After exploring Sapporo we returned to the JR station, found the bus terminal, and prepared for the most logistically challenging leg of our journey. Hokkaido is the only island that doesnft have ubiquitous rail lines; public transit there is generally by bus, and the Donan Bus Company doesn’t speak English. I had come prepared with a web printout (in Japanese) of the bus schedule, on which I had circled the bus we wanted, or at least the bus I thought we wanted based on Chris’s partial translation of the page. I handed this sheet to the woman at the ticket counter and got a confused look. I think she was wondering what business a bunch of gaijin had in Urakawa, and I think she was trying to figure out how to explain to us that we were at the wrong counter.
After a few awkward moments, she took out a sheet of paper and, without speaking, wrote out instructions telling us to continue on to the next ticket booth. So we did, and we got our tickets, but I’m almost certain that we still screwed up somehow, because the conductor looked at our tickets funny when we boarded the bus, and we noticed that all the other passengers had strikingly different-looking tickets. We had no idea what any of the tickets said, ours or theirs, but I’m fairly certain we paid the right price; in any case the conductor smiled apologetically and let us board and took us to the right destination. But it seems clear that we did something wrong.
After three hours on a bus very obviously not intended for people our size, we arrived at Urakawa Terminal where we were greeted by Chris and Chiho.