070205. Lake Mashu
We had the local speciality crab for lunch
The towel froze pretty fast in the room with -17 degrees C
Dinner at the hotel; sashimi, shrimp, meat, snail etc
Cool (!) ice roof
Inside one of the snow/ice houses
View of the snow festival from inside one of the snow/ice houses
We had a tatami room in our hotel room
070206. Beautiful view outside our hotel
"Bobsleigh"
"Hello Kitty" snow statue
Penguin Parade at Asahiyama Zoo
Polar bear
Sea lions
Tigers
In the ice dome, -20 degrees C, where they store the rice for the sake to get that special taste
Copy of Hikone Castle
From the Churaumi Aquarium (World Expo Park in Okinawa)
The Okinawan Shisa figure
Delicious sukiyaki and sushi
Sapporo snow festival by night. View from the TV tower
070207. The famous clock tower in Sapporo
Cute snow statue
A snow copy of the Chakri Maha Prasat Grand Palace in Bangkok
Snowboard
Ice sculpture
It was cold!
Drinking Sapporo Beer and eating the dish Djingis Khan
Sapporo by night
Even though my party ended at 22 o'clock yesterday we stayed outside a little longer and talked. And when I got home I was sort of in a high from the party and could not really go to sleep. Besides, I had to do my packing for my friend's and my trip to Hokkaido. Sleeping for about 50 minutes (!) I got up at 3 o'clock in the morning, took a shower and made sure I had all my things with me. At 0420 I met up with my friend outside our dorm. Unlike last time we travelled together, then with the destination Okinawa, she had not overslept but was waiting downstairs :) Good! We walked to the station and took the train to get to Haneda airport, where we arrived at about 0550. To get even more inspired about our trip we both bought "Hokkaido milk bread" at the airport. It was very good. While we were sitting in the airplane waiting for takeoff we saw the beautiful sunrise! The flight was from 0655-0835, so it did not take that long. I was really tired and slept a bit on the plain. Arriving at the airport in Memanbetsu, city in the east side of Hokkaido, we joined with our travelling group. Unlike when we went to Okinawa where we arranged everything by ourselves this trip to Hokkaido is a group trip. All the activities are already included but on the last day we have time on our own. Our journey will start in the east of Hokkaido, where we will be going from Memanbetsu, Abashiri, Souunkyou and then finally arrive in Sapporo. The group consisted of 46 Japanese, most of them older than 50 years, and then my friend and I. The others are very nice. Most of them were a bit curious about us and asked us questions about where we come from etc. I must say that I like this group :) We got in the bus which first took us to Lake Mashu. It was cold, about -11 degrees C, but what a view! There was a lot of snow and it was very beautiful. A big difference from Tokyo where we had no snow at all during winter. My friend and I bought "non slip snow grabbers" which you put under your shoes. Since it can be rather slippery I think it was a good investment. Getting on the bus we saw a fox about 100 meters away as we went to our next destination. We arrived at a restaurant and had lunch. Hokkaido is famous for having delicious crab so of course we had that on the menue :) Along with the crab we had rice and miso soup. It was good. For desert my friend and I bought Ramune soft ice (Ramune is a soft drink). It is never too cold to enjoy ice cream hehe :) After this we were supposed to get on a boat that crush the ice out in the sea but since it is a warm winter this year compared to former ones there were no ice to be crushed. We were very disppointed about this since we had been looking forward to this boat trip very much :( Instead of the boat trip we went to the museum Tentozan in the city Abashiri. Before entering a room with -17 degrees C we were given a wet towel and instructed to swing it in the air while walking in the room looking at different ice sculptures. By the end of the route the towel had frozen. Then we continued our bus trip to the final destination for tonight, our hotel. To our big surprise our hotel room had both a western and an eastern interior. Western beds and a tatami room. Very nice with the tatami room!! As soon as I enter this kind of room I can not help but to feel at ease :) We then went down to the dining room to have dinner. We had sashimi, crab, rice and even had the chance to try snail. It was ok but not something I would crave for. I prefer sushi, no doubt about that. After dinner we went to a small snow festival not too far away from our hotel. After about a 15 min walk we arrived at the festival. As we entered a couple of igloos we saw beautiful ice scupltures inside. It sure was a good thing that we bought the "non slip snow grabbers", because without them it would have been pretty slippery. Feeling happy about seeing this nice scenery we went back to the hotel. The hotel holds an onsen (Japanese hot spring) so of course I did that. Since it had been rather cold today, however it did not snow, it was a great feeling getting into this hot spring! The first day in Hokkaido could not have ended in a better way.
