about...when you walk in, they give you trash bags to put coats, purses, etc inside. The smell of the cooking meat permeates everything!! We smelled like meat for at least 2 days I think. The mutton was surprisingly good, and the veggies were absolutely fantastic! I remember really liking the pumpkin. Julie and I even learned how to say pumpkin (かぼちゃ (kabocha)) and onion (たまねぎ (tamanegi)).

Orlando with the pre-cooked mutton and veggies

Always a Chris classic :)

Julie and I were pretty excited about dessert... cantelope Kit-Kats! 

Thankfully, none of us really drank too much that night...but we did have a meat hangover the next morning. We all went our separate ways on our last full day in Hokkaido. Jill and Lyndsey went back to Teine for some more skiing & snowboarding, Orlando, Julie, Trish and I went to Takino Snow World for some tubing and cross-country skiing, and Chris took a 2 hour bus ride to a sweet ski resort (Rusutsu) in the mountains! I don't think I can explain how excited Chris was to go to this resort. It has some of the best powder in the world! And anyone who knows Chris definitely understands his absolute love for skiing... esp powder and moguls. I don't think he could've had a better day! 

Chris was REALLY happy to be skiing in some amazing POW!

He thought their wax room was cool...

and the beer vending machine room was cool...

and there was even an amusement park too!

Some Chris tracks :)

I didn't take a camera to Takino Snow World b/c I knew that I would just be cross-country skiing...and Chris clearly needed it for his fun at Rusutsu!! I ended up skiing 9K that day!! It was really awesome. I forgot how peaceful it is to be in the woods alone in the winter. Sometimes I would even scare myself with the sound of my own skis behind me :) I was really excited to get in such a great workout... and find out that my back can 100% handle cross country skiing! Yay!!! :) We also did some tubing that day...and it was by far the coolest couple of runs I've ever done!

I did snap a few photos around Sapporo. This is the government building in central Sapporo. I just loved all of the snow around it!

Classic :)

The last day we were there, we only had a few hours before our flight, so we decided to check out the Winter Sports Museum. 

From the top of the ski jump

The record jump distance  

It was a cold ride up & down! 

Inside the museum... more Heaven for Chris!

Chris remembers these F17s from his high school days and now they're in a museum!

Hasta luego Sapporo!

Oh, one last photo... this was our plane. Only in Japan :)

Sapporo Snow & Ice Festival (February 2012)

This past February, we planned a trip to Sapporo with a few of our friends (Lyndsey, Jill, Julie, Orlando and Trish). Sapporo is known for a big snow and ice festival every year, and some great powder skiing! Sapporo is in Hokkaido, the most northern prefecture in Japan.

Our first night there, we ventured out into the cold to check out some of the ice sculptures and a ski jump!

Ski Jump!

These are some of the really cool ice sculptures:

The Japanese sure do love their liquor!

...and beer!

...and of course seafood :)

Chris, Orlando, Julie, Lyndsey & Jill

After checking out a bunch of the ice sculptures, we made our way to "Ramen Alley". A lot of us tried the Butter Corn Ramen.

Ramen Bar

Never a dull moment, not even in the ramen restaurant.

Anthony Bourdain ate here! 

Yup, it really had that much butter in it!

After dinner, we headed back towards our hotel and hit up the "Ice Bar" on the way home. We all had a glass of warm red wine...it was actually delicious!!

The girls: Julie, Jill, me, Lyndsey & Trish

Aaannnd then we decided to keep exploring...

We found this special store...I'll spare you the other pictures we took here.

And then we all went down to Pole Town. Yes, Pole Town...it's the name of some of the underground walkways in Sapporo!! This city is amazing...since it's so cold & snowy during the winter, the city actually has miles (kilometers for you Japan folk :)) of shopping malls, walkways and random stores underground where the subways run. This entrance just looked like any other run of the mill subway entrance, but there was a mall right underneath us! It was so clutch when we were freezing our butts off! 

Our last stop of the evening was for some Sapporo Beer.

The next morning we ventured out to see the snow sculptures. It was pretty cold...and I'm pretty sure it got colder as the day went on. The picture do no justice to the frigid temps!

I wanted this shirt so bad, but it was only in kids sizes! Raaats!

The Taj

One of the BEST signs we have ever seen!

More nice construction signs

This is the Post Office guy

A little melted, but we still thought it was pretty cool :)

Bahahaha

Festival food Sapporo style

One of the cutest things was all of the little kids dressed up in their snow gear!

Ready for the snow and ice!!

Chris LOVED this train. He thought it was super cool that it was a real steam engine train that the guy had to keep loading coal into. I think he could've watched it all day.

After spending a few hours here, we decided to go to another area of the festival where there was a ice luge and tubing! It was about a 20 minute train ride away, so we got a little break from the cold. 

My favorite snow sculpture. It's a sibling thing :) 

Another train...shinkansen style!

 This is when the freezing temps really started to kick in.

FREEZING!!!!!!

Jill & I waiting to tube down the ice luge

Chris is happy in this cold weather!

Much needed train ride to thaw out!

We decided to bundle up before heading out again for the night. We checked out the ski jump area...and it was freezing! :)

Jill & Lyndsey

Ski Jumpers!

Lyndsey trying to stay warm!

We ate at the most delicious Italian restaurant in Japan! Well, at least we think so :) 

Cheese Cheese. What more can you ask for! 

 We found a pretty hip bowling alley too. Nerdin' it up.















A couple of my favorite cat photos to close out the first 2 days of Sapporo. :)