Our mission was plain and simple at this time. We needed money, badly. According to the guide book
(and it has been known to be wrong on multiple occasions) there is a 24 Hour International Citibank ATM
straight down the main street of Sapporo on the right side. We lugged our bag over the frozen streets down the road. The sidewalks were clear, but each time we arrived at a crossing, there would be a glacier we'd have to traverse. It was very very
pretty; they had lights on all the trees, and this coupled with the neon was wonderfully fantastic. I also noticed, YEOW, that they had built a 
GIGANTIC BUILDING on top of the station. Either that or I don't remember it. However there was a lot of construction still going on, so it's probably new. I mean like 10 stories, from end to end. Plus there's a huge skyscraper going up slightly behind it that I also don't remember. It made the station almost unrecognizable. The big glass elevator down to the underground shopping center was still there though. Sapporo is one of the few locations in Japan that you can actually find things by their addresses. Everything is based off a central point about 6 blocks south of the station, called Odoori. From there you navigate north, south, east and west, i.e. 1W2N would be one block west of odoori (also the street we were on) and two blocks north. It works *really* well. The Citibank ATM was supposed to be 3N, so just three blocks south of the station.
As we approached the center of 3N, we could see the blue Citibank emblem prominently displayed on the front of the building. We hadn't seen it on a sign that sticks out, so we were a little worried. "pleasebeopenpleasebeopen" I chanted, crossing my fingers. I saw a man go in, and he didn't turn around. My spirits raised. We headed in, and there were THREE count em THREE ATMs, although one appeared to be broken for the moment. We took the last one on the row, and I popped in my ATM card. The instructions were in english and Japanese, and I requested 30,000 yen (about 250 dollars). Pause. I looked at the sign to the right, and it said something about only Citibank cards working until 1/3. Yikes. Pause. The display showed my current balance, and asked to confirm the transaction. I pressed "receipt", and moments later, 30,000 yen popped out along with a receipt. YAH HOO!!! We weren't broke anymore.
We happily popped in to a phone booth nearby to call the
Sapporo Station Hotel. It's right next to the station's north exit and seemed the most convenient, albeit a bit more expensive than the ones way down south. I confirmed that their rates were 3000 yen less than in summer (normally it's 13,600 yen for a double, but it was only 10,600. I made the reservation and told them we were on our way. Back through the train station we tried to find Molly some snacks to tide her over for dinner as we didn't eat lunch, and it was already 4PM (and DARK I might add). We stepped in the the Sunkus convenience store just outside the north entrance, and adjacent to the hotel. Molly looked hard for Happy Turn, but no luck. We ended up getting Hot & Spicy Pringles and Chip Star (pringles clones also from Nabisco). Plus water, which we really needed. We drank 4 liters of water between us yesterday; we're getting a little dehydrated!He walked in to the hotel next door and checked in. They were very nice as usual, and I paid with a credit card. We got room 1505, which is apparently on the 5th floor. The room was
excellent, and had by far the biggest bathroom of all the places we've stayed. The only problem I noted was that there were only two outlets available for use: one by the front door and one in the bathroom. Neither of which is remotely close to the desk, so I'm running an extension cord across the floor to the little table next to the TV. We munched on pringles, and then lightened my backpack up a bit and went out to find Ghengis Khan, local speciality where you grill mutton at your table. Obviously this was a trek for me, but we hoped there would be something to find for Molly as well. On the guide book's suggestion we went to the front of the Seibu department store, two blocks south of the station. On the way there, we noticed that all along the street were bikes that had been
buried in snow. I guess people aren’t claiming these until the fall! In front there was a HUGE line, which I figured out after reading the sign was for parking. I asked a man who seemed to work the line, and he pointed out the stop next to the line we were in, and said it would take us to Sapporo Beeru-en. Indeed, looking at the sign confirmed that the bus headed that way. The bus arrived, but I didn't see anything about the beeru-en on the sign, so I got a little worried. The bus departed, and I was a dork and didn't ask the bus driver. The price was right tho, at 200 yen a person, so I assumed it must be it. Plus it seemed to be headed on the right path. After a while, and passing some neat pachinko parlors (one called MGM that had a huge lion on top) I realized this couldn't possibly be the right bus. I also caught glimpse of the sapporo beer smokestack a long time before we finally decided to get off. We walked in the correct direction, hoping to catch a taxi. One passed us, but I thought it would be just as easy to catch one at the main street. How wrong I was. We walked for almost a mile, and finally we got close to a main street again. Right before then, we decided we had to bound through the snow, as it was upwards of two feet high here, although the sidewalks had been carved out. We shuffled through the snow for a while and really had fun. At the corner nearby, we saw a cab and snagged it. The door opened automatically, although I keep forgetting they close automatically too. We rode the cab for quite some time, letting us know how far we were off from the correct location. It stayed at 600 yen for a very long time, but switched to 680 right before we got out of the cab. We got out right in front of the Sapporo Beer Garden, which looked very inviting and homey. Inside, we checked the menu on the wall. We saw a few things that looked vegetarian, like cheesey potatoes (potato cheese Hokkaido), and a man came over and spoke english to us. He asked if we wanted to eat Ghengis Khan, and I nodded. He walked us over to a counter, where a woman asked us what we were going to eat. I told her Ghengis Khan and explained that Molly was a vegetarian and asked if there were any niku nuki dishes. She wasn't sure about the potatoes, although the salad was safe. She asked the man we spoke to earlier, and he was sure that the potatoes didn't have any meat in them. They were surprised that she didn't eat fish, too. The man led us out the back door, through the garden, and into the beer hall in the back. Up the stairs, and into a super-smoky room where lots of people were grilling at the table.
