The trip is winding down now for Stephanie and Alex as they left early this morning for Tokyo and are flying to Shanghai tonight then for home tomorrow. We didn’t have any plans for today as tomorrow will be a big travel day for the rest of us so we kept it pretty chill.

The other night Jack and I decided to do one final onsen soak. We were offered the chance to do a private onsen for $5 each at 11pm which we took them up on. At least with the other 2 places we’ve been to there’s a shower room and a place to keep your stuff.

We found out yesterday morning that Jack and Gretchen’s flight from Tokyo to Minneapolis was cancelled due to maintenance. After almost an hour of figuring out an alternate plan they were rebooked to fly through Canada to get home.

Got a late start yesterday, didn’t leave the hostel until past noon because we had to do laundry and dryers in Asia take forever to dry. One thing on my checklist while in Sapporo was to try miso style ramen.

While we were staying at the ryokan in Yamanouchi we met an Australian named James. His job was to travel around the world giving snowboard tours to people who would hire him (Australians are the coolest).