I started off with a very early morning, getting up at 5am
to get cleaned up and on my way to the airport. I was out the door after
double-checking the packing at about 6am and it was a 20 minute walk hauling
the suitcase to Sapporo Station. Fortunately the streets were basically empty
at this point so it wasn’t much of an issue to get through except for the
traffic lights. It was maybe a little bit cool but the hint of another
hideously humid day was definitely looming over the city. I think maybe it
would rain a little bit in some areas.
At the train station I immediately went to the ticket office
and reserved a seat on the Airport Rapid Service train which was departing in
about 10 minutes. I chose then just to go to the track and board rather than
trying to find something to eat. The ride took about 40 minutes and had more
stops than you would expect a rapid service train to make but still it was not
like I wasn’t extremely early. In these situations I think it is always better
to err on the side of caution when it comes to checking into an airport to
catch a flight in a foreign country. Haneda was a seriously busy airport on the
way to Sapporo and I had no idea how New Chitose Airport would be.
Getting into the airport I had a small touch of confusion
finding the check in counter but managed it moderately quickly anyway. The girl
took a few minutes to find my ticketing information but did manage to do it so
it was not too bad. I noticed that the flight included 2 checked bags as a
domestic trip. Imagine if that came back in the US… In any event I was only
checking the one. I would not dare send the laptop through that way even in
Japan. By the time I had my ticket it
was still very early so I found a Lawson and bought a can of cold black coffee,
a bag of chocolate chip cookies and a bag of almonds and macadamia nuts. I
found a place to sit and eat the cookies and drink the coffee then headed
towards the security check. As with the ticketing counter there was no line at
all. I am not sure if it is because it was so early or because it was just not
a busy day, time, airline, something? In
any event it meant that I was now basically 2 hours to flight time. So maybe
probably one hour and forty minutes to boarding time. I wandered the gate areas
for a few minutes looking in all the shops. Again being in the domestic
terminal meant the gifts were all basically foodstuffs. In Japan apparently the
best gift to bring back is something edible so people buy all that stuff at the
airport just before they leave and give them to the people they are expected to
provide gifts for. I guess it sort of makes sense but it really does make for
odd gift shops to a westerner. After the
quick tour I bought a grape drink and sat at the gate which had one flight
before mine to depart for Nagoya. It
didn’t appear it was either a large plane or maybe it wasn’t a full flight as
the gate was not that full of waiting people even 10 minutes before they were
supposed to board.
I killed some time by watching the taiko videos I had made
the night before then shut down the computer and waited out the last few
minutes. Our plane was supposed to depart at 10 and the boarding time was
9:45. I watched around 500 people get
off the plane coming from Tokyo so I was curious how they could manage this.
Nonetheless boarding was quick again but we were not a full plane at all this
time and I even had an empty seat next to me though someone was sitting on the
window seat. The flight was basically
uneventful. I had a coffee from their drink service and again they had the
camera to show take off and landing.
This time they did show a safety video however which was different from
the other direction. Coming into Tokyo
it was obviously only partly cloudy and they said Haneda was 30C. I got off the plane and waited only a few
minutes for my bag to come off the conveyor and then it was time to find the monorail. This was not too hard and the next one coming
was an express to Hamamatsucho as opposed to a local which would stop at every
stop. The express skipped a bit less than half of the stops.
I got to the Villa Fontaine at about 12:30 but they said
check in time was not until 3pm which was going to put a big dent into my
ability to get out to Fuji and start climbing in a reasonable time frame.
However, I really didn’t have much of a choice in the matter so I left my
suitcase in the hotel and carrying my backpack headed out to get lunch. I wasn’t
really in the mood for searching or fighting so I just went over to the
Mosburger and had another double Mos cheeseburger with fries and a melon soda
but I didn’t take a picture as I have a couple of them already and I didn’t
feel like digging the camera out.
After I finished eating I pretty much decided I should head
back to the hotel and use the lobby computer to figure out my train options to
get to the mountain and then sat in the lobby writing some of this while I
waited for them to check me in. My ploy worked
out pretty well in that they chose to check me in at about 2pm as a non-smoking
room got ready. I then basically hurried upstairs sorted out my stuff and
headed off to Shinjuku to start the trek up Fuji. More to come when I return.
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