Will put me on the charter list a few weeks ago and somehow I was listed as an infant and placed on the wait list. No one could figure out why the Fry child was flying by themselves and instead of calling to clarify, wait list it was. What is funny is that "I" emailed about "MY" waitlist status for a week. Clearly that did not trigger the folks at travel that an adult was flying. I showed up to the airport any way and they were baffled that an adult showed up and asked a few times if the infant was flying. Nope... The infant was never flying :-)
It occurred to me that in all my previous blog posts I never posed pictures of the Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk airport. Super small... As hard as it is to believe, Greater Rochester International is bigger than this and that is a dam SMALL airport!
Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk International Airport - We have to take a bus from the terminal to the plane.
Aurora Airlines - A Russian affiliate to Aeroflot I believe and Aurora is based out of Yuzhno with 15 or so planes in the fleet - Our little itty bitty charter plane to Sapporo and back
When we landed we took out suitcases and went straight to Costco! I can only imagine what people thought when they see 6 American women hauling empty suitcases into the store. I brought 2 big suitcases with me :-)
I did not take any pictures of Costco or my extremely organized suitcases full of goodies. There were so many people in the store, we had 90 minutes, and I was suffering from extreme sensory overload!! SO MUCH STUFF!!!
I was on a mission - my loot included the following:
10 bags of Bulgogi Korean beef jerky - Yes, 10 bags - So much better than the stuff in the USA.
2 big boxes of Nature Valley Granola Bars
1 box of Trail Mix
2 bottles of Pace Salsa - Will was a happy kid :-)
2 jars of sweet BBQ sauce
LIQUID VANILLA!!! I was so very happy about this! We have powdered vanilla here that comes in 1.5 gram packs - its good but you have to buy so much for one recipe.
For Ashlynn's homeschool needs - Kindergarten books, dry erase markers, pens, pencils, erasers (we are going through so much now that she is writing)
SPICES!!! I brought back big jars of Taco Seasoning, Jamaican Jerk, Ground Mustard, McCormick Steak blend, Herbs de Province, Saigon Cinnamon and a few others. I make a different soup every day for lunch and do so much cooking. Seasons and spices are critical!
Protein Powder, String Cheese (can not get it here), Apple / Chicken Sausage (My favorite!), and some other things. I wanted everything in the dam store but had to contain myself.
Next stop - the hotel to drop everything off. We stayed at the Mercure Hotel that was really cute, Right in the city and lots of shopping in the area. We dropped everything off, checked into our rooms and headed out on the town for some food and more shopping.
This is Ramen Alley - looked like Diagon Alley (for those Harry Potter fans) and I felt like I needed to Floo Powder to travel :-) Down this whole Alley were different Ramen shops. I couldn't tell ya the name of the one we went into but we looked at the pictures and chose from there.
The places were so small. This is the whole place. I am taking the picture from my seat and about 2 to 3 feet behind me is the door. I was pretty cool to watch him make everything. The stock for these Ramen dishes cooks for a day or two before it is ready to be used.
This was my meal. Not sure what the meat was, it tasted like pork but it was so good. A little high in sodium and my body cursed me for it later but delicious! This is what living abroad is all about. Get out of you comfort zone, see new things, and try new foods.
Entrance to our Ramen Restaurant and Allison giving us the peace sign :-)
We didn't go in this place but it looked like an interesting place so I had to take a picture. We walked all over the city stopping into different stores on our way to the train station. The station was unlike anything I had ever seen. Shopping EVERYWHERE!!! It was a huge shopping mall.
We ate at this crab place for dinner that happened at 9pm. The grey building to the left has a different bar on each level. We stopped in one and had some Tapas and wine.
This is one of the stores in the train station. I found some more spices, chocolate covered blue berries, and apple tea.
Crab place - Hands down the best crab I have ever had!!!
In Japan, when your meal is done you have tea. These cups were so cute. Little man on the side killed me.
We got home around 1030 and went to bed. All of us were so exhausted and truthfully... My feet killed me!
Sunday morning we headed to the airport at 930am. Our flight was at 150pm but the Sapporo airport is amazing so we did some more shopping :-)
Shopping area is Smile Road - It made me smile!!!
Random stores in the Airport
This store in the above picture was the cutest store ever! It is Japan's brand of stuffed animal. I saw so many cute things from the window that I thought "Oh my kids would love this"... YEA.... I walk in an a "small" Polar Bear (the bear of Hokkaido) is 16000 Yen ($50 or so USD)... Nope... My kids do not need that bear :-)
Royce Chocolate is Japan's answer to the American Hershey's Chocolate... And I will be honest... Royce is giving Hershey's a run for it's money!!! The chocolate is SO good. I also learned that Hokkaido is known for its Milk so butter, ice cream, milk, chocolate is so much better here.
There is a chocolate factory in the airport. It was kind of cool watching things get made.
Hello Kitty is obviously everywhere - She has her own plane for crying out loud!!!
This is the 100 Yen store (Dollar Store) - SO MUCH BETTER THAN USA!! We went into one out in town and it was 5 floors of cheap wonderful goodies!! I bought pipe cleaners and all sorts of craft supplies for the kids. Whole bunch of stickers, hair bands, more tea.... Each floor was set up differently - home goods, gardening, beauty, paper products like office supplies. The calendars were as good of quality that you would see at Office Depot.
More Airport shots
Like I said - Hokkaido is known for its milk - BEST GELATO EVER!!! Unique flavors and basically pure deliciousness!!
Time to go home - Bye Bye Japan! Oh... most important purchase.... Starbucks City Mugs!! I know, I have Issues :-) I got my Hokkaido and Tokyo mug. Every time I go through Tokyo I always forget so I just grabbed it here. Also purchased Kyoto and Hiroshima since I will probably forget in October. Fry family is traveling through Japan for a week via Bullet Train seeing Tokyo (probably taking bus out to Disney and Mt Fuji), Kyoto, Hiroshima, and possibly one other city if we plan this right.
So long "Land of the Rising Sun" - We will meet again
And were back into Russian air space where it is nothing but a frozen tundra :-)
