Although tired from traveling and the excitement of seeing each other again we got out of bed early. We had to catch our flight to Sapporo from Haneda airport early in the morning. The flight took not more than an hour and some, but it was like going to a different world. Snow and cold. And almost no buildings as rode the train from the airport to Sapporo. However, before leaving the airport we checked every place for Yaga-pokuro (famous fried potato from Sapporo). We also checked all the places around the Sapporo station when arriving by train in Sapporo. But they were all sold out.

Instead we went to the hotel to check in. Then we went for lunch. One of a few ramen-shops (type of noodle soup) that we had planned to visit in Sapporo. Sapporo is famous for its ramen. Our lunch was at the oldest miso ramen-shop in Japan – Aji-no-sanpei. It opened already in 1953.

Chie did not feel well so we went back to the hotel so she could take a nap. Meanwhile I went for a walk. My goal was to go to the mountain that was always visible at the outskirts of Sapporo. On my way there I passed a parking lot for snow removal vehicles. Just another evidence that Sapporo gets a lot of snow in the winter time.

By the time I got back it was time for Chie to wake up and get ready for dinner. I bought some coffee from Starbucks to make it easier. Then we got ready for dinner and walked there, passing colorful Christmas trees on the way.

The dinner at Arima the sushi restaurant was great. The fish was so fresh and it was a little bit different from what we are used to in Tokyo. The chef mixed a lot of different things like some white fish wrapped around sea urchin (uni) or miso marinated liver from a Monk fish (ankokimo) – in Tokyo we had ankokimo with a Japanse citrus based sauce called ponzu. The dinner was excellent.