Haneda → Narita → Sapporo → Ebisoba Ichigen

Immediately after arriving at Haneda Airport, I boarded a train to Narita airport as I have another flight to catch.

At Narita, we managed to grab some delicious tempura before boarding. 

It was nice to see a rainbow before flying.

The rainbow really brightens up the mood.

Yay, my first domestic flight with JAL to Sapporo.

After arriving at Sapporo airport, we checked into our airbnb and went out to grab supper at EBISOBA ICHIGEN.

I've been eyeing this shop since the beginning when I found out that I will be travelling to Hokkaido.

There was a long queue but apparently, queues do get even longer.

Here's the menu.

Website: http://www.ebisoba.com/

Soooo good~! I drank all the soup too.

We also ordered some gyoza to share. They were yummy.

They have branches in Tokyo, Hong Kong and Taiwan too but this is the original shop! Very good prawn flavoured ramen. Highly recommend this for those who love prawns~

It was almost midnight by the time we arrived back in the airbnb. It was definitely a long travel from Gottingen to Sapporo.But the ebi soba warmed me up and it was a good closing to a long travel.

Day 2 in Gottingen

Free breakfast is provided at the hotel and they early, which is great for me!

I eat the same thing every morning. Fruits, bread, sausages, cheese, smoked salmon and egg. 

I absolutely love their bread because they have good croissants and bread that has lots of nuts and grains on them. I eat about 3 pieces of bread every morning! Super good~ can't help myself.

As on the first day, we start at noon, I decided to try my luck with the supermarket about 10mins walk from the hotel. It was open and I had fun looking exploring a German supermarket. I was surprised to see how cheap Haribo gummies are. And they come in so many different flavours!

First day of the meeting was great as I got to meet people in my group who were from all over the world. It was also super refreshing to work in a completely English environment. I miss it so much and I feel so free to just be myself and say whatever I want.

Breakfast on the 2nd and 3rd day. I usually start out with 2 bread first and then move on to a third when I have the stomach space for it.

No pictures from lunch/ dinner as we were so busy networking and getting to know each other. On the 2nd night, we even got the chance to attend a German cooking class where we all were separated into different groups to make various dishes for dinner that night. It was such an amazing experience~

Finally, it was the last day of training and we got this group picture! The 3 days went by so quickly.

I decided to walked to the supermarket again before dinner with those who are spending another night. I was super happy to find the Capri-sun sells for such a cheap price! But unfortunately, I could not buy any back as I will be travelling straight to Hokkaido from Germany. Same with all the other interesting snacks that I saw.

Their frozen cakes are big and so cheap! Would love to try one.

I was also excited to see such a huge jar of Nutella selling at such a low price but once again, I cannot buy any.

I also found Prez which is my childhood favourite. I used to collect them because they came in so many interesting designs. In Brunei, they were expensive, but so cheap here. Thank you Daddy for buying them for me!

Finally it was dinner time, We were an interesting mix of Dutch, Portugese, Malaysian, Chinese, Singaporean, German and Australian.

As I haven't been finishing any of my lunch/ dinner meals here, I decided to go for what I thought would be a small meal which is the mac and cheese with beef. But it turned out to be humongous!

Naturally, I couldn't finish! Honestly, next time I'm just gonna order fries to prevent food wastage. But I wasn't the only one who couldn't finish everything because the portions are so big.

Last breakfast at this hotel before I have to leave to the train station.

Back at the Gottingen train station to catch my train back to Frankfurt.

Look at the number of bicycles parked outside the station!

Got to my platform a little too early but it's ok.

The clear blue sky.

Goodbye Gottingen, I'll see you again soon~

This return trip, I requested for a seat and little did I know that I had paid for a seat in a nice cabin, which I think is good for a group of friends.

I got to Frankfurt airport early and went to the lounge to relax a bit before my flight. Also took the opportunity to grab some food. I love the steamed veg.

From Frankfurt, I'll have to transit at Paris before arriving at Haneda airport in Tokyo.

Journey to Gottingen

Work trip to Gottingen after a tiring Zumba workshop the day before.

We grabbed dinner at a nice Japanese restaurant at Haneda Airport. The food was food though it was on the expensive side.

The tempura was very good and I guess Japanese food is always good when you're flying out of Japan.

