Year of the Mouse, Hokkaido pt 2: Return of the blogger

So we returned to beautiful Toya (picture) and it is a lovely place, everyone was really welcoming and gave us food and took us to karaoke, but it was just too quiet. We spent lots of time just at home watching films or playing on the xbox. There was one special moment in Toya though, we met a lovely old man there, with the best beard ever, think of the karate master from Kill Bill, he welcomed us in with a cup of tea and said he had a "few" videos he wanted to show us. Needless to say we fell hook, line and sinker for it, we were in his house for 4 hours watching videos of past volunteers and his travels around the world. It was interesting for th first hour or so, but there is only a certain amount of shoddy camera work that one can stand.

We planned to spend New Years Eve/Day in Sapporo (Hokkaidos main city). I was surprised by how empty it was, turns out that New Years is a very family affair in Japan (much like Christmas) so you wont find many people out and about. We managed to enjoy ourselves though, with the sights of Sapporo



And for the New year "countdown" managed to find a club which was relatively buzzing, had a very good time and stumbled home to our "cubicle" at 6am ish.

I say "Cubicle" because we were staying at a "Manga kisaten" or "Manga cafe" where you rent a bed or soft chair for a very reasonable price, and can play computer games or read Manga (comics) or in our case sleep, they even have showers!

Ok that about rounds up that part of the Hokkaido saga, stay tuned for pt 3: The return!