World In My Eyes

Today I am finishing the last lag of my one way around the world trip, flying from Sapporo to Tokyo, from Tokyo crossing the Pacific to Toronto, and then from Toronto back to Boston. The total flying time is 17.5 hours. Because I am crossing the date line, instead of 24 hours, I actually have 31 hours today. After constantly chasing the time for a little more than 3 weeks, today is like hitting a reset button, the time will swing back to my normal time, life will slowly fall back into my usual daily routine, getting up at 7:15am, leaving to work around 8:30am, making my weekly lunches on Sundays, seeing and hanging out with friends in Boston, and so on. I am sure it will take me a few days to recover from the jet-lag, but man, right now, I am feeling awesome, totally awesome, to have finished a goal, to complete a full circle, a trip I have planned for months. Will I do this all over again?! Absolutely.


This trip has covered 21000 miles, probably a little more than that since I changed to fly via India from Kathmandu to Hong Kong instead of flying direct. In total, I have taken 11 flights, 12 if I counted the mountain flight to see Mount Everest. I have landed in 10 countries and visited 5 of them. Traveled with Paul for 4 days in Israel, and 6 days with Bryan in Hokkaido. Made some new friends from my Petra and my Mount Everest trips, also Tel Aviv actually. Had great experiences with all of the airbnb I stayed, and the onsen-ryokan experience in Hokkaido was beyond wonderful. I still couldn't forget how the owner of the ryokan made us feel so welcomed the whole time and wanted to take a picture with us when we left. A small gesture like that just bring an already great experience to the next level. The little bumps with the tours in Nepal was a lesson to learn, I did get to see what I wanted. I think that's all mattered.


I kind of missed the hotel manager in Kathmandu, he was kind of a character, and his staffs were so nice to me, though I know they were working for the tips, they made my stay a lot more at ease than it would have been. I am already missing the foods in Hokkaido, seriously do. We did eat a ton, but they were so good, fresh and cheap. In Japan, I really like the Japanese work ethnics. We have not seen a bitch face from a cashier or waiters/waitresses. They took on these roles in a society and they gave their best, even a tram driver, or an elevator lady, they thank you for coming in and going out, almost robotic probably to some people, instead I like to think that they are sincere. Trains! I absolutely missed the trains in Germany and Japan. They are so orderly and everything is always on time, if not exact to the minute. That's how it should be.


In a way, the four regions I have visited: Berlin, Israel/Petra, Nepal, and Hokkaido, are quite different from each other. Instead of calling it a round the world trip, it is really more like 4 very distinct trips but combined into one monster trip. I will need some times to sort out the pictures when I get home, so I can pick out the good ones and make a photo book or something. I said I would do that for my South America trips before too, but never got to it. I should not let that happen to this trip. Zoran, the Serbian/Canadian, from the Petra tour, just sent me some photos he took of me while I was working on the giant rock in the desert. Those were great memories.


The flight from Tokyo to Toronto was actually pretty pleasant, I had all 3 seats to myself, I slept for 5 hours roughly, and watched 2 movies. I like Air Canada, quite cozy. Passing the US customs in Toronto is somewhat easier, less people anyway. The officer examined my passport against my face for pretty long, I almost blushed. He was quite polite though, and asked me what I brought back from Japan. I said vinyl/music records, he said, that's all you bring. I said yes. He smiled. This is the second officer who smiled at my vinyl addiction. Yes, I am vinylholic. Don't judge me.

Paul already knew, I was already planning my 2016 trips before I have even finished this current one, that's me. We are looking into Europe (possibly France) for April/May, and Hong Kong plus another Asian city for October/November time frame. We'll see. Meanwhile, I am going to soak myself in the memories of this past wonderful journey and enjoy the last flight before arriving home in an hour and a half.

See the other photos from Day 22 here.

