We started on Friday night with a trip up the Moiwayama ropeway (website here) for a romantic dinner overlooking Sapporo. Moiwa is a mountain on the edge of the city. You can ride a gondola to the top where there is an observation deck, a requisite gift shop where you can buy trinkets with the Moiwa chipmunk on it, and a restaurant. The photos make the restaurant look really fancy, and I suppose compared to a place where you buy a ticket for ramen from a vending machine, it was. The food was good, the menu had the ever popular soup curry and they had "local" wine. We ordered a bottle of wine and enjoyed curry while the fog lifted over the city. Here is a photo of our view (look closely and you can see our reflection in the window).
From the observation deck you can see the sea of Japan to the left and the Pacific to the right (not in the photo above though). It is really a nice view. But we don't recommend the "local" wine. It was brought to our table in a clay wine chiller and we thought that would be a good sign. When we looked inside the chiller though, it was empty - no water. I guess this place doesn't realize that this wine accesory actually has a function - or maybe it was because we weren't at home or on safari.
On Saturday we slept late then had a nice breakfast - Shawn's favorite - salmon lox on a cream cheese bagel. He fell in love with this breaky at the Solstice Cafe (here's a link). If anyone visits Victoria, we highly recommend it and you absolutely cannot go there without trying Dave's famous hot chocolate (also one of Shawn's fave's).
That afternoon we went to a friends apartment for a coctail and dinner. The hosts were Anthony (a British guy that Shawn works with) and Yoshiko (his wife who works at the Canadian Embassy). They put on a huge spread of food and have a really great apartment (and their living room looks directly into our bedroom....weird). The idea behind the bash was celebration of Shawn's birthday (he even baked a cake - yes! that means they have an oven) and announcement that they are expecting. It was a nice night and a huge treat to hang out with friends in a place where the smoke isn't so thick that you need goggles to see who you are talking to.
The following day we woke up early and went to a ski hill. We went on an all inclusive package again (the deals are too good not to) but this time to a hill called Kiroro. The hill was farther away but had more runs. I snowboarded again and spent less time using my face as a brake. On one run I decided that it would be best if I stayed on the beginner run, but it turned out to be too low of a grade for a weak boarder like me, so Shawn and the other skiiers had a good laugh as I bum scooted my way down the run.
Shawn strapped on the skis for the first time since childhood. He wanted to get on skis again and see how he did because a local modelling agency called him up and asked if he was available later this month for a job. They also asked if he skis, to which he answered yes, only because he wasn't sure what they were asking (the word for "like" is also pronounced ski). So, in case they call back with an offer of this job, he wanted to double check that he would be able to make a go of a day on skis.
Here's a shot of the view from the top of Kiroro. It is a new resort and is close to Otaru (sea of Japan side of Hokkaido). You can see the two hotels in the valley below. We had a nice day of skiing ended off with a soak in the sento that is located above the rental shop (a ticket to the bath was included in the package). It had an indoor and outdoor bath and was a perfect way to end the day, and of course helped us sleep the entire 90 minute bus ride back to Sapporo.
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