Chitose

While we had rooms for Wednesday through Friday nights, our hotel was all booked up on Saturday night, which meant that we were going to have to find some other accommodations for our last night in Hokkaido. When we went down to breakfast that morning we asked the owner of the Inn if he knew of anywhere in the area that might be open, but he came back after making a couple calls to tell us that things were full up in Sapporo for the Snow Festival weekend. At this point we considered our options, of which there were a limited number. One option was finding an internet café, where we could rent a booth for the night and sleep on the couches, which I was not in favour of mainly due to the lack of privacy and showers that that entailed. Another option was finding a room in a by-the-night hotel, but we had not seen a single one since being in Sapporo and didn’t really want to ask for directions to one. Finally, we realized that we were going to have to go to the Chitose airport the following afternoon regardless, and could just head that way early and put up in an airport hotel. With this in mind we went to the Sapporo station tourist information place and got the numbers of some hotels in Chitose, chose the least expensive looking ones and called them in succession. Finally we happened on one that had a triple open for the night in question, which was a little more expensive than our previous hotels but possessed a shower and real beds. We spent the rest of our afternoon seeing the last of the ice sculptures in Susukino and getting some lunch, which we had at an Indian/Thai food restaurant, where I was able to get Thai curry with cheese naan. We hopped a train to Chitose after retrieving our luggage from our hotel, and were at our new accommodations by 5:30pm. There is nothing to do/see/eat in Chitose, or at least the part that we were in. We left our hotel after relaxing in the room for a bit and headed in a direction that seemed to have a few more lights, and managed to find only a couple ramen restaurants. I hadn’t really wanted ramen, but we didn’t have a choice, and in the end it was some of the best ramen that I’d had all trip. They had an English menu, but it was bizarre. I would have taken a picture, but I didn’t want to be rude.
-When staying in Sapporo for the Snow Festival, it is probably better to book rooms further in advance.
-They do actually have showers in many internet cafes in Japan, but I have been told that it is better not to use them.
-After this week I’m not going to want to eat ramen again for awhile.
-The best (and cheapest!) food that I had the entire trip was all from the main shopping arcade in Sapporo.