Sapporo, Hokkaido Trip (Day 12)

22nd May 2019, Wednesday

Today, we just planned to walk around Sapporo city so we woke up late and we took our time to prepare ourselves. We went down for ramen at Ramen Sora, a small ramen stall recommended by the hotel staff. It was just round the corner of our hotel. We ordered a miso ramen and a spicy ramen, it was quite nice. After we finished the ramen, we walked down the shopping streets of Sapporo, Tanukikoji Shopping Street. It was quite like the one in Osaka, with streets and streets of shops. There were many shops available along the streets, selling pets, shoes and food. I was amazed on how big their Don-Don Donki was. It was 6 storeys high and there were 2 shops, opposite each other in the same street. We spent a lot of time shopping inside.

Miso and Spicy Ramen

Tanukikoji Shopping Street

Donki Shop Entrance

Then we walked further down the streets to a cheese market and Istean. We were amazed at the seafood and cheese products selling at the supermarket. We took our own time exploring in the supermarket and bought some fruits and some food back. We were lucky to buy 1 whole honey dew for $1000 yen as there was an offer going on. So we asked the staff to help us pick ripe one that we could eat it. After that, we walked back to the hotel and asked the counter staff if they had a knife to lend us. The staff was so funny, she actually gave us a plastic knife and asked us if it is okay. We broke into laughter and my friend kept telling her we want to cut our honey drew and the plastic knife won't work. Later my friend asked the staff if the kitchen chef of the hotel restaurant could help us cut the melon drew instead. So the staff went to the restaurant and asked. After some time, she came back and told us the chef was willing to help to cut the fruit. We were so happy, and so i went up to the room with our purchases first while my friend waited for the fruit to be cut.

Eel

Fishes

Giant Scallops

More honey dew

Yummy!!

After some time, my friend came back with a tray and on the tray, there were 4 big slices of the honey dew. So we sat on the floor and had our maki and honey drew. The honey dew was sooooo sweet and juicy....It was soooo enjoyable...After that, we just stayed in the room and do nothing...hahaha....We stayed in the room till about 6 plus, then we went down again to see what was nice for dinner. We walked into a small eating alley with some small restaurants but we gave them a miss. Then we ended up at an okonomiyaki place named Hina-Chan which we had to wait for some time before we could get a seat. Finally, we get a table and we ordered a coke float and two okonomiyaki for dinner.It was not bad but it was quite a lot so we didn't managed to finish the food. After dinner, we walked back to hotel and rested.

Entrance

Coke Float

Recommended Okonomiyaki

Places visited:
Ramen Sora (Address: 5 Chome-20 Minami 3 Jonishi, Chuo Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0063, Japan)
Cheese Market (Address:  4 Chome-14-5 Minami 4 Jonishi, Chuo Ward, Sapporo, Hokkaido 064-0804, Japan)
Istean
Tanukikoji Shopping Street
Hina-Chan (Address: 6 Minami Sanjo Nishi Tanukikoji 6-Chome, Chuo, Sapporo 060-0063, Hokkaido)


Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Vista Sapporo Odori

Sapporo, Hokkaido Trip (Day 11)

21st May 2019, Tuesday

Today, we are leaving Lake Toya and heading to Sapporo. However, it was raining in the morning and we got lazy to wake up. So we dragged ourselves up only past 9 am and packed our luggage to check-out the hotel. We drove down to Lake Hill Farm for breakfast and bought the cheese and puddings before we leave. We bought a pizza to share, orange juice and a coffee. We took our time to have our breakfast and bought the cheese we wanted. Then we hit the road to go to Sapporo, it was a 3 hours drive. We drove down on route 230 on the highway and took me some confusing time to drive to the correct hotel as there was another hotel with the same name. But the hotel staff told us we had went to the wrong hotel, so we drove around the city to find the correct one. Not very easy to drive in the city as there was so many signs and cars. Eventually, we managed to find the hotel along a road and it was like a small building in between bigger buildings. My friend went in to do the check-in and asked for the parking space. But the hotel don't provide free parking, instead we had to park in the public car park opposite the hotel. We had to pay $1200 yen per night for the parking too and the staff gave us 5 parking tickets which he told us to exchange in the parking office to full day tickets.

