Miharu ☆ Cat: Hokkaido - Sapporo • Day 1 + 2

Hey poopies,

As you know I also want to keep you updated about my trip to Hokkaido. I've been there with my sharehouse-mate from the 07.-15. February.
Our flight with Vanilla Airlines started pretty late in the afternoon with a delay from 30min. and landed in Chitose Airport. With a bus we drove about 1h to Sapporo where our hotel for the first night was located.
Reading this you should know that we were planing from day to day so we could plan our schedule as we wanted to and change it if necessary.
The hotel was pretty nice, we payed around 40€ the night and beside a public bath and sauna it offered a good Japanese breakfast on the next morning.
After checking out we took our backpack and locked it in a coin locker for the rest of the day.
Since the Yuuki-Matsuri (Snow-Festival) has started one day earlier we walked along the Susukino sight and took a look at all the nice ice sculptures.

Our adventure continued since we planed to see the Hokkaido Jingu (popular Shinto-Shrine in Sapporo) and decided to walk all the way. I think it was about 5km for one way. But it was definitely worth it. Whole Sapporo was covered in snow and it looked absolutely stunning. One our way to the shrine we passed by a ski jumping hill and we took a quick side-trip to take the lift up there and enjoy the view over Sapporo with some delicious Vanilla-Melone Icecream. Yes, we ate icecream, even though it was freezing temperatures. Hokkaido is known for their delicious icecream, that's why we couldn't resist.

Eventually we arrived at the Shrine and I had to realize that my only pair of shoes that I've taken with my had a big hole in the sole, so we decided to walk back to the city center, took a look around the Odori sight where they had a lot of snow sculptures and looked out for a shop where I could buy some weatherproof shoes. In the end I bought the most expensive shoes in my entire live from Timberland for 23.000Yen (around 195€) but since we had a long way to walk and they had good quality I decided to just buy them.

After I bought my new shoes we met up with two friends that where in Sapporo at this time as well. We went to an Izakaya with Nomihoudai (All You Can Drink) and had a good time talking about the things that happened during the time we didn't see each other.
The two had to catch their last train around midnight and my travel companion and me as well decided to look out for a place to stay for the night. Earlier in the morning we already had decided to go to an internet café because the Hotels where extremely expensive through the Snow Festival.

Hokkaido Jingu

You might think 'Internet Café? Isn't it extremely uncomfortable?'
Let me tell you: 'No, it's not. It's actually a pretty comfortable alternative if you have no other place to go or missed your last train.'
My friend and me got a cabin for two, the light was dimmed, the floor was a mattress and beside from free-drinks and some food from the vending machine they offered showers, blankets and slippers. Not to forget you were able to use their internet and read a lot of manga that where standing side by side in the shelves along the corridor.
While we would have payed around 120€ for a room at a hotel we just payed 1600YEN (~15€) p.P. which is quite convenient in my eyes if you wanna travel as cheap as possible.
On the following day we went to Otaru, but I wanna tell you about that in another entry.

Have you ever slept in an Internet Café before as well? What do you think about it?