streets without a problem. We didn’t really understand the method of payment though and somehow managed to get away with a free ride!!! We honestly thought we had paid but hey ho, the driver didn’t seem to mind and it was an honest mistake!

We were pretty tired by this point and decided that we should head back to the hostel as it would be our last night there, and it was such a homely place it was a joy to spend time there. Rob made a fantastic Japanese curry which is pretty similar to Chinese Wing Yip curry. We also needed to pack as we were heading back to Tokyo early the next morning, having one night there then heading off to Malaysia the day after. After our packing was complete and food had been eaten, the owners of the hostel were having a glass of wine with Cindy and they asked us to join them. We didn’t have any wine or anything to offer but they didn’t seem to mind. Cindy

poured us a glass of wine each and we settled down around the main dining table. It was a brilliant way to end our stay, we ended up eating and drinking into the wee small hours of the morning. The hostel owners had done a fair bit of travelling in their time and it was great to swoop tales and get some info out of Cindy about Australia. It was the best hostel I have ever stayed in and if I am ever lucky enough to find myself in Japan again I would definitely make an effort to go and catch up with these people again, they were top. We headed off to bed around 1 a.m. and were up again at around 7.30 a.m. so nothing too drastic.

When the alarm went off I really didn’t want to budge, we had at least a 10 hour train journey ahead of us and that was providing no trains were late. But we had both agreed that having an extra day in Sapporo would make up for the very long train journey. We needed to get