Our Breakfast

Pit Stop

Our bedroom

Bathroom

Basin Area

After we settled the car, we brought our luggage and went up to our room. The room was soooo small (standard size as in Tokyo) and the sink was facing our bed. But they still managed to have a bathtub inside the bathroom even though it was small. Anyway, i was having worry that i might have forget to lock the car so i went back the car for a check. And, i really forget to wind up the car window after winding down to take the car park ticket. After winding the window, i went back to the hotel lobby to meet up with my friend. After that, we walked down the street to explore the city. We walked to Orini park and saw it was having some food event. So we turned in to check it out and there were booths selling bbq meats, seafood and wines. Since we did not have lunch yet, so we bought some of the bbq food to try and there were quite a lot of crows fighting for the food placed unattended on the tables too.

BBQ Food Stalls

Food Stalls

BBQ Seafood Stalls

BBQ Giant Crab Legs

BBQ Meat Skewers

BBQ Corn

The park was quite big and long too, it was covering almost 3 streets and as we walked further in, we saw there was a ramen competition. There were a few ramen stalls representing from different regions in Japan and you have to buy a ticket and order the ramen you want to try from the ramen stalls. So we bought a ticket and checked out the ramen stalls in line.  We decided the ramen from Kyoto and queued to buy a bowl of ramen to try. You also top up some cash to add on eggs, ramen and the pork pieces.  After that, we continued to walk on the street and we walked to the Pokemon Centre which was inside Daimaru building. We went to check out the supermarket level and there were fruits, sashimi, cheese and seafood available. After that, we went to the upper level and to the pokemon centre. It was smaller compared to the one in Tokyo but best thing was there was not many customers there to squeeze with you and fight for photo-taking of the pokemon statues.  We bought some pokemon socks and there were new version of pokemon tetra machines at the back of the shop. So we played on the machine for some time (100 yen per game). The tetra cartridge was longer and the game was totally different from the current ones played in Singapore.

Ramen Show Entrance

Rules for the ramen voting

Speciality ramen from Kyoto Seabura Shoya

Pokemon Centre

Pokemon Tetra Machines

After playing, we walked back to find a popular bar in the city named Meshiba Ookami. It took us some time to find the place as the GPS was not able to direct us in the correct direction. Finally we managed to find the place and it was a small place which allowed guests to drink and eat plus smoking inside. So we tried to ask if we can take away their speciality, chicken wings. Well, one lady told us it was possible so we ordered some honey and salted chicken wings to go. We waited for some time before the wings were ready. Then we headed back to the hotel to have our chicken wings with coke (it was just a few minutes walk to our hotel)....hohoho...The salted chicken wings were quite salty, not to our liking and the honey chicken wings were sweet but still not so bad. After that, we took to shower and rested for the day.

Meshiba Ookami Entrance

Interior

Speciality Chicken Wings

Places visited:
Lake Hill Farm (Address: 127 Hanawa, Toyako, Abuta District, Hokkaido 049-5724, Japan)
Orini Park
Meshiba Ookami (Address: Japan, 064-0804 Hokkaido, Sapporo, Chūō-ku, Minami 4 Jōnishi, 6-chōme−8-3)


--> Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Vista Sapporo Odori

Lake Toya, Hokkaido Trip (Day 10)

