Kim and myself made our way to Tokyo
station in the morning so she could catch her train to the airport
and I could catch mine to the northern island of Hokkaido. Her
trip was to take and hour and a half, mine clocked in at just under
12 hours.
Being as I wouldn't have any time to
eat between my trains, I grabbed what would be the first of many
bento boxes sold in the train station for trips just like mine.
They all consisted of more or less the
same itemss. A bed of rice with scrambled eggs over it then
topped with diced and cubed meat. What accompanied the meat was a
mixed bag of different things.
With my bentos in had we were off. The
first leg of the trip was pretty much the same landscape I had seen
from the first half of the trip.
Then the landscape slowly started to
change, with the snow becoming thicker the further we went.
You could tell it was getting really
cold outside, but I was nice and comfy in my big reclining seat. I
basically had the train car to myself. There was also a vending
machine in the car which was handy and weird.
Switching trains was quite stressful.
At times, I only had 5 minutes to figure out where I was going. I
usually just followed the crowd in their frantic dash to the next train, hoping that they were going
to the same place I was. It seemed to work out.
When we finally got to the norther part
of Honshu we had to take a underwater tunnel similar to the English channel tunnel to reach the northern island. At one point we passed this
creepy passageway in the middle of the tunnel. It was truly spooky.
As we exited the tunnel I witnessed the final moments of daylight. I opened my last bento and enjoyed a quite
dinner.
The rest of the trip was in the pitch
black. I only had one more transfer and then I would be in Sapporo. When I finally arrived I had to take
the subway to my hotel. I was quite tired of trains at this point but
at least I was close. As I exited the station I was greeted with a
huge snow drift at the entrance.
Everything was covered in snow, which
made it difficult to find the hotel. I pieced together what little
information I had and was able to find it down a random alley.
The room was great and had a partial view of the main street in Sapporo. I ended my night watching cars
slide all over the city streets.
