I’m in Sapporo after a painfully long flight and long bus ride. To add Sendai to their list of destinations, Hawaiian puts them in as a stopover on the 441/442 Shin-Chitose flight. That means 12-hours in the packed-out seat of one of their oldest 767’s instead of 9. It’s not unlike a OGG stop on a ITO flight from HNL, but imagine your frustration if every time you had to go to HNL from OGG, you had to go all the way to ITO! I guess they are banking on capturing the Tohoku market with this destination, though maybe only a quarter to third of the nearly full flight got off at Sendai, and maybe 20-30 new passengers got on. A good part of the ramp time was security coming on board and inspecting the plane, and a brief cleaning on the open seats that would be reused: I think the actual flight from Sendai to CTS was 30 to 40-minutes. Considering the past experiences I’ve had on Hawaiian, this aircraft (N588HA) was dirty and run-down. Considering it was cold at the gate, they had all night and morning to clean it properly, so it’s the Hawaii cleaning contractor to blame.
I tried an experiment with a 1000-yen bus ride into town. After a 12-hour plane ride, I didn’t want to stand for 45-minutes in a packed, hot train from CTS to Shin-Sapporo where I transfer to the subway. My kit was also heavy with omiyage, so that made the thought of standing even less attractive. The only real downside of the bus is the turnaround on outgoing buses (I had to wait almost an hour), and the time with all the stops. Root, Fabio, and I have been stuck in traffic on buses heading into Sapporo many a time on our early trips to Japan. From CTS to the Prince Hotel was like an hour-and-a-half, so with the wait and walk to my final destination, about 2-hours and 45-minutes. The JR airport express trains run very close together, so if I guess a maximum 15-minute wait, plus the 45-minute train ride, and a 20-minute subway ride, that’s an hour and 20-minutes at about 1360-yen. Still undecided. The doubled time is definitely an issue.
It’s clear out and supposedly going to be +3C today. There’s no way I was going to make Sapporo Kokusai on my first day in, but even with an amazing 430cm base, yesterday’s report said shimari-yuki, or packed snow. Today it says powder, but really, unless it’s over 30cm of new powder on top of that packed concrete, it’s not going to be fun, and I know it didn’t snow that much last night if there is nothing new in town. Temperature is currently -3C out there, and with the clear weather, it might go above freezing. It was +5 a couple of days ago, so that explains the shimari instead of the usual “packed powder” descriptor. Bring on the krunk! Guess I’m glad I didn’t bring the Hovercraft. I’ll put the board together and give it a shot tomorrow… maybe.
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