Day 2 Japan Trip

On Thursday we got up and had the person at the front desk make us a reservation for the bus to Niseko Ski Resort. The bus ride was about 2.5 hours to Niseko and we seen snow all the way up and thought we were going to have a god ski day. When we finally got on the mountain, the snow was hard and icy. There was very little powder and we disappointed with the snow conditions. As the day went on the snow did soften up and got a little better. It was still fun and the fact that I can say I went skiing in Japan is still an awesome thought. After we got back into Sapporo and got our bags from the Ramada we attempted to find the Capsule Hotel. We walked around downtown for a good hour or so until an American living in Sapporo walked by and asked if we needed help. He helped us find our hotel which was only a block and a half north of our first hotel; it was just down a side street that we didn’t see.

Capsule Hotel
Staying at the Capsule Hotel was an experience in itself. When we first arrived at the Capsule Hotel after circling downtown Sapporo for a good hour or so, we were greeted by the front desk staff and were told to take off our shoes and put them in a small locker, we then gave them the keys to the shoe lockers and filled out the guest information card, once checked in they told us that our capsules were on the 3rd floor, lockers in the basement and bathroom up on the 7th floor. As we were going to the lockers Cory was told he had to leave his snowboard in the lobby because it was too big to fit in the lockers, once in the basement and found our lockers, they were right; the lockers were tiny, barely a foot wide and a little over 6 feet tall. I got all my stuff in the locker including my skiboards and boots but had to pull everything out every time I needed to get something or forget to grab something when I had it all out a few seconds earlier. We then went to the 3rd floor to check out or “capsules”. The capsules are about 3 feet tall by 3 feet wide by 6 feet long. It contained a pad, blanket pillow small TV, radio/clock, mirror, small shelf and a pull down curtain that closed the opening when you were inside. There are about 40 capsules in a room that also had a small area with a couch, chairs and TV and a small bathroom that contained some toilets and s a few sinks. We then went up to the public bathroom. Once there it was completely different that I had expected. The bathroom was an Onsen, it had a small room that had some lockers and a pair of sinks where you stripped down and put your clothes in the lockers, we then went into the Onsen itself, it contained 7 shower “stalls”, 3 on one side of the room and 4 on the other side, 1 large hot tub and a steam room. The showers were really different, you sat on what looked like an upside down 5 gallon bucket with a hole in the top and had a small bucket under a faucet at your feet. You use the shower part of the faucet to rinse off then you lather up with the soap and shampoo they provided and then you filled the small bucket with water and dumped it on yourself to wash off the soap. After doing that we got in the hot tub for 10 min or so and then decided to try out the steam room. That room was hot! We went in and Joe put some water on the coals as Cory and I sat down. The wood benches inside were so hot it nearly burned our asses and nuts as we sat down. I could only stand the heat for only a few minutes before I had to get out. Every time I would inhale my lungs would burn. The thermometer inside said 91 degrees Celsius, after converting that it was 196 degrees Fahrenheit! Sitting in the hot tub after the steam room the water felt cold because of the heat difference. After we were done with the public bath we went back to our tiny lockers and got out coats and went to find something to eat. We found this small restaurant and I ordered what looked like beef noodle soup. Since the whole menu was in Japanese we had to order by looking at the pictures. My soup was good but spicy, we decide it must have been made with a chili base because it had a serious kick to it and I couldn’t even finish it because it was too hot. We than went back to the hotel and were going to take a nap for about an hour before going out to the clubs but that didn’t happen, woke up at 4am and I figured we missed the partying so went back to sleep.