20th May 2019, Monday

A sunny new day for us today and we decided to drive down to a nearby gelato place named Lake Hill Farm. Luckily for us, the place is just 3 minutes drive from our hotel. It was already having some customers when we arrived there. The place was selling dairy products such as ice-cream, cheese and jams in one of the houses and selling main course meals in the other house. However, we went straight to the dairy house and bought their ice-cream to try. Behind the houses, was a greenland with an amazing view of a mountain which was having snow on the submit. The ice-cream was very smooth and creamy. There was also a big cage full of rabbits of different sizes and colours and there was a small basket filled with packets of carrots. Beside it, there was a small tin for the payment of buying the carrots to feed the rabbits. We bought one packet for 100 yen to feed the rabbits. The rabbits were so cute, the smaller ones will come near to the cage and try to fight for the carrots. Some of the rabbits stole the carrots from the weaker ones which can't hold on the carrots. But the rabbits were like so hungry. There was also a horse nearby the rabbits' cage and there was a goat named Mr Yuki (very popular with the guests) in the grassland. It even has a house of its own. It was really relaxing there.....^_^.....(Also found an attractions map there with all the public hand-baths and foot-baths in Lake Toya.

Lake Hill Farm

Hand & Foot Baths around Lake Toya

Outside of the Gelato House

Rabbits

Mr Yuki

After that, we drove to Nishiyama Crater. However, we ended up to Kimbira Crater instead and we parked our car at the bottom of the crater. We had to walk a long distance (about 30 mins) up to the crater, we also had to pay the entrance fee of 1000 yen to go in the private observatory in order to view the crater.  At the top, you can see Lake Toya on the left side and the crater on the right side. After spending some time there, we decided to make our way down the mountain to go to Nishiyama Crater. We ate the corn we bought from Hakodate market as our snack while walking down, the corn was still very sweet. Once back down, we walked to the opposite side and ended up at Nishiyama Crater walking trail. We looked at the map and the whole walking distance to the other side of the crater (to the south gate) required 1 hour plus. So we decided we will stop around half the distance and walk back as our car is parked here. Then we started our walking trail and the first landscape we saw was the remains of a partial road which was covered by water during the creation of new craters in year 2000. As we walked further in, we could see a damaged car left in the pond too.

Kimbira Crater

Landscape view of Lake Toya & Kimbira Crater

Main road covered by water after the eruption

We walked some distance in and we saw an uncle cooking eggs using hot stones. It caught our curiosity and we bought 2 eggs to try it out. It wasn't amazing, just tasted like boiled eggs but it's brown in colour. But still, we enjoyed the eggs and the uncle even gave us cold water as we sat there to eat..hahaha...We thanked the uncle and continued on our walking trail. Along the way, we saw the roads that were cracked open, collapsed buildings, damaged cars, tunnel and street lamp posts as a results of the year 2000 eruption. There were also 2 level lookout to see the craters, however, the view was blocked by the tall unmanaged grasses and we can't really see the craters fully. After that, we walked back down to the car park to pick up our car. We drove back to the town centre and went to Boyotei for our lunch.

Cooking Eggs

Damaged Roads

Crater

Collapsed Kindergarden

Our Yummy Lunch

After lunch, we headed out with a mission to look for the hand-baths and foot-baths. It appeared the hand-bath and foot-bath have different blessing to one who "bath" in it. First stop, we found a hand-bath with a dragon statue at a petrol station. It was a hand-bath for marriage blessing, however, it was not in operation. So we walked further down the street and found another hand & foot bath of Yakushi Nyorai, Buddha of healing. We checked out the bath area and the water looked yellow and the water wasn't hot, so we decided not to join in...kekeke...Then we walked further down and saw another small hand-bath. It was a hand-bath for health, so we washed our hands with it for the blessing to have good health. Once done, we went down to the lake and walked to find foot-baths. As we walked along the lake, we saw a foot-bath in front of a hotel with the lake in front of it. So we decided to soak our feet in the foot-bath for our relaxation. Ahhh...the water feels sooo warm and nice...We soaked our feet for 20 mins before heading back to the hotel. We found a cake shop (didn't take photo of the shop name) and we bought a cake and creme brulee back.

Hand-Bath of Marriage

Foot-Bath of Healing

Hand-Bath of Health

Foot-Bath for our relaxation..^_^

Cake & Creme Brulee

After that, we drove back to the hotel to rest and i over passed the entrance of our hotel as i was increasing speed to drive up-slope...hahaa..always missed the entrance...Then we had our cake and creme brulee once we got back the room. I was surprised that the creme brulee came with the ceramic bowl instead of plastic. So i happily washed the bowl to bring back home...hahaha...Then we watched tv while waiting for the fireworks to start....We can still see the fireworks from our windows but it was very small. After that, we went to bed as we will be heading to our last destination, Sapporo the next day.

