Sapporo to Kyoto, Hokkaido

Today was largely a travel day, but we also used it to see downtown Sapporo. I know everyone would ask, hey, did you see the snow festival? Well, we saw them starting it, but we were a bit too early. We also went to their huge, convoluted mall, full of crazy foreign labels as Eddie Bauer and Columbia. Not too exotic, but hey, it was warm! So one last walk through the snow and we got on our plane to Osaka. A train ride, bus ride, and stroll through downtown Kyoto with all our valuables on our backs and we finally made it to the Kyoto Hostel. It's a cool, clean, comfortable international hostel with tons of art, free wifi and free tea/coffee. We are set.