Noboribetsu Date Jidamiura, Hokkaido Trip (Day 3)

13th May 2019, Monday

Entrance Tickets

Today, we woke up early and got ready to head out to the ninja village theme park (Noboribetsu Date Jidaimura) which was about 12 mins away from our hotel. So we had our breakfast in the hotel and headed out with our rental car. There were a lot of parking lots available when we reached the place, guess we were early. Then we headed to the ticket counter to exchange for our entrance tickets, after which we proceeded to enter the park and were greeted by a ninja and a samurai.

Ninja Performance Theatre

Ninja Host

We headed straight to the ninja show where the staffs dressed in their costumes to get the crowd into the theatre for the show. Everyone was given a small sheet of white paper when entering the theatre. We went in and seated while waiting for the show to start. There was a piece of paper to explain the story behind the show. There was also a korean tour group with us. After some time, the show started and a ninja appeared to explain to the audience on the rules while watching the show. He explained that the white paper which was handed out to everyone is for tipping the performers. What we have to do is to wrap the coins with the paper and throw it up onto the stage as an appreciation. After the explanation, all the lights went out and the room was in totally darkness. Suddenly, a samurai appeared from the bottom of the stage in front of the audience. The ladies who were seated right in front were so startled by the surprise appearance that they screamed and fell back onto my friend. We were glad that we wasn't seated right in front of the stage...hahaha...

Bad Ninja Leader

And the show started with two samurais talking to each other (in japanese) and they were suddenly attacked by two ninjas. Then the show escalated into a fighting scene between the 2 ninjas and 2 samurais. There were a lot of action scenes, companied with some funny actions.  The whole show lasted 15 mins, which we threw some tips on to the stage when we left the theatre. After which, we were guided to the next theatre for the next show. We were accompanied with the same tour group and similarly, we were handed with the white paper while we entered the theatre. The staff also asked everyone which country do we come from. But for this theatre, we had to take off our shoes and placed into a plastic bag handed by the staffs. And we were seated on the floor while waiting for the show to start. Again, there was an explanation paper provided to give the story behind the show. After some time, a mama-san appeared on stage and greeted everyone in their own country's language (first in japanese, then in korean, in english and in malay too). After that, she explained the rules in the theatre while watching the show.  Next, she asked if there is any male audiences on the floor who like to volunteer. There were 2 korean guys who expressed their interest and the host got them to play paper scissors stone to have a winner and the younger guy won. After that, the host invited the winner up to the stage and told us that he is going for a costume change.

Host & Korean guy

Volunteered Guy dressed up

On stage performance

So we waited for some time before the host re-appeared onto the stage and told us the guy is ready and the show will start now. When the curtain opened, we saw the guy dressed up in japanese costume like a landlord boss in the room. The host whispered to the guy and got him to say some dialogue in japanese. Everyone laughed. Then the host introduced a beautiful lady to appear on the stage and when the door opened, everyone wowed at the lady appeared. There was more talking on stage and they played games with the korean guy on stage. It was very entertaining and we had a lot of laughs there, just that my legs were so cramped after seating cross-legged on the floor. After the show ended, we waited for almost everyone left the room and went up to the performers to have a photo with them. After that, we headed for another performance which was outside. However, the benches were packed with the korean tour goup and we had to stand to watch the show.

Fighting scene

Final Battle

The show started with an old man walking up the stage and starting talking for a while. Suddenly, there was some ninjas appearing to attack the old man. There was one ninja actually did a zip-line down to the stage as his appearance. After some short talking, they started to fight with each other and there was another younger samurai appeared to rescue the old man. He started fighting with the leader of the other party. There was also loud explosion during the show and the show ended with the young samurai successfully defeated the attackers and recused the old man.

Goblin Cat Statue

Long Neck Lady Demon

Spider Demon

River Demon

After that, we headed for a short toilet break and went into the goblin cat building. The goblin cat actually looked like the fa cai mao which has the left hand waving always. Beside it, there was a sign explaining how you can pray to the cat for your wishes to be granted and you actually have to bring up your left hand to wave and meow like the cat (which we did)...hahaha....After that, we headed the maze inside the building and there were different forms of demonic cats which were fierce..very unfriendly types.  After that, we headed into another building which contained the different demons inside. There were different demons displays such as umbrella demons, long neck demon lady, spider demon, fox and owl spirits (the one normally outside japanese restaurants), cyclone and river demons. These displays were actually less scarier than the demonic cats...lol....Next, we went into a building built for ninjas training. When we first entered the room, the layout was not straight like a normal room. There were mirrors around and you can feel the pressure of giddiness kicked in your head. Even i attempted to walk in the room, but i can't take the first step in as my head started to get heavy. In the end, i gave up attempting to enter the house (not cut out as a ninja)...hahaha....But the room looked interesting and it looks like there is a maze to clear.

Barber

Tattooist

The Thief & the townman

Trying to stop the fight

After that, we walked to a street where there were houses for different occupations during edo period in Nagoya. After that, we walked around the streets and ended up in a o-edo theatre for a comedy performance. There were only 4 persons watching and the host told us that he will be expecting tips from us 4 persons after the show. The performance was light-hearted and it was about a honourable thief who always steal from the rich to help the poor. The performers spoke in japanese and so we just watched based on their actions. After that, we walked to the watch tower and climbed up to have a look. Then, we went down to have our lunch. The streets were damn quiet in the theme park and we ended up in a ramen shop for lunch. We were the only customers in the shop.

Squid Ink Fried Rice

Spicy Ramen

Rice Crackers

Rice Balls

Samurai Statues

Samurai

After lunch, we headed to the crafts shop and i wanted to do a self-painting on the ninja but it was not available. So we left and went ahead to explore other shops.  We bought some crackers snacks and gifts. After that, we went to a mansion at the end of the park. It was like a museum where they had kept the histories and stuffs regarding ninja and samurai. After that, we left the park and went back to the hotel. After which, we walked down to the post office to buy some stamps. We did have some problems trying to get the staff understand what we wanted to buy. My friend had to use google translate in order to get the staff understand. Finally, we managed to buy some stamps for me to post the postcards back to Singapore.

Milk Pudding (All gone!)

After that, we headed to a small pudding shop where it sells some dairy products like milk, cheese, ice-cream and pudding. We got a pudding to share and we just sat outside relaxing. The pudding was really smoothing and soft. Yum Yum....and the bottle was glass (which i washed and brought the bottle back for souvenir). After that, we walked back to the hotel to rest for the rest of the afternoon. We headed out down for dinner around 6.30 pm, the dinner tonight was in the hotel but it was buffet-style. We were quite disappointed as the food wasn't that wonderful. In fact, we found the breakfast was better.  The only food that was being snapped out was the raw salmon. After the disappointed dinner, we went out for a short walk and it was very cold. We then walked to the shop to get a postcard for my friend to post to her sister in taiwan. After the walk, i went back to the hotel while my friend went for her onsen bath in the new hotel opposite.

Places visited:
Noboribetsu Date Jidamiura

Hotel Stayed:
Takimoto Inn

Noboribetsu, Hokkaido Trip (Day 1)

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.

Hotel Entrance

Single Beds

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.

Live Shells

Live Crabs

Pork Belly Don

Seafood Don

Raw Oysters (3 for $100 yen)

BBQ Corns (Sweeet!)

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