Sapporo - Day 6 - 19th February 2017

In contrast to our  sunny first day in Sapporo, our last day was overcast. Large snowflakes blurred across our vision in the -5° temperatures. The small creek that ran behind our hotel had started to freeze over. The ducks were pushed into a small corner that hadn't quite frozen over yet. Large Koi sat unmoving on the bottom of the creek bed under the ice.

Large Snowflakes

The creek freezing over

Animal tracks along the river side and on the ice island

With fresh snow falling Hugh and I decided it might be fun to try skiing. We took the Namboku Subway line to the end of the line, where a bus to the Bankei Ski area left from. The Bankei Ski area was within the Sapporo city limits and was only a 20 minute bus. On arrival at the station, we had just missed the Bankei bus and had about an hour and half to wait for the next bus. The area around the bus station was dull but there was an interesting looking river area up the road that we could see so we wandered up there. The banks of the river were overhanging with ice and snow. Around the river were animal tracks, crossing from one bank to another, following the river up and eventually disappearing into some nearby trees. Across the river was a raise staircase, leading up a hillside and into a residential area. It seemed like a pretty rich area of Sapporo, with large houses, which are not very usual for Japanese people. A few cars passed by, as well as a jogger doing laps up and down the stairs. A lady in a brown jacket walk past, a clear shopping bag with leeks strung over her shoulder. I could have mistaken her for a human version of the Pokemon far-fetched.

The bus to Bankei Ski area wound through the outskirts of Sapporo and dropped us right in front of the ski lodge. Before getting our gear Hugh and I stopped for a warm lunch at the lodge. 

Bankei Ski Area

Soon after we were putting on our ski shoes. I found them claustrophobic and the limited movement made me quite uncomfortable. Somehow I managed to drag my now-heavy feet up the stairs and out to the beginners learning area. I can't say that Skiing was my favorite thing - or even a thing that I liked at all - but at least now I can say I have done it. Trying to move forwards on the flat level required a lot of muscle power and energy and I quickly tired out and overheated. I was definitely envious of the ease in which the young kids mastered their skis.


After landing on my butt and not having gotten more than a few meters, I called it a day. Skiing was not my cup of tea.

After returning our rental gear we caught a bus back into Sapporo and made our way to Odori. I really wanted to check out Odori Bisse Sweet - a sweets shop in Odori, the inner suburb in Sapporo above Susukino. Despite not having had dinner, I convinced Hugh that it was appropriate to eat two desserts before we had dinner (it was so worth it!). Milk products are very popular in Hokkaido, so I focused on the dairy-related sweets. For my first dessert I had Hokkaido ice-cream with Caramel Custard. For my 2nd dessert, I tried a piece of Hokkaido Cheesecake, which was so soft on the inside that it practically melted in my mouth. Its definitely something I will miss.

Caramel Custard

Hokkaido Cheesecake

We walked off the dessert by waddling into Susukino and finding dinner. We had dinner at a karaoke bar where we ordered multiple small dishes to share. A highlight of dinner was eating tempura Hokkaido Cheese with jam which was OMG YUM. We ended our night with full tummies and sad to return to Australia the next day.

Sapporo - Day 5 - 18th February 2017

Today was a big day. In the middle hours of the morning we made our way via tram out to Maruyama Koen (where we tried to walk from the other day at Mt Moiwa). The park entrance turned out to be nowhere near Mt Moiwa.

Maruyama Koen is a big, beautiful park, that looks stunning in the snow. There was no predicted snowfall today, but the wind through the trees caused snow to fall in a steady, slow pattern. Snow flakes loosened from branches would drift lazily to the ground, mixing in seamlessly with the white expanse. 

In the middle of Maruyama Koen lies the Hokkaido Shrine. Having seen a fair amount of shrines on our previous trip to Japan, we didn't find this impressive by any standard, but it was different to see a shrine covered in snow. 

Around the shrine were a few snow sculptures to celebrate the upcoming Asian Winter Games.

Frosty, Beymax and Olaf ice sculptures

Snowboarding Squirrel Sculpture

The park was cold but a good place to get out and stretch our legs. Towering trees lined our path and we came along a smaller shrine upon a steep cliffside. A thin walking trail followed along statues covered in knitted beanies and scarves. We choose to continue on walking and not try to climb the steep hill without proper snow walking gear (such as poles), so we followed a frozen-over stream. Birds, seeming somehow resilient to the cold, flitted about. A small squirrel sat atop the snow, cheeks full of seeds and nuts. 

