Sapporo
Kamala
We woke up for a thrilling morning at the Hotel Nikko Narita to catch the breakfast buffet, also called a baikingu aka viking — though I originally thought that was because of the Vikings’ notorious rapacious pillaging, when in fact, it’s about Swedish smorgasborgs, and naturally, all Nordic people are Vikings, so that’s that.
In any case, this viking was filled with some incredible gems, most notably a delicious, delicate soft tofu that you scooped up into bowls and ate with bonito flakes and nori, an assortment of great pickles, including a Mäneka-approved kimchi, and some homemade jams that Linda and Mäneka ate with yogurt (The blueberry jam had…tubers (?) in it -Mäneka). We all had our fill because we had a 9am flight to Sapporo and didn’t want to be hungry.
Mäneka and I got too wrapped up in the buffet and it was a close call with our airport bus, but we made it and were back at Narita to get acquainted with Vanilla Air, a no-frills Japanese airline. I had a special incident regarding my Away suitcase, which has a built-in battery pack that I could never figure out how to remove, and got to be called over the PA system to have a very nice security agent wade through my socks and carefully unscrew and then shake out the battery pack — think of those don’t shake your baby ads, that’s what it looked like. He also took a photo of my bag because this was apparently an exciting event.
The big event of the day was going to see the Hokkaido Nippon-Ham Fighters play the Chunichi Dragons play at the Sapporo Dome — that’s baseball for the uninitiated. Since I don’t care for sports, I go for the snacks, but they weren’t terribly exciting, to be honest. Maneka and I did manage to eat a sweet and delicious chicken katsu sandwich from KFC, some strange fried gyoza and we shared some beer.
I also very much impressed by the beer girls and the few boys, who seemed to be in great shape and were totally undaunted by the giant beer cooler backpacks with keg taps that they carried up and down the entire stadium. Even in the 9th inning, they were cheery as they bowed at the end of the row, and then proceeded to wave and pour beer for anyone who needed one.
Another highlight was the collective blowing up and releasing of giant phallic balloons, which takes place midway through the 7th inning. It was like a sea of giant sperm flying into the air. An older woman in front of us missed her chance to release her ballon with everyone else, but decided that she’d go ahead with it anyway after the fact. When she released her balloon, it went shooting around our section and then came back around and hit in her in the head, which she, all of her friends, and I, found exceptionally hilarious.
Mäneka
For dinner after our original target ramen shop was closed, we ended up at Aji No Karyu Ramen. This is located in an alleged tourist-trappy ramen alley. I made a suboptimal ordering decision and went with corn ramen instead of the local specialty, miso ramen. The corn came with a shio broth, which was a bit light for my tastes (anyone who knows me knows that I generally do not do delicate flavors and like aggressively seasoned food), but carried the essence of corn, I suppose. The noodles had a nice texture and boiled egg was not forced unwillingly upon my noodles. Kamala and Mom smartly chose miso ramen, which had a richly flavored broth. Was it the best ramen ever? No, but still was better than most in the USA. 🇯🇵 - 1, 🇺🇸 - 0
Mostly now I’m super exhausted, but found out that since I am in Japan I can watch the latest episodes of Terrace House: Opening New Doors before they are released in the US!
🇯🇵 - 2, 🇺🇸 - 0