Today has been our last full day in Hokkaido and in Japan. I will also be completing my round-the-world trip by taking Air Canada back to Boston via Tokyo and Toronto tomorrow. It is a mixed feeling to say the least, part of me really have enough traveling from places to places and ready to be home and take a really good rest in my own bed, but then part of me still wished to keep going, not particularly ready for work next Monday neither. I wonder, where else can I go in the middle of Pacific Ocean before I complete the circle around the world, maybe a weekend getaway trip to Australia or Hawaii before heading back?! How about that? That would be nice for sure, but I doubt my boss would be happy about that.


Anyway, we took a 8:30am train from Sapporo to Hakodate in the morning, it was a 3.5 hours train, another long distance ride. I did not mind the long ride at all, that would be the time I could catch up with my blog, or just enjoy the views outside the windows. Unlike the US, not only the trains are fast here, you can actually see beautiful things from the windows during the ride. South of Sapporo heading to Hakodate, our train passed by the seashore on the left, and some a few snow-capped mountains on the right. We glided through the middle, like a dragon. It's good feng shui I think.


We did not originally plan to go to Hakodate, Bryan suggested and we decided to do it on our last day, we did not have any solid plan anyway. I intentionally left this last day open, so we could just wind down in Sapporo, or we could choose to visit another city with our train pass. The night view of Hakodate is said to be one of the best night views in Japan. So without hestitation, I was like, sure, let's do it. We arrived Hakodate at noon, took a quick lunch by the train station. My tan-tan ramen was absolutely delish! After lunch, we took the local tram to Goryokaku Park, which looked like a star from above. There was an observation tower by the edge of the park. Up there, there were nice views of the entire city too.


After Goryokaku Park, we went to Suehiro-cho at the foot of Mt. Hakodate. With the many downhill slopes, it offered some nice views of the port. The ropeway station was only a few minutes away, we took the cable car up Mt. Hakodate around 4pm. As we were lining up to the cable car, there was a sign saying the night view beginning around 4:30pm-ish and it said the visibility tonight was very good. There were many Chinese tour groups up on the top, but I think we picked the perfect night and perfect time to see this view. It was a perfect conclusion to our Hokkaido trip too, with such a signature sight. We were up there just when it started to get dark, the color of the sky changed so rapidly. We documented the whole change of lights with our camera, phones and mental pictures. After I must have taken a hundred plus photos or equivalent to 30 mins or so, we had enough of the view and took the ropeway back down to look for dinner.


We had a 6:14pm train back to Sapporo, so we just had some quick bites (a bowl of ramen for me and a small rice bowl for Bryan) by the train station just to keep us hanging, and then when we arrived back in Sapporo, we had another more substantial dinner in the underground food mall. In the restaurant, my observant eyes caught another table where a group of older Japanese men and women just finished their meals and was about to leave. It was interesting to look at how they interact with their little motions on their faces, the bows, standing up to put on a jacket or the way they say things to each other. I did not understand a word they say obviously, but I could feel their emotions. I just like that kind of moments when I withdrew myself and just observed people. I think that's one of the things I love most when I am traveling. Oh well, need to start planning my next trip already.


See the other photos from Day 21 here.

In each of the regions I have included in this trip, there were some particular landmarks or things I wanted to see. Like in Germany, I really wanted to see the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag Dome and the Holocaust memorial. The Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the Baha'i Garden in Haifa, the Dead Sea were my must for Israel, I also wanted to visit the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem to draw a contrast comparison to the one in Berlin. Petra in Jordan was highly recommended by a few friends, I appreciated it a lot more after I actually visited it. Wadi Rum (the desert) was way beyond my expectation. These were all bonuses. In Nepal, Mount Everest was obviously the one I must see. And lastly, in Hokkaido, what I really wanted to see were the red-crowned cranes, to enjoy a night of onsen ryokan in the rural Hokkaido area and see the Blue Pond. Today, I have checked the last must-see landmarks - the Blue Pond.


We got conflicting information from different staff in the ryokan. One staff agreed with my guess that it would take 40-45 mins to walk to the Blue Pond each way. The man at the front desk told me it would take 1-1.25 hour or so one way to hike to Blue Pond from the ryokan, and we needed to have at least 2 hours for that. But in the tourist office, we saw on the map that the Blue Pond was only 3km (1.5 miles) away. Anyway, we decided to attempt it this morning, we had sufficient time even it would take 2 plus hours. We requested breakfast at 7am sharp, another big meal, it featured porridge, smoked salmon, miso soup, and all the other little Japanese delicate side dishes. It surely fueled us up for the hike. It was partly sunny, not cold this morning. Perfect.