070206, Tuesday
Since I really like onsen I woke up at about 0645 and took a quick shower and enjoyed the onsen one more time :) I then met up with my friend for breakfast. We had rice, miso soup, egg, sausage and Hokkaido milk. It was good but nothing compared to the dinner we had yesterday. At 0830 it was time to get on the bus again. Our first destination was the Ice Pavillion. Here there are several igloos to see. Here is also the place where we would have our "Bobsleigh experience" as it said in the pamphlet. Of course I did not expect us to have a ride like the people in the Olympics but still I thought that we would have the chance to sit in a real bobsleigh.To my big disappointment (!!) it was only a small sledge. And the hill was not what you can call breathtaking. Of course my friend and I had the ride on the sledge but to us the whole thing felt like a joke :( Rather disappointed we went back to the bus. Our guide told us that in Tokyo it was 16 degrees compared to our 2 degrees. A little before 11 o'clock we arrived at the famous Asahiyama Zoo. We had free time until 1 o'clock, great. We started with checking out the penguins. They are very cute! We saw them swiming in the water first and then later saw them again walking proud at the famous penguin parade. They actually walk with a pretty fast pace :) After the penguins we saw polar bears, sea lions, tigers, a lion, snow leopards, a jaguar and a puma. The puma was very cool. There was a long line to see the polar bears so while standing in queue we had our lunch haha :) It was great for saving time since our time at the zoo was limited. By doing this we got to see a lot. It is a nice zoo. Not only crab is famous in Hokkaido. Even melon is said to be very good. With this in mind we bought a melon bread before getting on the bus. The bread was still warm and it was very good. We continued our journey to an Ice dome. Before entering the dome we went to a sake factory just close by and saw the big tanks where the sake is being stored. The scent could not be mistaken for anything else than sake, and it smelt good. The "sake guide" told us about how the rice grains for sake differ from the ones cultivated to make rice. The grains for sake are smaller. After this we entered the ice dome where the rice grains are stored in bags to ripe. It was a bit chilly, -20 degrees, and storing the grains here is apparently a new kind of system. The ice dome was nice but my friend and I expected it to be bigger, and hold a bar where we could try the sake. There were barely room for the fourtyeight of us. Then we went to the sake shop where we could try three different types of sake for free. The first two were "regular sake" and were quite good. The third one, where you actually could see the grains, is called "Ama sake" (sweet sake) and was a bit hot. It was good. Refreshed by the sake we got on the bus again to go to Sapporo, our final destination for this trip. Arriving in Sapporo it was 1 degree C. At first we went to check in at the hotel, then my friend and I went out to check out the famous Sapporo Snow Festival. This year it is the 58th festival! It was very impressive and it is amazing what you can make out of snow. Since we did not have too much to eat during the whole day we started to get hungry. The sushi is supposed to be very good in Hokkaido so we badly wanted to try it. We started searching for a nice restaurant and found one with sushi and sukiyaki (meat and vegetables that you heat in a pan and then dip in raw egg) tabehoudai for 2400 yen, for 90 minutes. We decided to go in, and it was a very good decision! The sushi was great!!! The fish just melted in our mouths. There is a very big difference between the sushi we usually have in Tokyo and this sushi in Hokkaido! We had salmon, maguro, hamachi, kani, ika, tako, ebi etc. The meat and the vegetables were also great! Each plate of sushi contained eight pieces (except the first plate) and we ordered in four (!) plates and three plates (!) of meat...for just the two of us!! Hahaha. What can I say, the food was absolutely delicious and we were starving. But I have to admit that we overate. The personel were probably a bit shocked. Imagine having two young women just keep ordering in more and more food. Hahaha :) At 9 o'clock in the evening it was time to leave the restaurant. I think the personel were a bit relieved ;) We went back to the snow festival. It had now started to snow and it was 0 degrees C. We covered the whole festival area but to get an overview we decided to go up in the TV tower. The view, 90 meters up from ground, was astonishing. The statues are lit up, but at 10PM the lights go off. We got up in the tower at 9.55PM so we were able to get a glimps for five minutes. A bit short but still it was enough. It was truly beautiful. After this we started walking back to the hotel and now it was snowing pretty heavily. At about 11PM we arrived at the hotel and we got a good night's rest.
070207, Wednesday
In the morning we had some breakfast although we were not that hungry. Hrm, I wonder why ;p We left the hotel at about 10AM, went to the station to put our luggage in a locker. Then we went to the festival to check it out some more. It looks different in the daylight compared to yesterday when we saw it in the evening. It was snowing a lot and there was also some wind. Cold! Luckily there are some heated houses spread out in the festival area where you can go in and warm yourself. Nice :) Since it was snowing so much we got cold fast so we had to go inside for a couple of minutes to get warm again. Then we went out to see a snowboard show, held in the festival area. It was nice. Afterwards we went to eat Hokkaido ramen. To our big surprise there are several types of Hokkaido ramen. We thought that if you ordered this dish there would only be ony type to get, like the Okinawa soba...but no. So from a sortiment of about 5 different tastes of Hokkaido ramen we both chose "Corn butter". It was good but really nothing special. However, it was very nice eating something hot since we were a bit cold. Now it was -2 degrees C. Being a bit more warm we went to the "Susuki ice festival", which is a street where ice statues were lined up. It was very beautiful but now it was very cold! Knowing that we soon would have to leave for the airport, we did not want to leave without having tried the local dish "Djingis Khan" (sheep). It was good and to go with it we had Sapporo beer, which was even better :) Then we had to go to the airport in Sapporo where we arrived at about 6PM. The flight got delayed for 25 minutes, so takeoff became at 8PM. Even though it had been very cold now and then I felt a bit sad about leaving. Hokkaido is a nice place and our three days passed by very quickly. I am happy we went here and got to see this part of Japan too. Japan is indeed a very rich country; a lot of snow in the north, beautiful waters for diving in the south and the metropolitan Tokyo in the middle :) After arriving in Tokyo we went home. It felt a bit strange not seeing snow anymore. I was pretty tired from the intense days of the trip and went to bed with a smile on my lips.
Delicious sushi
Tasty birthday cake