After a rough check in which took more than an hour. no thanks to the travel agency that my company engaged in who made a mistake in the booking details. While waiting for things to be settled, we bumped into a friend who helped us snap this.

Because it took such a long time for things to get settled, everyone on my flight has already checked in before me and because of that I didn't have a choice in choosing my seats.

I was given a middle seat in the centre seating area of the plane that has a 3-4-3 configuration. Just my luck that I had to be stuck between two bigger strangers who took both the hand rest on my sides. Plus I had to deal with this guy on my left who went barefoot on the plane and kept his feet up like this most of the time. Definitely not a very comfortable flight with Air France.

Arrived at Paris for my transit and I'm loving what I see on sale at the airport, but I wasn't in the mood to eat.

Boarded on this plane to Frankfurt and this flight was a lot of more comfortable.

The seat is big and I had a nice window seat.

I'm fascinated at how flat the land looks from above and that most buildings are short.

Finally arrived at Frankfurt airport and I decided to buy some bread for my train journey to Gottingen.

Very nice looking train station. I only wish that the they would sell all tickets with a fixed sit.

I was contemplating for a long time if I should try my luck by buying via the machine or the counter but I decided that a counter would be safer as the machine is super complicated and I didn't want to risk it.

The seats were also very nice, only down side was that because my ticket didn't had a fixed seat number and I didn't know that I could actually book a fixed seat via an app beforehand, I was super lost on where to sit. But I assumed that I could seat at any seat that has my from and to destination listed on the display panel. I was half correct as you won't know which seat has been pre-booked and which has not!

Look at how big the seat is!

I got to enjoy my bread before I got chased off my original seat a few stations down because apparently, the seat that I was on, was booked by another person. So I just moved on to another seat. One safe way to make sure that you're not on anyone's seat if you didn't have a fixed seat is to sit at a place whose from location is the location you want to travel to. This way, you will be off the train before the person who is supposed to be sitting there boards.

After arriving at Gottingen station, I walked out and found the bus stops. From there, I boarded a bus to my hotel. As I didn't have any internet connection from here on, I just winged it. It was nice because it felt touristy. I got to ask people for directions, ask the bus driver for the ticket price and had a brief view of the city.

Got down at the stop nearest to my hotel but couldn't locate it as I didn't have google map but luckily there was an old lady walking by and I just asked her for directions.

Finally arrived and checked in to my hotel -Best Western Parkhotel Ropeter.

My room was surpringly big. I have 2 beds and a proper living area with TV, which I never used. 

This study table is the most commonly used space in my room other than my bed as I had to work. Had to wake up early in the morning to check my mails and reply them late at night too before bed.

The big bathroom with toilet.

There's a big bathtub, but I didn't take any baths in it.  Luckily I brought my own shampoo and conditioner as they only had the common soap which is for both body and hair.

View form along the corridor. It was spring and there are some sakura trees on the other side.

After checking in, I decided to go walk around the area for food but unfortunately for me, it was Easters and nothing was open!

Walked along this road and as you can see, it was really peaceful. There weren't many car in the area.

I arrived at the mall and it's totally empty!

There is no one and the shops are not open!

I decided to walk back to the hotel and try the mart nearby but nope, it was not open too.

Arrived back in my room and helped myself to a free bottle of sparking mineral water. I prefer the non-sparkling ones but they only had this.

I decided to just grab early dinner at the hotel because I was super tired and hungry from the long travel and all the walking before that. Plus I was really feeling the muscle strain from the zumba workshop.

Went to the ground floor and found the breakfast area. You can choose to dine inside or outside.

The dinner place was a different restaurant and here's the menu.

Lol, I was the only person in the entire restaurant before a family of 3 entered just as I was having my main dish.

Overall, the atmosphere there is quite nice.

I ordered soup a wild garlic cream soup and it was yummy, though a bit too salty, which is why I kept eating the bread. I ate quite a lot of bread and I couldn't finish my soup.

I had caesar salad for my main. The waiter asked if I would like salmon with it and he told me that it will just be a small fillet of fish but it was HUGE! I only ate half of the entire dish. I don't like wasting food but the portion was seriously too big for me! 

I initially wanted to at least finish the salmon but again, it was too salty to eat on it's own! I don't know why everything is so salty!

But dinner kept me full the entire night and I had a pretty good sleep, though I did wake up at 4am every day.