Hey Hive!
So if you missed the last couple of posts, we started recounting our final journey to Japan back in July 2019 when we decided to explore a new region and see Hokkaido in summer (since everywhere else in Japan is really hot during that period)!
And last week, we started a very special journey up to Shikisai-no-Oka, or Shikisai Hills, which is known for their very beautiful flower fields! We had a very early start since we were part of a group tour up to the hills and had to travel about 2.5 hours from Sapporo, but it was so worth it! We got to see some luscious green fields and breathe in the nice fresh air up there.
We just finished exploring Hokuesei-no-Oka Hill which had a viewing pyramid, some shops and a cafe. But there was still much to explore, so time to continue!
6 July 2019. Saturday.
After a brief look around Hokuesei Hill, we were called back onto the tour bus and were driven to another side of the hills. I think these were all interconnected, or at least weren't that far away from each other because it was only a 10-20 minute drive away to our next destination!
We arrived to this area with lots of other tourists around, including this lady walking her two adorable doggos! They looked so cute and floofy!
After we alighted from the bus we were free to roam around as much as we wanted until it was time for the buffet lunch. And the first thing we saw was this buggy rental course where you could ride a buggy on this farm course!
We didn't rent it of course, but it was cool to see that they had other services there for tourists.
And they also had a driving tour of the fields for older people who couldn't or didn't want to walk.
Thankfully all the older boomer tourists were all gathered here so we made a beeline for the fields and holy cow it was breathtaking!
The drive up here was definitely worth it just for this view alone.
It was so beautiful! I'm not really into flowers as gifts like bouquets and whatnot, but I love this.
Just seeing all these lovely flowers blooming and thriving in nature was so awesome. They had so many different kinds of flowers in all colours!
I couldn't decide which one was my favourite because they were all so pretty!
It was literally just colourful flower fields as far as the eye could see!
And it definitely lived up to the images we saw on Google. I felt like I was in another world!
There were so many different colours of Snapdragon, and a very nice and colourful house on top of the hill where the tourists were.
There were these smaller flowers too; I think petunias?
There were just looong rows and rows of flowers everywhere! They were definitely very neatly planted for sure.
It felt so magical to be standing there amongst all the pretty flowers! Like we were in a painting or something.
Even though the sun was out it wasn't too warm, and thankfully we did have some cloud cover so it was still a little cool sometimes. But I'd brave the heat for this scenery no question.
There's no way flowers would be growing like this in the wild that's for sure. But it still felt natural for some reason.
We basically walked across the main area of the fields taking lots of photos everywhere. There was also this whole patch of flowers that had been planted more recently and waiting to bloom!
I wouldn't say snapdragon is my favourite flower, because by itself it doesn't look that impressive but all together like this they looked just magnificent!
There was also this huge patch of orange flowers that looked really nice too! Can you spot Sean?
I think these were pansies? They had more of a pastel colour that was nice too; very suited for Spring that's for sure.
There was also this alpaca farm on the hills!
And you could pay to go in and feed the alpacas!
You could actually see some of the alpacas from the entrance and it looked like they had quite a few in there.
It did smell quite a bit though so we didn't go in. I hope they were treated well!
Eventually we found our way back to the main building again.
And they had this Hay-man whom I guess is the mascot here.
They had these very pretty lilac field behind him too!
It was going to be lunchtime soon, so we took a look around the building where they had a bunch of souvenir shops.
And also a bunch of different snack stalls. It was really crowded though so it was kinda hard to take good photos.
I guess there were a bunch of different tour groups at the same time or something.
The snack stalls definitely did look and smell really good! We hadn't eaten anything yet since we were saving room for the buffet lunch that was coming but I was so tempted to get a snack!
We did bring drinks though since it was really warm out. But they were selling some nice cold ones too, and even the special local melons!
It was like a mini grocery store here since they had both packaged stuff and fresh produce!
They were even selling pure raw corn! I think this was the corn the snack stall was roasting and selling. But apparently you could even eat them uncooked?
Sean was getting hungry and couldn't wait to get a snack and since he loves corn, he wanted to try the boiled corn.
And for 300yen, it was quite a sizable and thick corn!
The corn was actually really delicious! It was naturally sweet and very juicy! It was really warm though, which didn't help with the sun out at peak noon time, but still yummy nonetheless!
We were shepherdedto this souvenir shop called the Herb Garden which also led to the restaurant we were going to eat in!
And they had a lot of facial products made of the local lavender.
And made our way to the Herb Garden, which was the restaurant we were having our buffet lunch!
The lunch was a part of the tour of the hills we booked, and it also included a melon buffet! So we could try the special local melons which are known for being really expensive in Japan; and we could eat as much as we want!
The restaurant was absolutely packed with other tourists though, so we took our time to see what kinda food they had.
There was quite a big spread of different dishes! There was fried potato, teriyaki chicken, gyoza, vegetable stew, fried squid, etc.
There was also rice, soups and curry over here.
There was also a salad bar which didn't interest us since we're not fans of cold food and especially cold vegetables.
There were more soups over here including corn, pumpkin and something called hot milk soup?
There was also pumpkin tempura and grilled mutton!
I think this Genghis Khan Japanese style grilled lamb was the special dish of the day or something? We're not really fans of lamb but it was nice that it was Muslim friendly!
Each table in the restaurant also came with these huge trays of melon! I guess it was the restaurant's package.
We only had about an hour or so to eat so we didn't take so much of the buffet food so we could stuff our faces with melon!
I was kinda skeptical with how the melon would taste since there was so much of it so I thought they might've prioritised quantity > quality but it was actually still really good! It was definitely sweet and juicy!
I'm not sure how many melon slices we ate but I think we both took more than 7 pieces of melon because it was so good! I felt really healthy and stuffed after that.
We were called out of the restaurant so we took the time to see more of the huge souvenir shop it was attached to.
They definitely had a lot of lavender products for sale, including huge bags of potpourri!
I've never been a fan of potpourri because I don't see the point but it was cool they had these hand made stuff too.
After taking a quick look, we left the souvenir shop while trying to avoid the sun since it was past noon and really warm out. And we saw these huge melon sculptures outside the restaurant so we had to take some pics with it!
The melons were indeed very delicious! But there's still much to explore of Shikisai Hills so tune in next week for more beautiful flowers!
Thanks so much for reading!
To find out more about me, check out my intro post here!
Check out my previous post in this series!
TacoCat’s Travels #172 (Japan 9.0 - Hokkaido): Journeying Up the Greenest Hills 🌄