We took off around a quarter after 8am. The path in the little onsen town was mostly clear where we could walk pretty fast except a few icy patches. There was only one road leading into town, after we passed the last hotel (or the first depending on the direction you are on), the sidewalk was gradually covered by more and more snows. Until the sidewalk was completely invisible, it was under about 8-10 inches of snow, we started walking on the road sharing the lane with the incoming traffic. There was not really a lot of traffic to speak of, maybe occasionally some army trucks, tour buses or tourists in their rental cars. We walked pass the first sign, it was a sign saying that the onsen is 1km away. In other words, we had walked 1km already. I thought it was encouraging, but walking on the road between the heavy blanket of snow and the cars proved to be not an easy task. I walked pretty fast ahead, while Bryan followed behind me, because he was wearing his sport shoes.


Keeping our pace, we walked passed the second sign, the third. It was still not the Blue Pond yet. By the time I finally see the second parking lot sign and a sign indicating Blue Pond entrance. I was relieved. It took us indeed 45 mins (more or less) to walk from the town to the Blue Pond. The pond was closed for winter, the entrance was all chained up. I insisted that it just meant the car couldn't drive in. It had to, I was already here, there was no way I wasn't going in. We followed the path to the left where the snow was somewhat clearer, soon I saw two cars in the parking lot, this had to be it. I continued heading down the trail which was snow covered. Soon, there was a path down some stairs, there was a sign say "don't enter", but the frozen pond was just right next to it. The stairs were completely covered by snow. There were some footprints down the stairs in the middle. Of course, I was already at a point of no return. I followed the prior footprints, still I got my feet all wet, because there were really a lot of snow, possibly just collected from the night before. I was excited to see the pond, though it was all frozen, there was a small pool of water by the trees in the middle. It was crystal clear, but we couldn't see the blue color though.



Following the path by the pond, we headed further and further, the snow was somewhat cleared after a certain point, and we reached one of the corners of the pond, and there was an amazing wide view of the entire pond. Turned out we could have taken the high way and it would lead us to the same place. This is where people can see and take wide angle shots of the pond. Maybe because of the effort we had spent to walk here, I was so excited despite the pond was frozen and it was all white everywhere, it had a different feeling. Another goal accomplished, I thought. Someday in the spring, I would really like to return here to see the pond again and its magical dream-like blue color.


The return trip was much faster, that's usually the case. We got back to town around 10am. Had a warm coffee from the vending machine, and rested a few minutes in our room before we checked out. The owner was already at the entrance waiting for us, with a camera. She asked us about the pond, I said it was very nice. And then I said I really had a great time there at her ryokan and thanks her for her hospitality. And then she actually wanted to take a picture with us. I was kind of surprised by that. She knew about my round-the-world trip too since she was the one who answered my email in the beginning and asked me where I was going next. Maybe because of that, she wanted to take a picture of us together. I was not sure. It was really heart-warming to have met some people who were so kind and genuine on the road. Someday, when I retired, I like to do something like this and provide the same hospitality to other travelers.


Continued our journey to Asahikawa, the second largest city in Hokkaido. We had our lunch there before we returned to Sapporo. Done some records shopping at night and had a fabulous dinner. I was so full, violating all the dietary advice from the doctors. It was a little warmer tonight, about 4C, it was not snowing, but there were still a lot of icy sidewalks. I was actually surprised that the city did not do a better job to clear the ice on the street. Maybe because they were more environment conscious and didn't want to use a lot of salt on the ground. Tomorrow, we will be heading to Hakodate, a place Bryan picked, where we will see the famous night skyline of Hakodate from a hill, said to be one of the most beautiful night views in Japan. Thanks to the Hokkaido Rail pass, we really have made it bang for the bucks with all these long distance rides.


See the other photos from Day 20 here.