Creek at Maruyama Park

At half past 12 we wandered out of the quiet sanctuary of the park and legged it to Sapporo Station. We had plans to visit the Lake Shikotsu Snow and Ice Festival and needed to make the 2.40pm bus out to Shikotsu. To get to Lake Shikotsu from Sapporo was not the easiest task, and if we had been more organised, we would have booked a seat on a tour bus before we came to Sapporo, as not only was it more time effective, but the same price with the guarantee of a seat. 

We ate a brief lunch from a Lawson at Sapporo Station and hopped on a train to New Chitose Airport. The regional bus to Lake Shikotsu left from New Chitose, so this is where we were headed. We arrived at 2.30pm to the airport and made a beeline for the bus bay (just on the outside of the airport). The bus was at the stop and was ridiculously, overly full. There was absolutely no way we were going to be able to squeeze onto the bus. The Shikotsu bus comes only once every  2 to 3 hours in Winter season (http://www.1000sai-chitose.or.jp/wp/wp-content/uploads/2015/01/ae8835152cf31a5ce094e10e3b33afe8.pdf), but luckily for us on Saturdays and Sundays (today being a Saturday) there was an extra bus scheduled for half an hours time, at 3.10pm. After having seen how packed the last bus was, we made sure we didn't leave our spot as first in line to get onto the bus (we didn't fancy standing for the hour long plus journey). 


The bus pulled into Lake Shikotsu, a very small settlement of a handful of buildings next to the lake, at just after 4.15pm in the afternoon. The bus had been heated, so the -7° temperatures were a shock to the system. According to my phone, real feel was -12° and I would have believed it.



The festival site next to the lake was really fun. Pillars and castles had been carved from the ice into a maze of lights. It was really exciting to explore, and the insides of the carved rooms were so much warmer than the air outside. We dawdled our way through to stay in the warmth as long as possible. We went through a room with frozen fish in the walls, another room with hanging bubbles, a grotto full of branches and back-lit with purple lights, and a multi-storied turret tower that overlooked the festival. In the center of the tower you could look into a crystal blue pool. There was a snow slide made of compacted ice for children to slide down, and a small ice-skating rink to slip around on in your shoes. 
 

The air was getting colder by the minute and by 5.30pm we had seen the entire festival. Whilst we had originally planned on being at the festival for the fireworks, our numb fingers and stinging faces made the decision for us to leave on the earlier 5.45pm bus. It turned out to be a good idea, as the lines to come into the festival for the fireworks wound out kilometers from Lake Shikotsu. The later bus ride back would have been extremely packed. The 5.45pm bus had plenty of room and everyone got a seat.

Lake Shikotsu

By 7pm we were back at New Chitose Airport, where we decided to stay for dinner before catching the train back to Sapporo. 

Sapporo - Day 4 - 17th February 2017

Learning from yesterday, we got up a bit later today. It was a cold and snowy day, with fresh snowfall landing on our heads as soon as we left the hotel. Our hotel was only a few short minutes (less than a 50m walk) from the subway entrance, which is where we headed. A trip to Otaru and Yoichi was on the cards for today.

The train to Otaru left fairly regularly and was a normal city train. The snow was falling thicker as the train wound away from Sapporo and toward the ocean. Soon, the ocean was at our side as the train traveled towards Otaru on snow-covered tracks. We could see seagulls diving into the ocean in search of small fish and I wondered how they could stand the cold. The water did not look inviting, with a wall of snow covering any possible beach.

Soon we had arrived at Otaru. Our goal was the Nikka Whiskey distillery at Yoichi, but to get there we had to change trains at Otaru. The train from Otaru to Yoichi was not regular during Winter-time, and came every few hours. We had about an hour to the next train, so took a walk down to the canals at Otaru. The snow was even thicker and fell heavily as we walked. In no time at all, our faces were stinging from the cold wind that drove the snow down.

Snowfall in Otaru

The canal area was somewhat traditional and was very picturesque. The snow piled on every surface that I could see like a thick, soft pillow.

Otaru Canal

We headed back to the train station to board the train to Yoichi. The Nikka whiskey Distillery was a few minutes walk straight down from the station. We planned to catch the train back in 2 hours time, which was the next train back. Entrance was free, including free whiskey tastings.

