From Sapporo to Saitama

Buying crabs in Sapporo

My brother has a Japanese wife, and though they live in Sweden they usually come to Japan for the New Year holidays. They do not come to Sapporo though, so I usually go to Saitama (where they are) to meet up with them.

Leaving a Sapporo with heavy snowfall

Yesterday I went to the Ni-Jou Ichiba (a fish market in Sapporo) to buy kegani (horsehair crabs, a type of crab we have in the sea outside Hokkaido. I went there with my Swedish friends who are visiting Sapporo and we got a lot of crab meat to taste. I felt obliged to buy something in return, and asked them to send three fairly big kegani to our relatives in Saitama. The guy who sold them told me that since it was New Year and the postal system is busy they would reach Saitama at the earliest on the 31st, but it might be later. They say that every year, and every year the crabs arrive the next day (way before the 31st). This year too, so the crabs arrived before I did.

A girl in Tokyo had a bag with a Swedish flag and some text indicating it was a Swedish brand.

My brother still finds it hard to believe that I might wear a coat in winter, and his Japanese wife finds it hard to believe anyone would pay for the type of clothes I like to buy, so they asked me to bring my new coat too. This meant I left a snowy Sapporo wearing a coat, but I put it in my bag when I reached the airport. I did take it out a few minutes before reaching my final (fairly warm) destination, and put it on again, though.

The crabs I bought in Sapporo reached Saitama way ahead of me.

At the airport I ran into a girl I met at the Halloween party at Cafe tout le monde. She recognized me despite my face not being weirdly painted. She almost missed her plane since she was at the wrong gate and was caught up in my (presumably) interesting stories. She noticed that someone with the same name as her was being called for through the airport speakers, though, and ran to her gate just in time.

Upon arriving in Saitama, I started eating almost immediately. Four days of non-stop eating are to follow...

Fried food was available (and extremely good) too.

Miso soup

Cheese cake