Week 16: Journey to the North! Again!

July 13th, 2026

(Last week)

Tuesday afternoon, I had a really nice time hanging with some classmates Tiho and Tiina at the coffee shop on campus. We had some nice desserts and chatted for a while sitting outside.

Thursday was Yoshio’s birthday, so I stopped in Shibuya to go to the Nintendo store to get him a gift. Before that though, across the street I went to Tower Records and looked around. It’s mostly CDs, and has some really great ones! I ended up buying some later in the week.

6 of us from the house went out to dinner to a nearby seafood place and had a bunch of sushi. It was so good. Afterwards, we played the new Rhythm Heaven game and had a lovely time (I think the game would be worth it even if it was just the cake minigame, that one is so fun).

Unfortunately, on Saturday I woke up to my Mac’s screen being broken (charger got stuck in between the screen and keyboard while I was sleeping somehow?), so I had to go to the apple store to get it fixed. Luckily, though, it only took 2 days and I also got some ice cream to make up for it.

Sunday night was Video Game Music night at RPM music bar, so of course I went back to 46ma to get some chicken curry for dinner before going to play. I chatted for a bit with Ross who moved from Milwaukee to Japan. He sings and works for PlayStation, really nice guy.

But while we were talking, I noticed Carlos Eiene walk in! On YouTube he makes video game music jazz covers as ‘insaneintherain’, and I’ve followed him for well over a decade (I was supposed to play his jazz cover of the Mii Channel theme in middle school jazz band before I got sick)! I immediately went over to say hi, and after he came and sat next to me and we chatted for a while.

We got to play Pollyanna from MOTHER, which was absolutely a dream come true, because I’ve wanted to play that song live for years (although I thought it would be on bass considering I’ve played it 100 times, and never on drums… until now)! I had a blast and still can’t believe I got to play with and talk to Carlos. It was such an amazing coincidence. Dom Palombi, another person in the VGM scene was there too, and is an amazing drummer and also a really nice guy! He’s also from NJ and told me I should come to a jam session that he’s a part of sometime. Overall it was an amazing night and I’m so glad I went even though Sunday is usually my chill day.

(This week)

The beginning of the week was all homework and finals prep, which is also going to be what next week will be. But in between all the homework, I went to Hokkaido with Yoshio!

We got to Sapporo Thursday evening, to our apartment/hotel which was about half as big as I thought it was going to be. We went to SeicoMart, the Hokkaido-only convenience store, and grabbed dinner and breakfast for the next day.

The next day, we had lovely soup curry for lunch, and were planning on going to the Mt. Moiwa ropeway, but it was too foggy. We couldn’t even see the ropeway from the parking lot. I’ve been having some bad luck with fog and rain lately…

On the way to our next activity I saw a hard-off, a second-hand hardware store. I immediately went to the games section to see if I could find some cheap junk to fix, and while I wanted to get at least two things, I only found a 15 dollar GameCube (which unfortunately I ended up breaking some of the plastic shell of a few days later...luckily I don’t plan to sell it).

After that, we went to Maruyama zoo, which had some really cool animals like a wolf, orangutan and many tropical birds, but unfortunately for any animal that wasn’t an elephant or monkey, the enclosures were way too small to the point where it made me sad. I’m pretty spoiled with how much better American zoos have become that I forget some zoos haven’t been updated to my standards.

In the evening, we went to Round1 to play bowling and ping pong. In my first game of bowling I got 137 points and 4 strikes, probably my best game ever, or at least close to it. I was throwing so straight every time, I think I only got 1 or 2 gutter balls in 2 games. It’s taken 21 years, but I think I’m improving!

Nearby, we had miso ramen, a Hokkaido specialty for dinner. It was really good, and my first time getting ramen since I’ve been here (blasphemous, I know. I’ve been meaning to, I swear!!).

To finish off the night, we went to Slowboat, the same jazz club I went to last time. It also happened to be the same trio as last time, so I got to chat with them again and catch up. They’re all great musicians and all had some great solos, and I’m really glad I was able to go again.

The next day was the reason I wanted to come back to Hokkaido: Lake Toya. It’s a beautiful area about a 2 hour drive away from Sapporo, and is technically able to be reached by public transport but is a long trip and expensive. With a car rental, it’s easy!

We had lunch and then went to Lake Hill Farm, a cute ice cream place on the lakeside. It’s a pretty popular place, so after waiting in line for a bit we got to have some ice cream, and it was absolutely amazing, some of the best ice cream I’ve had, and definitely the best I’ve had in Japan. Hokkaido is known for its dairy, so we ate a lot of ice cream in these few days.

We planned to do a ropeway here, but again it was too foggy. Luckily, this time, there were a bunch of cool stores nearby that we checked out and got some souvenirs from.

After, we went back to the lake area to go to an onsen which had a beautiful view of the lake. Obviously I couldn’t take pictures, so you’ll just have to believe me.

After dark, there was a firework show over the lake to finish off a lovely lake day. On the way home, though, there was so much fog we couldn’t see the road in front of us at times. It was pretty scary. After it cleared up a little bit, we passed the area where I got stranded last time, and got pulled over. Something’s up with that place.

For our last full day, we started by going to Shiroi Koibito park, a chocolate factory/museum/park. I wanted to go last time but ran out of time, and I’m glad we could go this time because it was absolutely awesome. The inside of the building is very fun, and the whole place is so whimsical, down to the silly educational videos featuring an eccentric Willy Wonka-type host who teaches you about chocolate with his cat familiars Purumi and Ramuru. Usually, there are factory tours, but because it was under maintenance you could only look at it through windows. They had a great gift shop, and so many different things to do. I would definitely like to go back there someday.

In the evening, we went to Otaru, a city near Sapporo right on the Sea of Japan. It was pretty cool to see the sea, but unfortunately most things were closed around there, so after eating dinner and walking down an illuminated canal, we called it a night.

For our last day, we went to Lake Sapporo for some nice views, and saw a shimae naga! It’s not fluffy in summer like it is in winter, but stil really cute. We had our last miso ramen for lunch, and then went to Jozankei onsen, a cute onsen town in the mountains. Before returning to Sapporo and the airport, we went to a park and jumped around some rocks in a river, and saw a waterfall.

For my last trip before my family comes, I had a lovely time. Yoshio was great to travel with, and I’m happy I was able to get to some of the things I missed last time. Unfortunately, the weather wasn’t great most of the time, with lots of rain and fog making it so I could barely see the mountains sometimes. I do love fog, but it gets to a point where I just want to see things after a while.

I have very few plans for the next few weeks other than some finals, which are pretty intense compared to how the rest of the semester has been. So I will be pretty busy with work, but will still try to make time for interesting things for you guys to read about.

Until then. Have a lovely day.
-Dan