We very much enjoyed our time in Hokkaido, but it was time to leave for the work part of the trip.  Since this day was largely travel, we only took five pictures between us. And one of them was this:

This is going to be a fairly short entry, in other words.

Our bus to the airport left at around 11:15, so we had a few hours to kill. We had breakfast at a nice little pastry shop that had paid to have itself awarded a nice award for its cheesecakes. Something like the Gold Medal Award for Excellence in Receiving An Award for Gold Medals. I dunno, I can’t be bothered to go look it up a second time.

Still was tasty, though.

The morning market being directly adjacent to our hotel, we walked over there and spent some time not buying souvenirs, although the squid hat really was a toss up.

But soon enough it was time to head to the airport, where we managed to try one more dish we hadn’t quite gotten to in Hokkaido yet – salt ramen.  Which is to say, ramen with a thin clear broth, as opposed to a thick soy-sauce or miso based one.  It was good, although I’m guessing we could have done even better not at an airport.

From there it was plane to Osaka, and then monorail to subway to local train to Nara. Lots more on Nara in the coming posts, since we spent nearly a week there.

But the only thing we really did on arrival was go get dinner.  We found a nicely reviewed yakisoba and okonomiyake place close to the hotel, which is right next door to a super big deal soba restaurant.  To the point that they actually have a sign on the door saying “we are not the famous soba restaurant.”

But frankly, they didn’t need to worry – their food was pretty great too.

And that was Sunday.  Tomorrow, the conference begins!