北海道自転車旅行：Jun 30, 2st half: 札幌へ

New Chitose Airport(CTS) was astonishingly small that we came to the customs right after we left the plane. Security seemed to be tighter as everything on our passports were checked throughly, yet we passed just fine. As a 737 was small, and not much flights land at CTS, the line was short, compensating for the long times per person. Our bikes were already at one side of the baggage clam when we got there: the big boxes were the last to go into the plane, thus the first out. As people see our bikes, everyone was so friendly, either offering to help with moving the box or bidding us good luck.

Taking the bike out of the box and assembily was a breeze: at least for me... Mine was packed the smallest box, thus with the most taken apart parts, yet I was familiar with what I took apart. I also kept everything that required fine tuning in tack while packing, thus minimal tuning while reassembily. The steps that took the most time were cleaning up the mess of packaging material and repacking all the stuff onto my bike.

After all the work, 2hrs after we started, we set off. Unfamiliar with the road rules of Japan it was a little hard to decide where to ride at first. For example, they keep to the left side of the road, something we constantly forgot; and we weren't sure wither it's better to ride on the side of the road or on the sidewalks. The road sides were smooth and paveded smoothly& the sidewalks were very wide, just right for riding, yet paved poorly with holes and bumps. There are many people commuting on bikes in the cities, mostly on sidewalks. So we decided we should take the sidewalks. (later on, our friend at Hokkaido told as that it's OK either way, unless marked otherwise.

Chitose, the first city we saw, was a simple, quite little town. Clean and beautiful, as most Japanese cities. There was a river flowing through the city, so clear that you could see the bottom: something we haven't seen in Taiwan before, unless deep in the mountains; bringing us a big surprise and getting us all excited.

The meal on the plane was tiny, thus we were all hungry, and went to "Seico mart", a conveniant store. Expecting high prices in Japan, we were surprised to find cheep yakisoba(Japanese fried noodles) for 100yen, and milk cheaper then in Taiwan. Hokkaido milk was sweat, smooth and creamy. Very delicious when compared with the oil lacking Taiwanese milk. So good to have thick and smooth Hokkaido milk as our first snack here.

The road to Sapporo was bumpy and tiring, climing hill after hill, and against the wind all the way. Also, after the plane ride, we were tired already. Making things worse, there were too many traffic lights. Adding it all up, we covered the 40km in 4 hours. Worst of all, I rode too fast, first leaving friends in other "lows" of the hills, unseen; then losing them in downtown Sapporo. As the 9:30pm check-in timelimit of our youth hostel(YH, closes in, I was forced to give up waiting for them and go to the YH myself. They showed up later at the YH, reveling that they took a different turn.

The YH was a cozy place with rooms of 6 bunkbeds, boys & girls in different rooms. There was also a dining room with people from around the world chating with each other: really reminds me of the Co-Op at UCLA. The dining room is also equipted with free WIFI connection, which is how I posted part 1 of this story. A bathroom (open till 10:30pm only) for showers for many people at each time and a large bath. I have 2 roommates for the first night, Koreans that greated me once and minded their own business there after, and another a British named Dan, who lived in Japan for a year, now attending law school in the UK. He also is biking around Hokkaido. We talked a lot.

Our first dinner was at a ramen shop near Sapporo train station. We all say it's too salty, yet I got a free egg by showing my student ID, nice.

Statistics:
max speed 46 km/hr
distance 47.78 km
riding time 2:57
average speed 16.1km/hr

June 30th /1: The Flight << | >> July 1st: 札幌