Nikka Distillery

The tours that ran were all in Japanese, so we picked up an English brochure and did a self-guide tour through the distillery grounds. The grounds in themselves were beautiful to see, with thick snow piled up against the buildings, enough to make some areas inaccessible. The story of the distillery was interesting even to myself, a non-drinker. We wandered so slowly, that by the time we reached the free whiskey tasting we had only half an hour left until the train back.

High snow piled up between buildings at Nikka Distillery

Because it took us so long, we ran out of time to have any lunch and had to leg it back to the train station. There was a few minutes stopover in Otaru (about 10 minutes) which was just enough time to get some pringle-style chips from a convenience store to tide us over until we got into Sapporo and could get some real food. We arrived in Sapporo Station at 4pm with growling stomachs and found a restaurant in the train station to eat a quick meal at. Having not had anything besides the chips since breakfast at 9am that morning, and having been shivering in the cold, we were absolutely starving and so grateful for a hot meal.

With lunch done, we took the subway back to Nakajima Koen and walked around the park itself for a while. I attempted to make my first ever snowman, but got bored very quickly and gave up after five minutes had created nothing more than a small bump on the ground. I did enjoy making a snow angel. I was surprised with the fine powder-like quality of the snow which meant that it was easy to brush off after creating my snow angel. It felt like icing sugar rubbing through my fingers.

Nakajima Koen at night

As another snow-first, I ended the day by falling flat on my back as we headed back towards the hotel. I was mildly embarrassed until a Japanese businessman skidded on the same patch of sidewalk I had, nearly toppling over but managing to bounce back off his briefcase.

Bikes at Nakajima Koen

Building a Snowman

Sapporo - Day 3 - 16th February 2017

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Japanese convenience stores? Probably a few times. I could happily eat every meal of the day from Japanese convenience stores. Our hotel was sandwiched between 2 - a Lawson on one side and a convenience store we hadn't seen before, Seico mart on the other. The Seico Mart by far had the biggest range, including fresh veggies and fruit, but Lawson Mart had better breakfast treats. Today we ate from both - Breakfast from Lawson and post-dinner snack from Seico.

We started our day off pretty early - too early in fact. In Japan everything opens late. You can't expect any of the attractions to open before 10 or 11 am. We didn't remember this from last time and got up at 8am (a sleep in for us!), had breakfast and then walked into Susukino to catch a tram to the Mt Moiwa shuttle bus stop, intent on seeing the mountain. At around 9.30am we arrived at the shuttle bus stop, only to find that the shuttle bus, and the ropeway, didn't start up until 11am in the Winter season. To pass time we decided we would try to walk to Maruyama Park, which we thought was somewhere nearby. 

We walked. and walked. Probably not all that far, but in so many layers, and with so much snow on the ground, walking took a lot more energy than normal. The sun was also still shining, so the snow had melted even more and it was difficult not to slip on the dirty black sludge everywhere. It also meant that the effort of walking in such different conditions caused us to overheat, so we were constantly taking clothes off and putting them back on every time the wind came along. After struggling for 40 minutes, and not really having gotten anywhere, we turned around and made our way back to the Mt Moiwa Shuttle Bus stop and decided to just count that as the days' exercise. I had also had my Pokemon Go out to try and catch a far-fetch'd (the Asian-exclusive regional Pokemon) but no such luck.

The shuttle bus was just about to pull away as we arrived so we hustled on, squeezing our sweaty but somehow still cold bodies into the small seats. A few short minutes later and we were at the Mt. Moiwa ropeway. The ropeway cost us about  ¥1700 per person for a return journey to the top. The view from the ropeway was very pretty, watching more of a snow-covered Sapporo be revealed as we went higher and higher up. Soft, twinkling music played in the near-empty Gondola as it swayed gently. 

Going Up the Ropeway

At the top of Mt Moiwa it was blisteringly cold. The sights were stunning but it was hard to stay outside for long. We stayed up the top for a while, stopping to have lunch in the small cafe outlet attached to the restaurant. We had a weird sort of potato stick that was actually quite yummy (and most importantly, warm!).

On top of Mt. Moiwa

By the time we headed back down, it was heading into mid-afternoon and there wasn't too much daylight left. 

A cemetary on the way down the ropeway

Sapporo - Day 2 - 15th February 2017

For the second day in a row, I woke up grudgingly with a 4am alarm. We had a 6.30am flight to make from Narita Domestic to Sapporo and had to get on the first shuttle bus of the morning from our hotel to the airport. 