We sat down, and a woman brought over some plastic bags to put our coats in. She explained it was
because of the smoke, this would keep out coats from smelling. That was nice! The waitress arrived at our table, and asked what we wanted. I told her I wanted the tabehoodai (as much as you can eat) Ghengis Khan. There were a number of choices and prices, based on what you wanted to eat as well as whether you wanted all you can drink as well. I ordered the top of the line at 3400 yen. Apparently you can have all you can eat crab as well for an extra 2500 yen, but that would have been insanely expensive. As she read back our order, she said "nimai" which is a counter for tickets, or pieces of paper. I asked her about it and she said Molly was getting it as well. Since she was a vegetarian, though, I explained she wouldn't be eating it. The woman said that if one person orders tabehoodai, everyone must, which makes sense. However, in this case, it didn't seem fair. She ran over to her manager to explain our situation. A few moments later, she came back and the manager came with her. She said we could order just one, but we would have to pay "betsu betsu" or separately. We thanked her and bowed to the manager who bowed back. She brought us a cooking cast iron skillet to replace the one already on the table, and turned on the gas in front of us. A man brought us the first drinks we ordered, big mugs of fresh draft Sapporo beer, right from the factory. I must say, that is the BEST beer I have ever had. She brought Molly's salad and potatoes, then a plate of raw meat that looked really gross, since it had been marinated. I tested the tempurature with a piece of mutton, and after a few moments it started to sizzle. I put several bits as well as onions, cabbage, and bean sprouts on the cooking surface, plus a slice of pumpkin. After the cast iron cooker became really hot, it took only a few moments to cook everything. I finished my
first beer and plate of mutton and ordered another. There's a sauce you dip everything in after you cook it too, which is really yummy. Molly's salad was really good; so far she hasn't had a salad dressing she didn't like. Her potatoes were a little too cheesey, but overall were really tasty. We had a time limit of 100 minutes on the tabe/nomihoodai meal, but there's no way I could have lasted that long. After one hour, I finally gave in to my fifth plate of meat (I tried the other type as well, which wasn't marinated. It was good as well) and my fourth beer. They kept asking Molly if he wanted another beer, then water, which she refused. They finally just brought her a glass of water anyway; we think they felt bad for her 
watching me eat. I was a little 
tipsy at that point, despite all the food, and we paid outside the hall entrance and caught a cab back to the train station. We went into a game arcade where I found the freaky arcade game I was looking for - Surreal Driver. It's a racing game but is very realistic and when you crash, there's a terrible scream and sometimes you even see a death certificate. Plus a video review of the crash you were just in from an onlooker's point of view. It's in normal streets with normal traffic. Molly hated the screams when we played together. She also had me try to win a Hello Kitty kimono doll and "dog in a box" pug, which is a cute big headed stuffed dog. Neither was really obtainable, we dcecided after spending 500 yen trying. There was also a
Golgo 13 sniper game (from an anime) and dance dance and all the dance dance clones, which I refrained from playing since I was too tipsy. We stopped in to Lawson's next door for water and dessert, then across the plaza to the hotel. We got ready for bed, and on TV was a documentary-ish show about a girl who goes with a camera crew to England and Scotland to learn about Harry Potter. HP is HUGE here. The movie playing everywhere, and there are trinkets galore. It was a neat show, and they went to schools in Scotland and talked to kids in the classes. There was one girl who *was* Hermione, and she kept throwing her hand up at every question. We went to bed, happily stuffed and dreamed about the Russians. (just kidding, it's a Dave Barry thing)--
The next morning, we repacked our totally stuffed suitcase, and went back downstairs to check out. I had tried to upload at the hotel, but the phone system totally did not understand our modem's tones. :P We checked our suitcase and backpacks with the hotel, as we didn't want to lug them around all over Sapporo. In to the station we went, first thing was to make reservations on a night train. The JR reservation office was at the far end of the main terminal, opposite wall from the gates. The man who assisted us wasn't all that helpful; I asked for an "about 6PM" train and he said there weren't any. He then told us it was at 5PM which apparently was NOT close to 6PM. :P Even with a rail pass you have to pay extra for the sleeping car, it was about 18600 yen extra. We paid with a credit card ("kaado o tsukatte mo ii desu ka?"), and he handed us the one ticket, circling the "two persons" and "duet room".
