The last full day of the tour opened to spectacular weather. It was fairly cold and crisp, but with blue skies abound, our precious few hours left in Sapporo would be good ones. Getting up early to take advantage of the nice weather and maximize time in Sapporo, I hopped back down to the Snow Festival to take some more pics.
This is a weird subject to bring up, I know, but the pic to the left needs some explanation. (It's cropped to protect your innocent eyes - click here or on the pic itself for the full version.) There are these colonies of moss balls that collect in the waters around Hokkaido, Japan that are called "marimo". These moss balls are green and fuzzy, and are perfectly round in shape. The word "mokkori" is (stay with me here) a word for the sound of a guy becoming aroused. The resident Japanese have come up with a character called Marimokkori ("Marimo" + "Mokkori") who is especially well endowed. You can see below he even got his own snow sculpture at the Snow Festival this year. There... Now you know.
After any last-minute Snow Festival viewing was over, several people wanted to shop around, grab lunch, and generally mill about the area. Everyone had checked out, and by 1:00pm we were on a bus headed for the airport. We had a short flight back to Tokyo, and then took a bus back into Tokyo to arrive back at the Hilton Tokyo Hotel. Being our last night in the city of Tokyo for the trip, we all wanted to cap things off with a nice dinner. One participant suggested a 200+ year old noodle place called Kinkantei. Sounded great! We walked around Shinjuku (a lot) to find it and when we finally arrived, we discovered that it had closed its doors for good. Be warned, those who want to go to Kinkantei - it's closed. Permanently. But! Not to be discouraged, we searched around for a place that would serve us food awesome enough to match the awesome tour that was soon coming to an end. We ended up eating dinner at a really good place that fused tonkatsu with ochazuke, making for a good final meal.
Over dinner, while showing off cool pictures, recalling adventures from the trip, and generally having a good time, someone mentioned they wished they'd had enough time to go to the Tsukiji Fish Market, but we were leaving tomorrow so there wasn't going to be a chance. I knew a couple of participants from the last tour had gone on their own, and I'd been there myself before, but after reading their account of it, I knew I couldn't miss the opportunity to show the participants how cool that place was.
"...Why not tomorrow?" we thought. And it was settled... So began Day 8.
We left the hotel while it was still dark to hit the subway that would take us to Tsukiji station. Once there, we followed the crowd towards what was unquestionably the fish market entrance and we made our way inside. It was freezing outside, but with all the crazy cart things zooming around, and people yelling in Japanese to each other, it was hard to remember we were cold. After browsing around, looking at every kind of fish and crustacean we could think of being sold, cut, or boxed, we had worked up an appetite. We'd heard a place called Daiwa Sushi in the Tsukiji fish market served "the best sushi in Tokyo". That's quite a dubious claim. The best? Like really the best? We had to see for ourselves.
When we found Daiwa Sushi, there was already a line snaking out the front, which actually just looked more like a giant lump of people. Keep in mind that it's like 5:00AM at the time. We deliberated: Was it worth standing in line in the freezing cold for what looks like it could be an hour or more to eat sushi this early in the morning? The party was split on the decision, and some decided to return to the hotel for some much needed sleep, while the rest stuck it out till they made it inside.
Was it worth it? Absolutely. It was the freshest, most delicious sushi I've ever tasted. What an experience, too. One of the best parts of the tour, hands down.
That morning some of the group slept in, while others went out to cram in a little more shopping during the dwindling hours of the tour before we headed home. Once 2:00PM rolled around, the group assembled in the lobby to board the bus that would ship us back to the airport, where we would in turn board a flight that would ship us back to the US. On the ride and the flight (Singapore Airlines! Whoohoo!) we all shared with each other our cool swag and awesome pictures, but it there was an inescapable longing to remain behind in Japan where we'd had so much fun grown to be good friends. We deboarded the plane and said our goodbyes - Destination Japan's 2008 Cool Winter Japan tour had ended.
Check out the full picture gallery!
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[ top of page ]
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| Day 7 & 8
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| Sapporo Snow Festival
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| Last Supper (of the tour)
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| Tsukiji Fish Market (Day 8)
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