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Maybe I'm nuts
But basically I've been poring over travel brochures tonight and I figured out a few things about my harebrained plan to go to Hokkaido the Sapporo Dome over my summer break.
See, thanks to the Fighters' retarded schedule, pretty much ALL of the games at the Sapporo Dome during my 6-week break are on WEEKENDS. They do have a home series from the 14th to the 20th... which is a) Obon and b) two of the games are in Asahikawa. Fuck that. Obon is one of the three worst times of the year to travel, first, and Asahikawa means possible rainouts AND not the damn Sapporo Dome anyway.
Weekends mean more expensive travel and more crowded games, of course. But worse... almost every travel plan, it's like $200-300 more expensive to stay over Saturday night. The plan I'm looking at, if I want to go from Friday to Sunday for the Softbank games, July 31-Aug 2nd, it's like 70,000 yen for those three days... but if I go from Thursday to Saturday, it's 50,000 yen. Yeah, I'd only see Friday night and Saturday afternoon's games, but I'd also have Thursday to hang out in Sapporo.
It seems a little dumb to go up there for the purpose of being a Fighters nerd and not staying over for Sunday, but a free day on Thursday would give me the option of doing several things:
1) Sapporo Dome stadium tour!!!! I've always wanted to do this. They have them all day Thursday and in the morning on Friday, but not during the weekend, which means if I go up Friday I can't do it.
1a) Sapporo Dome observatory!!!!! When I was up there last year I asked about going to the observatory and they were basically like "You can't. You should have come here yesterday." But I checked the schedule on the Sapporo Dome website and it seems to indicate that everything is open on Thursday, all day.
1b) Fighters store shopping, without ninety thousand people there.
2) Hillman's Hangout for Thursday night's game. Maybe even with friends, if I can round up anyone I know who lives in Sapporo.
2a) Other random touristy crap on Thursday night instead, although I tend to believe that night time is not the greatest time to be a tourist. It is, however, a good time to go EAT stuff.
3) Touristy crap on Friday afternoon! I don't really know what, but... hell, it's summer, I bet there's got to be a lot of nice places to just walk around town and see flowers and whatever. I can research. Maybe go to Otaru or somewhere like that, though I dunno how feasible it is before a night game.
Then, Friday night and Saturday afternoon I watch the Fighters games, and come home Saturday night, and I can even maybe go play volleyball on Sunday afternoon with Intervoll.
The more I think about this, the more I love the idea!
I do have to decide soon though, and buy tickets to the games, if I want to actually sit in the leftfield bleachers with the crazy fans. I'm going to Seibu tomorrow night and I'm going to ask around to see if anyone else I know might be going up to Hokkaido that weekend (possible) and doesn't already have tickets (unlikely). And in theory, sitting alone is perfectly fun for me anyway, because I'm weird, although it'd be kind of neat to travel with other people for once.
What's the downside?
Well, first, spending the money. But I basically kind of already have it in my head that I'm going to blow a bunch of money travelling this summer. I think I'll regret it if I don't, especially once Carl and Oren come to visit Japan. Plus, I am trying to pick up a summer job for a week or two, as well as MAYBE picking up a regular extra part-time job one evening a week or so anyway... and I have been trying to save money on a regular basis, too.
The other downside is, on the topic of summer jobs, this travel plan would basically totally kill one of my summer job options, which is for the week of the 27th-31st. On the other hand, that one is an hour away from here for like 3 hours a day of work, which is retarded anyway, and doesn't pay THAT well, and who knows if I'd even get it.
Yeah.
Okay, so there is a really good chance that I'm going to go ahead and get the baseball tickets in a day or two and then go make travel arrangements later this week as well. And then I'm going to go to Hokkaido in a few weeks, because I love Hokkaido and it's got to be even more awesome in the summer than in the early spring. Plus, adventure! Excitement!
See, thanks to the Fighters' retarded schedule, pretty much ALL of the games at the Sapporo Dome during my 6-week break are on WEEKENDS. They do have a home series from the 14th to the 20th... which is a) Obon and b) two of the games are in Asahikawa. Fuck that. Obon is one of the three worst times of the year to travel, first, and Asahikawa means possible rainouts AND not the damn Sapporo Dome anyway.
Weekends mean more expensive travel and more crowded games, of course. But worse... almost every travel plan, it's like $200-300 more expensive to stay over Saturday night. The plan I'm looking at, if I want to go from Friday to Sunday for the Softbank games, July 31-Aug 2nd, it's like 70,000 yen for those three days... but if I go from Thursday to Saturday, it's 50,000 yen. Yeah, I'd only see Friday night and Saturday afternoon's games, but I'd also have Thursday to hang out in Sapporo.
It seems a little dumb to go up there for the purpose of being a Fighters nerd and not staying over for Sunday, but a free day on Thursday would give me the option of doing several things:
1) Sapporo Dome stadium tour!!!! I've always wanted to do this. They have them all day Thursday and in the morning on Friday, but not during the weekend, which means if I go up Friday I can't do it.
1a) Sapporo Dome observatory!!!!! When I was up there last year I asked about going to the observatory and they were basically like "You can't. You should have come here yesterday." But I checked the schedule on the Sapporo Dome website and it seems to indicate that everything is open on Thursday, all day.
1b) Fighters store shopping, without ninety thousand people there.
2) Hillman's Hangout for Thursday night's game. Maybe even with friends, if I can round up anyone I know who lives in Sapporo.
2a) Other random touristy crap on Thursday night instead, although I tend to believe that night time is not the greatest time to be a tourist. It is, however, a good time to go EAT stuff.
3) Touristy crap on Friday afternoon! I don't really know what, but... hell, it's summer, I bet there's got to be a lot of nice places to just walk around town and see flowers and whatever. I can research. Maybe go to Otaru or somewhere like that, though I dunno how feasible it is before a night game.
Then, Friday night and Saturday afternoon I watch the Fighters games, and come home Saturday night, and I can even maybe go play volleyball on Sunday afternoon with Intervoll.
The more I think about this, the more I love the idea!
I do have to decide soon though, and buy tickets to the games, if I want to actually sit in the leftfield bleachers with the crazy fans. I'm going to Seibu tomorrow night and I'm going to ask around to see if anyone else I know might be going up to Hokkaido that weekend (possible) and doesn't already have tickets (unlikely). And in theory, sitting alone is perfectly fun for me anyway, because I'm weird, although it'd be kind of neat to travel with other people for once.
What's the downside?
Well, first, spending the money. But I basically kind of already have it in my head that I'm going to blow a bunch of money travelling this summer. I think I'll regret it if I don't, especially once Carl and Oren come to visit Japan. Plus, I am trying to pick up a summer job for a week or two, as well as MAYBE picking up a regular extra part-time job one evening a week or so anyway... and I have been trying to save money on a regular basis, too.
The other downside is, on the topic of summer jobs, this travel plan would basically totally kill one of my summer job options, which is for the week of the 27th-31st. On the other hand, that one is an hour away from here for like 3 hours a day of work, which is retarded anyway, and doesn't pay THAT well, and who knows if I'd even get it.
Yeah.
Okay, so there is a really good chance that I'm going to go ahead and get the baseball tickets in a day or two and then go make travel arrangements later this week as well. And then I'm going to go to Hokkaido in a few weeks, because I love Hokkaido and it's got to be even more awesome in the summer than in the early spring. Plus, adventure! Excitement!
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