Our next task was to get breakfast and call Molly's mom. Down into the Paseo we went, past numerous restaurants to a gray phone, where at first we couldn't find the direct dial number for Sprint (it's 00539131, by the way). Molly talked to her family for a bit, then we walked to a nearby kusuriya (pharmacy) to look for a nail file. No luck again, so we took the escalator downstairs to search for a panya for breakfast. As we got downstairs, Molly realized her hat was missing. We ran back upstairs, and someone had laid it nicely on the phone for us. So very kind. Molly’s baaaaad about her hat. :) The search for a panya took us through the station to the far side where we
left the station and entered the depaato across from the east entrance. Downstairs we went, hoping that the food areas in the basement would provide nourishment. At first we thought we were out of luck; all we found were more clothes aisles and a Harry Potter display full of merchandise. However, Molly's nose couldn't be fooled, and around the corner we located the panya as expected. We snagged tasty treats, then went out into the main underground looking for somewhere to eat. As we left, we naturally found a better panya. The one time we thought we'd actually find one we didn't, but every other time... We ended up well into the subway station and there wasn't anywhere to sit. I bought a small bottle of cold coffee, and Molly bought what appeared to be lemonade from a really cool robotic jidoohanbaiki (vending machine). This arm popped out of the bottom, flew up and grabbed her drink, then deposited it back towards the bottom again. It was cool.
We realized there were no chairs in this part of the station, so we ended up choosing a low-traffic area of the station where we could eat. Molly ended up sitting on the floor. After breakfast we left the underground with a full 6 hours of "what the hell do we feel like doing in Sapporo" time. :)
Molly's main goal was to go sledding while we had
lots of snow. I hadn't grabbed both guide books, and I didn't have the one that told me exactly where Maruyama Hill was, something that sounded promising as far as where we could go sledding. We walked west, passing by the 
Old Prefectural Office, built during the Meiji restoration. In front of it were several equestrian riders and their horses, plus some ponies who were giving paid rides (well their owners were anyway). One 
pony was very short and very hairy and looked more like a big dog than a small horse. :) We continued west until we ran into the Botanical Gardens, a huge park which is unfortunately closed during winter. There was a greenhouse down one end that was open according to the guide book, but we didn't see where to go in. The park was beautifully
laden with snow, and had a very deep-woodsy sort of feel. We continued south past the greenhouse where we ran into Odoori Park, a long stretch of land that starts at Sapporo Tower (we could see in the distance) and runs west for a very long ways. This is where they hold the Snow Festival in February, and they were getting ready for it from the looks of the place. There were grandstands going up, as well as lights being strung. The snow was about 2-4 feet in Odoori Park, but they truck in like 600 tons of snow PER SCULPTURE. I'd really like to be here one day for that!We turned right after passing through the park and began to look for a subway entrance where we could ride west. A few blocks down we saw one, although we were attacked several times by falling ice and snow from buildings. Fortunately, they had most of the danger zones blocked off. We went down into the subway where we rode for two stops west to Maruyama Kooen-mae. The exit station had a tunnel that led west and was lined with pictures of various animals on floor tiles, as there is a zoo in Maruyama Kooen (park). We followed the crowds of people out of the subway and down the street to the entrance to the park. Molly got a good picture of one of the
massive crows here (he POSED for her, we swear!) and we continued into the park. Load of people were here, and we saw many of them were eating something. As we rounded the corner, we saw that there was a little festival with food stands, my nemesis. I promised Molly I wouldn't eat much as we were dedicated to getting Indian food for lunch. We meandered our way through the stands; everything looked so good! Casey and I were addicted last time; every time we saw one we'd eat, but this time I was good. We turned left at the next main intersection and saw the reason so many people were here:
