It was the last day for Art to drive on the left side of the road. He says he was feeling pretty comfortable doing it now that we're about ready to leave Hokkaido.
There was a little hitch in our day when the Toyoku Inn Hotel in Sapporo said they didn't have our reservations this afternoon. They must have been confused because we stayed here earlier on the way up north to Shiretoko but somehow didn't have the reservation for our way back. Whatever the case, after a little bit of consternation they did have rooms available that we could have. My mom and Dennis are thrilled because they've got a large deluxe room while Art and I will be sharing what looks like a cubicle. Just kidding. I'm exaggerating but not much. Here are some photos from today:
I've been noticing that all the cities we've visited have these wonderful guides on the sidewalk for the blind. I tried walking on them and I can feel the lines for straightaways and the raised dots for stops. All the crosswalks have chirps to let you know you can cross. My brother's son is blind so he was very interested to see how much the Japanese try to help the handicapped.
We loved seeing food choices made of plastic outside restaurants. They looked so real!
We went to the Sapporo Factory Mall. It was huge! We saw Toys R Us there.
Our final tourist stop was the Sapporo Beer Museum. Since this was Dennis' first time to tour a brewery, my mom tried her best to explain every last detail of how beer is made. :-)
We'll be catching the Bullet Shinkansen train tomorrow for the long ride to Sendai where my aunt and cousin will be meeting us with a luggage piece that they held for us. It was great that they did because another piece of luggage in our car would have been very cramped. We looking forward to seeing them again before we head south of Kyoto and Nara.
