Sapporo n' stuff

WARNING: this post has tons of pictures, with or without people in them. so sorry for the inconvenience. and this post may last for eternity. so if you are short on time, I suggest you either come back to it, or skim through the important parts.

so, a brief intro: after girls camp, all my friends returned to church. and then, school started for them. along with school came early morning seminary! I have to wake up twice a week at 4:30 in order to catch the first train to get to the church, which leaves at 5ish. I know, very fun, right? every sunday, from 4-6 PM after church, we also do some seminary. I go to my friend Jayne's house and eat there and just chill until 4. (I am always the only one on Sunday who is still wearing a dress by that time!) I've also been called as the temporary pianist for the short time I'm still here. but you all know that I hate waking up early.

on Thursday, I had to wake up at 4:15. Worse than seminary. we had to catch the first train that leaves for the Haneda airport so we could get to our flight at 8. but this flight wasn't to Provo like I wished. Instead it was to........

Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan!
{which is a city on a different island in Japan that is usually very cold and a lot of dairy products come from there and is way more spread out than Tokyo, which I like much better than Sapporo.}

like most of our big trips in Japan, this was for some chemistry thing that I don't quite understand the purpose of yet. as soon as we got off our plane, Satoshi, dad's friend, got us on a train to meet up with some chemistry students. they took us to a historical village, a restaurant where we got some fancy Japanese lamb that I didn't care for at all (it's impossible to chew!), a ski jump which was used in the 1972 Winter Olympics, and special Hokkaido Soup Curry for dinner. (I don't even like curry, but this stuff was okay.) the whole day, I was pretty tired, so I don't remember too much. but the hotel was super nice! we got 2 rooms, one for my parents, and one for the kids! in my room, there was the closet, my bed, the bathroom, and the TV. behind this really nice divider were the boys beds, so I would be all alone! the food was great, the room was incredible, and there was an onsen (hot springs). it was very nice.

day 2: this was Dad's day at the university, so the rest of us did some sightseeing! we saw the Sapporo TV tower (which looks like the eiffel tower, but a tomato), some fancy government buildings, and the park where they have the snow festival! after that, we had a really healthy lunch of the famous Sapporo Factory Ice Cream! I'm not kidding, this place is one of the best there is! The flavors are amazing. to get even healthier, we went to this chocolate factory with the cutest decorations! along with the chocolate stuff, there were vintage toys on display, immaculate stained glass windows, and so much cuteness/corniness that I couldn't stand it!

 even the toilet was cute!

for dinner, we met up with Dad, Satoshi and his wife, Satoshi's boss, and another professor at this fancy restaurant. we had really good pizza, pasta, crab meat, salad, and even more ice cream. we are very healthy people.

day 3: we checked out of the hotel right after breakfast. Satoshi got a tour guide to drive us all around the Sapporo area to look at lakes and volcanoes and other national park stuff. everything was pretty cool, but we were in the car all day and I was pretty carsick. not how I like to spend a vacation! but because Satoshi was so nice to get this tour for us, I couldn't complain, because after all, it was pretty legit. we finally made it to the airport, ate the famous Sapporo Ramen for dinner, ate even more ice cream at Baskin Robbins, and flew away!