Most kids in Japan go on a school trip during their second year of High School. Our class went to Hokkaido for a few days of skiing and a day in historical Otaru. It was absolutely crazy to see an entire class of high school students get on the plane and then bus. Even though the skiing sucked, it was a fun trip. Driving around Hokkaido, one can see it is considerably less dense than mainland Japan. It also snows there, which isn't common in the rest of the country. I didn't take many pictures of the mountain, because honestly it wasn't very interesting. All the trees were deciduous so it looked quite barren compared to the evergreens around here. Plus it stayed foggy pretty much the entire time.
Here are the roomates I stayed with. One of these guys and I both had our CD players taken right out of our bags after the first night. Apparently we weren't supposed to bring them and the teachers had come into our rooms and taken them away. When I asked the other kid if we could get them back, he side-stepped the idea completely. He really didn't want to let it be known that he had been caught for doing something like that. There's Japanese culture for you. I got the CD player back eventually once we got home.
Chillin' with the hommies. They had us wear our PE uniforms when we were lounging around the hotel. We all wore the same ski equipment as well.
This is Otaru. This building houses some famous ramen.
Mmmm... ramen...
This building has a great interior.
Otaru has had a large European influence. I almost got run-over taking this picture.
A familiar face carved out in the snow. Ironically, this was outside of a famous ice-cream shop. Yes, we did have ice-cream.
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