11th May 2019, Saturday
For this long trip, had planned to go Hokkaido with my friend. We booked the air tickets from JAL as it was the cheapest among SQ and ANA at the time we bought our tickets. The tickets we paid was about $1003 per person and it was with one-stop over at Tokyo (Haneda airport). When we were planning our routes, we were debuting if we want to rent a car and drive or just go ahead with the public transports. Actually it was me who is debuting the most, as i will be the only driver and with not much experience with driving here, it could be dangerous. But in the end, we still went ahead with renting a car to drive there. And of course, i had to get an international driving license from
Automobile Association of Singapore office. There was a fee of SGD$30 to get the license and you will be presented with a small booklet. I also booked a Honda Vitz model or similar car for 15 days from Budget Car Rental and we will have to pick it up from New Chitose Airport when we reach there. What interesting during booking the car was there was a non-operation charge which was explained that this will not be covered under the car insurance. But they do provide the car with car english GPS, ETC card and wi-fi router rental, all at $0 charge.
With everything booked and luggage packed, we departed on the night of 10th May and reached New Chitose airport on 11th May afternoon. Quite a long flight and with a hour stop at Haneda airport. We had to collect our luggage and deposit them again with JAL domestic flights counter. We also had to clear the custom security again and took the airport shuttle bus to transfer to the domestic airport terminal. Luckily, the JAL on-duty manager was very helpful and was able to communicate with us guided us the process and even showed us the quicker way to get to the domestic terminal. Once reached New Chitose airport, we went to find the car rental companies counters. It was some distance away from our arrival gate. When we went outside of the airport, the wind was blowing so strong and it was chilly. It doesn't feel like summer time, it was like winter wind....@_@
We quickly ran back into the airport and tried to walk to the Budget Car Rental counter. The lady handed mi a form to fill out and told us to wait for the company shuttle bus to pick us up. After 5 mins, she leaded us and some other customers to the shuttle bus. The car main office was about 5 minutes plus away from the airport. Once we arrived at the office, the staffs greeted us and processed our application. The staff was confirming our order confirmation and he passed me a tablet with agreements and safety videos to sign and watch. To be truthful, it's kind of stressful to read all the terms and conditions, plus to watch the videos at one go. It's like the staff waiting for you to complete and maybe u have your family/friends waiting too. How much time you think you want to spend in that office. Plus, you are standing at the counter to absorb that much of information. But there's one thing i remembered was that the staff did not inform us that if we were to have any car accident, we have to report to the rental car company immediately, be it a minor or serious accident. Of course, by common sense, we do have to call the rental car company if it is a serious car accident. Well, after i signed the required documents, the staff walked us out and showed us the car. Also, he did a check with me to show the existing marks and everything was good to go. He guided us on how to operate the GPS such as to search with map code and passed me the car key.
Once we were ready, we drove off and headed to our first destination, Noboribetsu. It was a 1 hour plus drive away from Sapporo. But i took probably 2 hour plus to reach there as i was driving over 80 to 90 km/hr. Of course, all the cars passing us were driving over 100km/hr but i don't really care as my main concern was safety first (so glad we reached the place safe and sound with no nasty weather). When we reached Noboribetsu entrance, we were greeted with a giant demon statue along the road. We took a bit longer to spot the hotel and my friend went in to query on the car park. The staff told her we can park at the lots opposite the hotel. So i drove ahead to the car park, wahhh....there was a small very steep road to the entrance to the car park..It was challenging for a novice driver. Anyway, i drove up the steep road and went into the car park area. It was a small area with maybe over 10 plus lots. I tried to do a reserve parking into one of the lots, it definitely took me about 10 mins and many tries to park the car in (sooo peh seh.. -_-!). Still, i managed to get the car park nicely into the lot space. We took our luggage and headed back to the hotel front counter for our check-in. We paid the hotel for our stays in cash and dinner for one of the nights. After that, we carried our luggage back up to our room.
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| Hotel Entrance |
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| Single Beds |
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| Tiny Toilet |
It was a cozy room with two single beds and a small coffee table with two cushioned chairs. The toilet was super tiny with a tiny bathtub, sink and toilet bowl. I could reach to the door at my arm's length while standing inside the bathtub. But this was pretty much how Japan hotel rooms will be...There were two bean favoured welcome snacks too (And they provided us the same snacks for our 5 days stay). After we ditched our luggage, we headed out to look for food as we drove all the way and did not stop for any breaks. We decided to have seafood and luckily the popular seafood place to eat (Shop name: Onsen Ichiba) is just opposite our hotel. It was a small place with live seafood where the staffs will just scoop them out to cook after the customers ordered. We ordered one giant scallop, 3 raw oysters, bbq corns and two bowls of different dons. The food was nice and it was not crowded when we went there..meaning there was no rush in waiting, cooking or chasing us out after we were done.
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| Live Shells |
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| Live Crabs |
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| Pork Belly Don |
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| Seafood Don |
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| Raw Oysters (3 for $100 yen) |
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| BBQ Corns (Sweeet!) |
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| Grilled Scallop |
After that, we walked down the Enmado and Hakuraku shopping street to explore around. There were many souvenirs shops around the street and stone demons and animals statues. We shopped for a while too and bought water before we returned back to the hotel and rested early. Reali tiring for me with the driving and no sleep on the plane...Anyway, we will have a long day tomorrow for our adventure. ^_^...
Places visited:
Enmado and Hakuraku shopping area
Hotel Stayed:
Takimoto Inn
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