Leaving Thailand to be reunited with my childhood friend and her brother (who I hadn’t seen in 10 years) was a pretty exciting prospect, but the 4 flights was pretty daunting and leaving Laura was pretty sad.
Flight 1: Chiang Mai to Bangkok with
Airport transfer!
Flight 2: Bangkok to Manila, Philippines.
This flight came with two warnings: “the pope is visiting Manila” and there’s “tropical storm Angmong” heading your way. Wah ohh. But no delays here!
The guy at customs waved my overstay of 1 day fee too so I was in Bangkok international airport with 630baht to blow in 1 hour. Challenge accepted.

Except that I walked out to Gucci, Michael Kors, Mac and many many shiny stores, dreaming far too big. Starbucks and strepsils it is.

Flight 3: Manila to Tokyo Narita

Had my first culture shock taking the train between airports. They only spoke Japanese and went for longer than the lady said, so I spoke Japanese-English hand signals to some business men and we got the job done, aka my stop was the last stop and we were 10 away. Doh.
Once at the domestic airport I settled in to being the only foreigner in sight… So went Western at Starbucks, I don’t even go there at home.

Flight 4: Tokyo to Asahikawa

As the plane landed there were snow flurries in the land of Narnia and I was literally beaming and jumping up and down in my seat! The lady next to me was giving me mad as side eye.

Not even the -6.4 could stifle my excitement… The fur coat helped.

I loaded my belongings into a taxi and headed off to Warawara for one hell of a reunion!
On my arrival I was bombarded with a room full of excited people for my first taste of Japanese dining.

Sake was necessary.

I also tired very thinly sliced horse meat, eugh, when in Japan. Bad habits from Thailand die hard.

First Day
Wow woke up to snowing! This will never get old!

Our Japanese home:

First job, hit the mall for some more gear and a bit of an explore, I’m all about $7 thermals! But first, sushi (Astro) train.

Great mall finds…

Dumplings party time! Took Elise a couple of attempts but we made and demolished 4 packets of dumplings between 5 of us- yeow!

We polished off or Japanese foodie filled day with a spot of karaoke- naturally. You can hire out rooms so you only have to subject your friends to your beautiful tones.

Free drinks bar and all you can drink alcohol helps with stage fright (drink responsibly).

We sung from Spice Girls, Vengaboys to Paulo Martini and Eminem – we were on fire! A very appropriate way to send off Kahil (Elise’s brother who was returning to NZ after a year in Japan).

Here’s a snippet from my mums understanding of Karaoke:
“Lauren I didn’t kno you could sing?”
Mum. I can’t sing, of course I can’t but that doesn’t mean I don’t want to subject others to my torturous shrieks. There’s videos and you’re NEVER seeing them!

I’m heading off skiing (whoopee!) but will post more photos of the zoo later don’t worry!

Here’s more snow and I still love it!