Ugh. Snowbird left me a present too.
This time I was in a hurry, so the patch is pretty caveman.
Monthly Archive for November, 2009
On the domestic flight from Sapporo to Nagoya, the JDM flight attendants were offering drinks and mints up until the wheels came down. On the overseas flight from Nagoya to Honolulu, the “Asian” attendants passed by once with coffee/English tea/green tea, at which point most people still had their during-meal drink, so didn’t need the post meal coffee yet. They even brought out the pre-landing snack just after collecting the dinner trays, and at the appointed snack time, the juice came out, but no effing coffee/English tea/green tea. WTF?! Oh yeah, and where the F was my pre-meal drink that I usually get? I got it on the outbound flight last week. This crew sucked.
(0)Just got back from Japan. JO 084 from Nagoya had a good tailwind, so came in about half-an-hour early. There was a fair amount of turbulence though, but not as much as would have been expected from the doom notices given by the flight crew before takeoff. I could immediately see why I couldn’t get my customary “C” seat, since the majority of the flight was taken up by a school trip. Nothing quite like being surrounded by shrieking schoolgirls! Too bad I was instead seated next to all the freak “normal” passengers, like the girl next to me with her overdone fingernails who stirred her food but didn’t eat any of it, and goofy ADD hip-hop sideways hat nervous energy dude whose mere presence made me want to just clobber him.
(0)Don’t worry. I’ll upload pictures to the posts and get some stuff up on the gallery when I get back. The blog interface doesn’t quite work as designed with whatever version of IE that is resident on this machine.
(0)Kirin has produced two recreations of their historical brews, one Meiji-era lager, and the other a Taisho-era Pilsner. Both have cans representative of the labelling during those respective eras. The Taisho one has the Kirin emblem that we are familiar with, but the older Meiji one has what at first appears to be a weird little dog. Both are 5% ABV, but the Taisho pilsner has rice as an adjunct as opposed to the pure malt of the Meiji brew. Both have a stronger bittering, but the Taisho pilsner has the distinct “ricey” finish common to American lagers that are adjunct-heavy – It’s not bad: It’s just not as malty. Continue reading ‘Kirin Retro Beers’
Finished packing for the most part and hunger was setting in, so I walked down to MOS Burger and tried the new Tobikiri Hamburger with cheese. Not bad. From the brief examination of the menu blurb, it might be domestic meat. The cheese is white and melty like a fluid or sauce. The meat is brushed with a teriyaki sauce before assembly. Those who know me know I don’t particularly care for teriyaki-anything, but since this sauce was more on the salty side and less on the sweet side, I could accept it. It was good overall, taste and quality wise. Since it is gettng into winter, the salad fixings are getting rather unhappy – the lettuce is pallid, and the tomatoes grainy. Value-wise, it is about on par with other midrange Japanese burgers, in other words, a bit expensive compared to what you’d get in The States, and volumetrically much smaller. I’d still get this again, though I would have preferred the cheese being less runny. Continue reading ‘Last Lunch’
The crew will all remember walking in the cold down to 7-11 at the bottom of Kita 3 from the ekimae Century Royal hotel in Sapporo on many an occasion. Well, there’s a Family Mart on the first floor now. I think you can even access it from inside the hotel lower lobby. Kuso!
The section of street between Oodori and the JR Sapporo-eki is all ripped up and is a sea of undulating metal plates and temporary asphalt. There will eventually be an underground arcade connecting the two, but for the past couple of seasons, it’s been a mess. Couple this with the younger generation who doesn’t know how to “walk left” like lanes of automobile traffic, and you have anarchy! Chikusho!
There are no actual bike messenger services in Sapporo to my knowledge, but there are at least half a dozen hipsters on their stupid fixies doofing around town making a mess of things. Double-kuso!
(0)The predicted snowfall for the latter part of Friday didn’t materialize until Saturday morning. I awoke to the sound of a snow blower around the corner and the guys over at Nissan shoveling snow with the big plastic scoop. In deep winter there would be the front-end loader rumbling up and down the street. In a light flurry of giant conglomerated snowflakes, we headed over to the JR Sapporo-eki to catch a bus up to Sounkyo-onsen. It wasn’t immediately clear which stop was the correct one, but we were told to wait inside instead of a the platforms. Eventually, some uniformed attendants with signage appeared and set us up with seating assignments and got us queued up for the buses. It was Saturday, so there were enough people for 1.5 buses. Occasionally, a heavy flurry of large, round conglomerated snow would beat down then stop. Continue reading ‘Sounkyo He!’
There was supposed to be some precipitation of some kind overnight on Thursday, but not a whole bunch came to pass. It was my last riding opportunity on this trip, so I bit the bullet and headed out – albeit late – for the bus terminal. I generally avoid the later buses because the subway rides over to the bus terminal get progressively more crowded as the school and work rush kicks in. At least this time I was encapsulated in schoolgirls instead of tobacco-stink oyaji on the tight train. I got my dirtbag feed bag from 7-11 – a coffee, an Aquarius, and three onigiri – and headed up to Oodori and crossed the street to the terminal. I was early, but inside was crowded, so I waited out by the platforms and watched the clockwork comings and goings of both scheduled long-haul buses and city buses. My bus arrived, and with one couple, the bus started out on the journey to Kokusai. A significant number of people got on at JR Sapporo, but other than around three or so, the remainder were Korean tourists, all reeking of the requisite tourist fare, “Ghengis Khan”, the mutton yakiniku that all local and foreign guidebooks demand of visitors to Sapporo. A note to those of you who haven’t experienced this stuff yet – go at the end of your trip, since even if you put your jacket in the plastic bags that many places provide, the stink will transfer off your clothes afterwards and you’ll end up smelling like a barbecue joint for the remainder of your trip. Continue reading ‘Hard Day’s Ride’