Places visited:
Lake Hill Farm (Address: 127 Hanawa, Toyako, Abuta District, Hokkaido 049-5724, Japan)
Kimbira Crater
Nishiyama Crater
Boyotei (Address: 049-5721 Hokkaido, Abuta District, Toyako, Toyako Onsen 36-12)

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Cocoa

Hakodate, Hokkaido Trip (Day 5)

15th May 2019, Wednesday

Grassland in Yakumo

Hotel Car Park

Today, we are leaving Nooribetsu and heading down to Hakodate. It is going to be a long journey as the road trip is going to be 4 hours long. We packed our luggage and checked out the hotel. Then we hit the road, and went onto the expressway. There was few cars on the road and most of the cars were driving at faster speed than us. We decided to stop at the last stop point, which happened to be Yakumo and had a rest as i had been driving for around 2 hours plus. At the stop point, we bought some milk, puddings and some snacks before hitting the road again. We managed to reach our hotel in Hakodate safely and parked the car at the parking lot provided by the hotel. However, we were unable to check in the hotel when we arrived and so we left our luggage at the hotel and headed out to explore the city.

Lucky Pierrot Set

Lucky Egg Burger

Chinese Chicken Burger

In-house Soda Drink

We decided to head to the nearest Lucky Pierrot branch, which the hotel staff recommended us to go for a try. It is the fast food chain only in Hakodate and it is not available elsewhere. We just walked to the destination as i wanted a break from the driving. Plus, i can take photos and enjoy the view as i walked. It was a 10 mins walk from the hotel and luckily there wasn't a queue at the fast food restaurant. So we were able to get an available table and ordered our food. We ordered their top 2 recommended burgers and a cup of fries. The chicken burger (top 1st) was super yummy, the chicken meat was very juicy. The number 2 burger was with hamburger steak and a sunny side up egg. It was also very yummy. There were other burgers available and curry rices too. They even have their own kind of soda drinks (quite weird).

Mashu maru

Seats in the ship

Ship Crew's uniforms

Musical boxes with different designs

Inside shops

Pudding and Cheesecake Set

Exterior of Red Bricks Warehouse

After lunch, we headed further down to have a walk and we ended up visiting a ship museum named Mashu maru near the port. It was an old ship where it was now used as a museum to showcase the inner of the ship and the history of the ship. We had to pay a small entrance fee to enter the ship to view the exhibition inside. The ship was big and a lot of collection to view. After that, we walked toward the Red Bricks Warehouse. There were many shops to see and many food products to buy too. There was even a big shop selling musical boxes with different design. There were wooden types too and all the boxes were very beautiful. So we ended up spending long time in the shop and buying 3 musical boxes from the shop. We also bought some anime socks and toys plus a pudding set and we walked till almost 7 plus. There were 2 more Lucky Pierrot branches around too (You can visit the different branches as the shop themes are different in every branch).

Horsan Ramen Entrance

Dry version

Soup version

Beds and TV

Dinning and Cooking area

After that, we went to try noodles from a popular noodle restaurant named Horsan Ramen. The place was quite small, we ordered a dry and a soup version of the noodles. The noodles tasted like our hor fan style. The noodles was quite cheap too, less than 1000 jap yen. After dinner, we walked back to our hotel but it was quite cold as we walked. We managed to get our room key from the counter and went up to our room. It was a mini apartment with two beds, in the living room and there was a cooking area too. There was washing machine in the toilet area too and a bathtub. Finally, we can rest for the day and of course, i had my pudding that was bought at the stop point today...yum yum...

Places visited:
Lucky Pierrot
Mashu Maru
Red Bricks Warehouse
Horsan Ramen

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Paco Hakodate