After staying in Tokyo for business, we finally checked out the hotel room where we stayed for 3 weeks, and were on our way to explore the wild, beautiful north island of Japan - Hokkaido.
Hakodate
A solid 5 hours of train ride from Tokyo station to Hakodate station. I splurged a little bit (okay, 500 dollars, that's quite a BIT) on an onsen ryokan by the ocean, because it was Mr. Travels' birthday a couple of days ago, and I'd like to treat him a nice night stay as a gift. The view certainly didn't disappoint.
Seriously, when we checked in, staff were cleaning the wheels of our luggage (how often do you see that), and sent all our luggage directly to the room while letting us sip on fresh grounded green tea (so bitter that our faces gave us away) and homemade green tea cookie (quite nice).
A walk by the water was romantic, and sunset was amazing. But it was coooooold and windy. There were many times we stopped and turned around because the wind was brutal.
Now we gotta talk about seafood in Hokkaido. Apparently November was a good season for crab, and this was my very first time trying crab - RAW. Nigiri style. You know what? It was super sweet and just melted in your mouth!
We ordered rolls, steamed rice with crab, grilled fish and so many other things that we couldn't remember all and finish all. Everything was very well cooked, plated beautifully and tasted divine! This is one of the things that's unique about Japan - I don't remember having mediocure or bad food!
Onsen seemed appropriate after dinner and walk. So.... if you don't know, two fun facts about onsen:
- onsens for guys and for ladies are separate, so if you want to enjoy onsen with your loved ones, you gotta find an onsen ryokan with private onsen, or private open-air baths, ranging from $400 - $800 depending on location, room size and views, meals included or not.
- you are expected to take a shower before going into onsens. And make sure you wear nothing.... no swimsuits, no towels, nothing...
I snipped an picture from the entrance when there was no one.
Morning breakfast was formal here. 7:30am staff were all dressed up, but I was literally wearing oversize t-shirts and leggings.
Looks like we got some snow on the beach from the previous night.
Half way into the breakfast that I can hardly recognize half of what I ate. Mr. Travel said "I can't do fancy" which cracked me up big time. Haha!
After devouring more Royce chocolate, we hopped on a train and continued our journey to the north.
Sapporo
The city had been getting quite some snow before we even arrived, so the streets were snowy and icy. Mr. Travels sat on his butt just walking down the road.
But nothing could stop him from going to the Sapporo museum!
And having all the Sapporo samplers.
Now, let's talk about Sapporo's New Chitose Airport, which was actually open for business back in 1991, so... not quite new. The reason I want to talk about this airport is not about the name, but about how it is like a theme park!
Royce's chocolate world is here.
What? Royce has a bakery? Since when?
Huge Pokemon store is here.
Doreamon park is here!
I could easily spend hours here. And I told Mr. Travel based on my people watching experience, I could guarantee not all of the people here were to catch a flight! Yep, it's a local hangout place.
Wakkanai
Another 5 hours from Sapporo to Wakkanai. And finally I got the chance to try the famous Shinkansen train bento. Temperature alert - it was cold. But it didn't bother me. The small bites were delicious enough that I could stand they were cold.
I absolutely love how tentative some of the smallest designs are. Remember the moment you scramble to look for tickets in every single pocket when the ticket officer were standing right in front of you? Oh well, here's a pocket you can put your ticket and won't worry about misplacing it.
For a couple of moments, the scenes from Snowpierce came to mind. It was toasty inside, it was snowy and quiet outside. And I was not sure where exactly was ahead of us.
After eating, sleeping, reading and being bored, we were finally here!
Hi, icicle!
And Hi, snowy mountain!
A morning bus took us from hotel to the northmost of Japan. 40min ride, and your hotel likely carries the most recent bus schedule, but frequency is limited, so make sure to plan ahead!
The screen on the bus showed how much fare you needed to pay depending on which stop you got on and which stop you were going to get off. How thoughtful! The price changed each stop and you didn't need to worry about the calculation yourself - the bus did it for you.
This certainly was the highlight of the trip. I bet it was nice in the summer because I couldn't even stand being outside for more than 3 minutes. Look closely you'd see Russia across the water. If you can't, oh well look more closely! :D
