18/12/07AD Steph's Birthday on Mt Moire

Date: 18th December, 2007AD – Steph’s Birthday
Time: 8:00pm
Location: OMF Guest House, Sapporo
Current Mood: OK, not as sick as I thought I would be
What happened:

Had a rough night. Woke up in a pretty bad shape, so slept in till about 10am. Stuffy nose and congested sinuses, sore/itchy throat. The cold weather and indoor heating are not doing me well.

After a quick breakfast I decided to join the team on an outing. I didn’t want to stay home alone and the idea of heading out for site-seeing and photo-taking appealed to me.
Richard drove us up to Mt Moire for some spectacular views of the city and surrounding mountains. We took a cable car to the top and a snow bus (with specialised ‘tires’/tracks) to the lookout and were treated to some great views. After a short snow-ball fight we had some coffee and cake in the lookout restaurant - Jay ordered an expensive (500 yen) but pleasant scoop of icecream.

Richard then took us to the most famous Ramen restaurant in Sapporo. The restaurant's interior was decorated with tiles signed by various Japanese celebrities who had visited the place. The Ramen was quite good also!

Afterwards we came back home and took a nap. I woke up around 5:45pm thinking we had to get ready for our trip to Ooasa Church. I came out all dressed and ready to go (since I didn’t get changed to nap!) but there wasn’t anybody around! Steph came out a little later to inform me that we had the night off, which was a pleasant surprise!

We had a simple dinner and spent the night watching TV and what not.

Looking forward to:

• tomorrow night we have a farewell party, which I’m looking forward to
• we also finish up our time in Sapporo on Thursday, which I’m both looking forward to and saddened about

Interesting thing I noticed today:

1. Japanese people are incredibly friendly and helpful – we were taking some photo outside the Ramen restaurant and one of the girls who served us volunteered willingly to help us take a group shot
2. Then one of the other girls came running out with Richard’s bag which he had left behind

Interesting food I ate today:
Old style Ramen – which had a slice of toasted bread (!), one very thin slice of char-siu pork and loads of noodles. A very-Chinesy tasting dish.