What's Sapporo without?

A visit to Sapporo (in Hokkaido, Japan) is nothing without its famous Sapporo ramen, readily available anywhere at the heart of the city.And of course, what's the use of visiting the city without ever taking a very short stop at the rather incomprehensible and famous Tokeidai (Clock Tower)?And of course, Sapporo is everything with Winter sports beginning with....... 1. The ski jump stadium!2. The ski lift! (First time I'm on it without any ski gear on)3. THE ski jump (this is the real thing.. ski jumpers flying on air! I even witnessed one of the guys rolling down from the middle of the hill downwards because of a bad landing... scarryyyy!) 4. Bobsleigh!!!! 5. Hockeyyyy!!!!I would say snow for all those sports, but it's summer. And even if it's summer, there are still ski jump activities (they use those artificial grass and spray them with water to make it slippery).

Today's my last vacation day.. I'm going back to the real world tomorrow on a midday flight to Tokyo.. I regret not able to visit the Ishiya Chocolate Factory (home of the Shiroi Koibito chocolates), with its recent scandal on chocolate expiration date issues (which apparently, is being falsified for the past 10 yrs) and not being able to visit Hakodate. I'll do just these on my last visit to this city before I go back home to RP.

At least I have another set of memories (and loads and loads of pictures!) to keep me happy for some time.