Hokkaido Temple. Ah. We didn't actually go in as this wasn't our goal. We walked back to the beginning of the food stands where I purchased an ika-yaki (grilled squid) from one of the vendors. This ain't no mama's squid - this is like a foot long and three inches in diameter, plus it's covered in some sort of sauce. I chomped away at the sea creature, Molly being very disgusted the whole time. People around us were drinking shochu I think, a really unrefined alcohol. We also saw Hello Kitty suckers, although they were 500 yen each. We left the temple grounds trying hard to find somewhere to sled. Unfortunately, according to the map at the entrance to the park, there wasn't anywhere to go nearby. Suck. Well, we thought maybe we could just find some cardboard and ride down some of the mountains of snow in Odoori Park if we really wanted to. However, right then, Molly was HUNGRY. We followed the directions in the guidebook to the Indian place via the subway to Odoori station, then change lines to the north-south line one stop to Sukinojo. We exited out the Robinson's depaato, then headed what I thought was north. However, it didn't look right; the station should have been visible at the end of the road. We turned around, but it wasn't visible the other way either. Hrm. I then realized we had walked out the wrong exit from the station, and we were walking west. Duh. Back to the main street, then up two blocks to where Taj Mahal should have been according to the map in the guide book. No dice. It wasn't there. Ok, let's try the other. We walked north two blocks, then east two blocks through the huge shopping arcade. A movie house was playing Miyazaki's new movie, which we're definitely seeing before we leave Japan. Not today though. We continued through the crowded arcade, Molly pointing out both a nail file and bananas, which she desperately wanted. We agreed we'd come back for them. The restaurant wasn't here either. Feh. We tried north one block and south one block, but again no dice. We finally tired of the annoying McDonald's voice ad announcing their hot dog burger (it's just a hot dog) and tried two blocks east on Molly's suggestion. There it was, Delhi Restaurant. However, it was not only in the wrong place (the Lonely Planet had switched it and a coffee shop on its map. I think it should be my mission in life to correct that guide book, considering how many times it's been wrong) but it was also very crowded. We debated waiting on it, but it wasn't a very big place and there was no telling how long it would be before we could eat. We turned around. Vanilla Sky was also playing at the theater in the arcade, and the painted pictures of Tom Cruise, Cameron Diaz, and Penelope Cruz were terrible! We caught the subway back to the station, realizing that we hadn't bought either of the things we said we would in the arcade.
Back at the station, we searched from restaurant to restaurant in the
underground, trying to find something Molly could eat. We finally decided on an italian place, as their margherita pizza looked pretty darn good. They actually had a non-smoking part of the restaurant, although in Japanese restaurants it's really vague; this just means there's not someone right next to you smoking, although in some places they may be anyway! Like 75% of men smoke in Japan, down from 85% 10 years ago. 60% or so of women, too. It's nuts. Molly says it’s still like EVERYONE smokes. It wasn't too bad where we were. For a while, we weren't sure if we were supposed to call someone over. If you just look like you want them to come over, eventually they will. Plus we really had no idea who our waiter was. Finally a girl came over and took our order for the "group size” pizza. Time continued to pass, and our goal was to get out of there in time to beat the banks to change money by 3PM. The pizza finally came and we wolfed it down. It was utterly delicious. Molly said she could have eaten the whole thing by herself. :)We paid our tab and raced out the doors of the station to find a bank. We walked in one, but didn’t see anywhere to change money. Molly remembered seeing somewhere that had “foreign exchange” down near the ATM, and we found it. We walked in (it was a travel agency) but the woman said she couldn’t change any money. I didn’t understand her reason why not, as they had exchange rates in plain view, but we left anyway. We tried the next bank after the ATM, as they also had a sign. A woman came over and said they couldn’t change money after 2PM (doh!) but the post office (yuubinkyoku) behind this building would. We ran behind the building to the post office, where I asked a man if we could change money. He said they could, but we’d have to take a number. We took a number and checked out the drawings of pets (and pugs) on the walls. I successfully changed money (although she seemed to check up on me a lot- she even called our hotel) and we walked out back, looking for the Ainu museum.
People had scrawled english messages in the snow for the new year, and their spelling was atrocious. :) We attempted to find the Ainu museum, but even with prompting from the signs on the street, we couldn’t. We turned right at the Botanical Garden fence and walked up the tunneled out sidewalk checking out snow. Time was running short, so we just wandered a bit, spending time out in the snow and catching snowflakes on our tongues. We probably looked like idiots, but it was a lot of fun. The traffic leading to the station was terrible; we walked away from the station for a while, turned around, and caught up to the cars we passed on the way back! As we arrived at the station, we saw an older man peeing on the side of the station. Lovely. Under the station, we bought a nail file and shaving gel, then went to a panya to get breakfast for the next morning on the train. Molly bought a “maple danish” (she called it an ‘earthquake roll’ because it looked all lumpy and exploded) which she later said tasted just like waffles and maple syrup.
