PROJECT WANDERLUST

It was past 7pm in the midst of winter season of Sapporo. I couldn’t feel my hands and feet. My ears were frozen. Withstanding our windburned face, we were walking endlessly—on a mission to find Mount Moiwa.

For every stranger we bumped into, I uttered “sumimasen”—constantly followed by an English sentence.

“How do we get to the Ropeway?” Repeat until someone understood me.

My Nihongo was really poor. I knew I had the Japanese language book carried with me at all times (I even had it when we were still in Indonesia) but the cold wouldn’t let me have my hands anywhere else but my warm pockets.

Exit 3. The security confidently said “bus station at Exit 3”. The more people directing us to the location, the more exhilarating it was for me. Well, sort of. I was looking forward to taking a break from all the running and reading maps that I pretend to comprehend. I remember checking the internet how to get to our destination. Take the train, take the bus and you’re there. Sounds easy right? Until you realize that Sapporo has more than 2 local trains and you couldn’t read Kanji to figure out which stop to wait at.

Then on the bus. I was sure that it was headed to Mount Moiwa but I was clueless where to get off. I expressed my concern to the driver politely asking if he can let us know where to stop but miscommunication persisted. Language barrier. I patiently waited and checked every stop if the mountain was within sight. 15 minutes after, I gave up.

I doubted that the little boy next to me would understand what I was trying to look for yet I still asked. He hops off the stop before ours and wouldn’t be able to point us which spot to get off at. So, he googled the name of the bus stop wishful thinking that I can recognize the characters if it were to pop up on the monitor of the bus. Came as no surprise, it’s in Kanji.

Kanji is my death.

Secretly, I prayed that his idea would work cos I could tell that the little boy was seated uneasily. I think he knew that behind my constant nodding lies a clueless soul waiting for the conversation to end. “You still need to walk a bit farther after” he shrugged with a worried tone. I wouldn’t mind the trek truth be told. But Japanese people are REALLY hospitable and genuine with their kindness that he purposely missed his stop to walk us to the entrance.

In an instant, my love for Japan and its people just grew immensely.

Mount Moiwa :Believed as the sacred mountain where the gods dwell by the Ainu people

And alas, we’ve reached the one of the top five places that I would love to see in the northern island of Japan. Suddenly I forgot how exhausting the two hour trek was (it would have been 45 minutes if we knew our way around). Here I was standing in the center of Sapporo, enjoying the overview of the fourth largest city of the country. What a beauty. The experience and the view was really fulfilling and I think it’s my favourite part of my journey as a backpacker: Traveling like a local, incessantly trying to make things work, and most importantly, crossing things from my bucket list!