July 18: Tokyo to Chitose

In the morning, we cleaned up the AirBnB, took the garbage out, and called a taxi to pick us up and take us to Ueno Keisei Skyliner station. We had all our luggage with us and I did not relish negotiating the subway with 2 kids and the bags. At the Keisei station, we found the automated lockers, and to my surprise, all our luggage could fit into 1 big locker.

From there, we could easily explore Ueno park, with the giant Shinobazu pond which had a temple as well as the Shinobazu no Ike Bentendo temple. We walked around the bond and when the temple opened looked around. Buddhist temples in Asia can be somewhat commercial. For instance, this one sold blessings as well as lucky charms of all sorts, including charms to protect you when you’re riding your bicycle, carry a fetus to infancy safely, etc. I knew all that, having grown up in Singapore and having had my mom make me carry one of those charms, but I’d forgotten about these and it was fun to see the Japanese take on them.

The kids wanted to go to the Pokemon Center DX, and we timed it so that we would get there just when it opened. Xiaoqin was fed up with subways, so decided to stay and explore Ueno Park’s environs. When we got to the Pokemon Center building, we realized we should have timed it to be there half an hour before it opened. That’s because there was already a line out the door! It turned out that the Pokemon Center was on the 5^th floor, and had 2 dedicated elevators that we had to line up for (no, there was no cutting the line for those of us who were willing to climb 5 flights of stairs). The line moved at a reasonable pace, and while in line we got to see various costumes and dressed up characters. People obviously treat these Pokemon Center visits with far more seriousness than I would have!

We got to the Pokemon Center at 11:00, too late to sign up for any “meet the Pokemon” events that wouldn’t cause us to miss our 4:30pm flight to Sapporo. Boen loaded up on more stuffed animals, including a last minute purchase to hit the 5000 yen tax free limit. We then walked to a highly rated Ramen place, stopping along the way at a drugstore to buy nail clippers. After that, we took a ride back to Ueno Keisei and stopped by the subway central station to turn in our subway cards and get our deposits back.

We then met up with Xiaoqin, though not before the kids became totally captivated by a trained monkey performance right at the park entrance. The park was having a Thai festival, but when I sampled the food it was horrible. Completely not authentic as far as Thai food was concerned, so I’m happy we had the ramen instead.

I had pre-purchased the Skyliner tickets the day before—as tourists you get a special discount. I had even enrolled in the facial recognition system but decided I didn’t want any more hassle. So after grabbing our luggage from the locker, we walked to the Keisei ticket counter and I showed the human there our QR code. The advantage of doing so was that they automatically knew we were going to the airport, and could tell us when the next train left and which gate to go to! This saved us tons of time lining up for the machines, exchanging the QR code for paper tickets (which were required anyway), and then scratching our heads in front of the departure display wondering which train was next. Humans for the win!

Arriving at Nartia Terminal 1, we walked over to the peach airlines automated check-in counter only to discover that we had arrived about half an hour too early to check-in. Clearly, I had allowed too much buffer than we actually needed. That was OK. We got to use bathrooms and relax a bit before our time came up. Indeed, at precisely 90 minutes before the scheduled flight time, I was allowed to check-in at the machine, and a group of very punctual Japanese people had started lining up at the machines.

The machine gave you a paper ticket, and then we walked over to the baggage drop, where we had to get our luggage weighed and tagged before giving it to the Peach airlines assistants, who were very helpful. We could then go through security and walk through the gate. What astonished me was that at no point in the process were we asked to show our IDs or passport. There weren’t even spot checks. Basically, domestic flights are treated the same as train rides. No ID or passport is necessary, and your QR code let you board the plane.

The flight from Narita to New Chitose Airport was uneventful, though we learned why Peach airlines was a budget airline. Rather than boarding directly from a jet bridge, we were taken by bus to the plane, whereupon we boarded by climbing up a ladder. At New Chitose Airport, however, the plane did directly take you to a jet bridge. One thing that Peter Ludemann told me was that the Japanese could board a plane in 20 minutes. This was manifestly not true. Because the airline charges for checked bags, nearly everyone who could pack everything in their carryon was doing so. As a result, the boarding was just as slow as any American domestic flight.

Upon landing in New Chitose Airport, it was raining. As promised, our luggage was amongst the first to come out since we had paid for the “early luggage delivery” option. This meant that we could immediately walk to the Budget/AVIS car rental counter, where the lady in charge said, “OK, you were the last ones we were waiting for, follow me and we’ll get the bus to take you to the car rental depot!”

When I booked our car, it was for a Honda Fit. To my disappointment, we were given a Toyota Aqua, which the car rental customer service agent told us was as spacious as a Honda Fit. I later found that that the Aqua is essentially sold in the USA as the Prius C. It had a 1490cc 3 cylinder engine paired with a tiny 1 kWh battery pack. The car couldn’t even pretend to be an EV for more than 3km, and up any kind of grade screamed like a cat getting dragged into a bath despite our family being lighter than most. We could fit all our luggage in the trunk, and the gas tank was also a miniscule 9.5 gallon, but we could get about 800km of range per tank, so overall it wasn’t a bad car. It was a far cry from the Volvo EX30 we had rented in Geneva, but given the paucity of charging stations in Hokkaido it was just a well that we weren’t offered an EV!

Driving out of the car rental station, it was raining, but rather than heading straight to our hotel, we needed get dinner as it was already 7pm. We had found Tamafuji, which was a Tonkatsu restaurant. The portions were generous and we quickly discovered that paying more than the cheapest items on the menu actually got you worse tasting food! The food was satisfying. We then drove over to SMA Inn to spend the night. To our surprise, this wasn’t a motel, but a bunch of shipping containers dropped onto a parking lot and outfitted with bathrooms, showers, beds, and a kitchenette. To save on costs, there was no staff, but you would walk in, and get your identity verified by a remote worker, who would then give you a code so you could check into your room, uh… container!

The facilities were very complete, however, including AC if we needed it (which we didn’t, given the rain), and despite the noise of raindrops on the container roof, we were able to sleep through the night.