We retrieved our luggage, then bought dinner for the train at the Sunkus by the hotel. We went into the station, passing two girls who were totally babying their dogs. If you thought Molly was bad, she has NOTHING on the girls with little dogs in Japan! We entered the station, found our train track, and hung out, waiting for the train. I realized I hadn’t made reservations in Kyoto, so I ran downstairs and called (it was too loud on the platform). The man at the Ryokan Station Seiki answered, and he was very nice and took the reservation without difficulty. As I arrived back at the platform, the train was arriving. We walked down to car 3, then lugged our bag on to the train. We were in bunk 8, which as it turns out was a
“duet” bunk. We had our own door, and a little staircase that led up to two bunks. We had a little space to put our luggage, a window, a table, slippers and yukata. We even could lock the door from outside with a code, which was way cool. You press the top button (it guides you through with a little LED), enter a four digit code, press the third button, then turn the doorknob (which is for the LOCK, not opening the door). When you return you repeat the process, turning the knob the other way. The room was really nice and private and comfortable. It cost us basically an extra 4500 yen apiece (since we normally spend about 10000 yen to sleep at a nice hotel) to do things this way, which comes out to 35 bucks apiece to save 12 hours of travel time. Can NOT be beat. If you only have two people, ask for a “duet”, they rock. They also come in singles and for four people. The train left, and we decided to explore. four cars down from us was a group car, with some passengers I guess who had cheaper tickets to not have a sleeping car. In this room also were two showers. When we examined them, they took some kind of card. We walked back through the train until we found a conductor whom we asked about the card. He said you could buy them somewhere on the train (missed it, he spoke too fast) and motioned for us to follow him. He led us back into the central car, where he was checking tickets for a while before he said it was in the shokuji (dining) car. Ah. We continued one more car to the dining car. We asked the woman where we bought shower cards, and she said here. She asked us what time we wanted to take showers, and we decided 8:30 in the morning. She wrote it down(reservation) paid 680 yen, and got two cards for the showers A & B. Back in the TV room, they were playing Friends on the TV in Japanese. We wanted to stay and watch, but it was way smoky in there. We minced our way back to the room (“mince attack!” I would yell, then pinch Molly. I chased her all the way through the train.) We stayed up for a while, watching the GPS and talking, then broke out our audio books and fell asleep listening to them at around 10PM. Well I say fell asleep, but apparently Molly couldn’t sleep. She got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom, and I guess she fell back asleep later. My alarm went off at 7:45 and I laid around for a while more. At 8:10 I woke her up to get ready for the shower. We put on our yukata, then meandered through the car to the showers. We had the two showers for half an hour, but the water only worked for 6 minutes. You could turn the water off, though, and that didn’t count towards your time. There wasn’t any shampoo or body wash, so I had to get Molly to squeeze a ton of ours into my hand. One handed, I put the card in. After a few moments, a light turned yellow and the card was spit out. I pressed the start button after setting the water temp, and it took about 30 seconds for hot water to come out. At this time, Molly banged on the door, saying she couldn’t get it to work. I asked if she had done all the things I had, and she had, although her card hadn’t come back out. I told her at that point she’d just have to find someone, but she said her card just came out and her yellow light was on. I went back to the shower, my shampoo slowly dribbling out of my fingers. It didn’t take long for me to really wash, and with 4 minutes of water time left, I just let it run. Felt great after the train sleep, which for me was pretty comfortable. Molly said she just couldn’t sleep for some reason. Molly forgot her brush, so I ran back to the room to get it, returned it to her, then went back to the room. There’s a low power hair dryer in the shower as well.
We packed up our things and were ready to go right when the train arrived. The
train station was really light today; people are done traveling for the holidays it seems. We had no trouble getting tickets on the shinkansen, nor did we have any problems getting to our train. There was NOBODY on the track, just about. The train arrived, and we got on. It was so deserted, they put everyone on the right side of the train so that they could see Mt Fuji (if it was visible). It was barely 5% full at most. A foreigner with dreadlocks walked through and said hi to us, and we said hi back. The train ride was really comfortable, although in trying to write the log for today, the batteries ran thin (they’re not lasting very long) so I plugged in at the sink in the bathroom and wrote there. We passed Mt Fuji again, but it was totally surrounded in clouds this time and we couldn’t see anything. I did mark a waypoint in the GPS tho. We arrived at Kyoto station only 2 hours and 40 minutes later. We got off the train, verified our belongings and walked down the stairs to the exit.
-Hik