Second Phase

So we're done with the Sapporo/Hokkaido bit, and now we're on to mainland Honshuu. Everything's going well, but I FORGOT TO VISIT THE POK�MON CENTER IN SAPPORO!!! Fuck!!! I was reaaaalllly hoping to see 5/7 of them! Now I can only do 4. I'm gonna go back there, to see the Pok�mon center.... I swear...

Update from previous, at the Otaru snow light path, the temperature plunged to below -5C. Really, really cold. I've never been that cold before, and with the wind continuously giving a nice breeze through, it was really nice of two of my friends to continue with the other three of us while we were busy taking pictures in that cold. I know it may be amazing that we could endure that kind of cold for 2hrs+ taking pictures, figuring out how to take better ones, as well as trying to get our minds to release their creativity juice for amazing photos. It's kinda hard to think at below -5C. Just to let you know, all I had was a T-shirt, sweater, winter jacket, wool scarf, jeans, army white-grey socks, and winter boots. No long johns, no thermal, no beanie, no earmuffs. (That, I regret. Had to keep my hood up. My ears felt so numb and painful it may have fallen off otherwise.) Underwear was of course, cotton.

Kyoto's pretty nice so far. There's no snow at the moment, but the temperature is pretty close to freezing, so things might change anytime. The cold is still welcome. Although it may push me a little to the edge at some times, I just feel really happy to be cold. Apart from weather, lots of shrines! But we've only just started exploring, so, not much to say yet.

Before this was a rather hectic transit from Sapporo to Kobe first, which landed at around 2200+. If we had decided to reach Kyoto first, we'd be really late, and no where to check in, so we stayed in the capsule hotel in Kobe! It was definitely a unique experience, but basically, that place is not really meant for tourists. It's meant as a quick, simple, relatively cheap accommodation for one night. We were in transit, and therefore were in that criteria, but our luggages were too big for the locker, so we had to leave them in the lobby. But mainly, you mostly see businessmen, and other Japanese males there. We didn't see any foreign tourists.

Oh well, phase 2/4. This trip is still going pretty epicly, and I think, all my estimates and research has paid off. I've not encountered anything unexpected yet that proved really challenging, not that I've expected everything.