A short hour later our plane was circling over fields covered in snow as we came in to land at New Chitose Airport. We grabbed our bags and wandered toward the train station. The train station was a few levels down in the New Chitose Airport. However, my belly was grumbling and I think my husband could see the 'hangry' on my face, so we decided to grab some breakfast before getting onto the plane.

Hokkaido Milk

Japanese airports and train stations are sort of amazing. Typically, they have a labyrinthine shopping mall attached to them, and New Chitose was no exception. We found a little milk cafe who sold all of about 5 products - plain milk, iced coffee, a custard style pudding, milk sponge and toasted flavoured milk sponge. Hugh had an iced coffee that he says was one of the best of his life. Milk and milk products are very famous in Hokkaido. Next to this little milk cafe was the Royce Chocolate World, which spanned 4 shop fronts (three actual shops and one display). 

If you've never tried Royce Nama chocolate, then you need to. I have successfully managed to get my family and several work colleagues addicted.Royce Nama Chocolate is decadently creamy and the ultimate chocolate treat. I usually allow myself 1 small piece at a time. At about $10 for 9 small pieces, it's very expensive. Royce chocolate world had a variety of flavours and I made a mental note of which ones to stock up on for when we left.

Royce Chocolate World - Shop 1 of 4

After our breakfast we headed down to the train, and in true Japanese style, we paid all of  ¥1000 per person for our tickets (Super cheap!) and had gotten on a train bound for Sapporo within 2 minutes of purchasing our tickets. 

In Sapporo, the sky was blue and the sun was shining, creating sparkles in the snow across the ground. We found our way (eventually) to the subway Namboku line to Nakajima Koen. Our hotel was right across the road from Nakajima Koen, for which I was thankful. Wheeled bags are not snow-friendly. We made a quick stop at the hotel to dump our bags (we were too early for check in). 

The bright day meant that some of the snow had started to melt, creating a lot of ice on the footpaths. Convenience stores in Japan sell a truly amazing (and perplexing) amount of weird items, and I was able to get some small cramp-on style attachments for my shoes to provide extra grip in the ice. They were about $7AUD and had rubber that stretched over the back and front of whatever shoes you wear, and a studded area that goes on the heel of the shoe for grip,

Once I was no longer at risk of serious physical injury we decided to spend the day exploring the city of Sapporo and wandered into Susukino (the shopping district/city center) which was a few kilometers from our hotel. We visited Don Quixote, which is a huge 24 hour tax-free department store that sold pretty much everything I could think of. 

We had warm ramen for lunch which was great in the cold, before walking back to the hotel to fully check in. After checking in, we had a quick nap, and then decided to catch the Subway back into Sapporo station. There was a Yodobashi Camera store that Hugh wanted to visit and where we found some cheap data sim cards to use in Sapporo. It cost ¥2400 (just over $25AUD) for 1GB of data over 7 days which was perfect for us. I wish we'd known about these sims last time rather than paying a mint for overseas credit. 

By this time, it was getting late, so our stomachs made the decision to find some dinner. We caught a cab (again, so cheap, about $10AUD) out to Sapporo Beer Garden. Unfortunately we didn't realise that if you want to have dinner there, the very first thing you should do, before checking out the displays or anything like that, is to book your dinner tickets. The wait can be long, even in the middle of the week, and I get the feeling that weekend reservations need to be booked over the phone. So we didn't book our dinner tickets, and instead walked through the free beer museum, then gift shop. After that, we walked across to the restaurant, only to be told that we needed a reservation ticket, which was to be collected from the museum  *sigh*. So we trudged back across to the beer museum, booked our tickets (it was now 8pm) and were told that it would be a half an hour at best wait. 

Outside of Sapporo Beer Garden

Half an hour later and we were finally sitting down to dinner at the hall. At the hall, patrons pretty much cook their own food. Vegetables and meat are brought out (as much as you can eat) and you cook them over a grill at your table. The air in the hall was thick with smoke from hundreds of people cooking their food in a closed-in space. It was an interesting way of eating a meal. We clocked off the day at 25,000 steps and headed back to Nakajima Koen for some much-needed rest.

Dinner!

Tokyo - Day 1 - 14th February 2017

Late September in 2016 my husband and I snapped up some cheap Jetstar tickets into Sapporo for about $300 per person return from Cairns. We found a great sale from Brisbane to Cairns and tickets came in very cheaply - in fact, cheaper than some travel in Australia, such as to Adelaide or Perth from Brisbane. What made the deal sweeter was that the tickets on sale were around the time of our 10 year anniversary.

Our official anniversary was on the 10th of February. 10 years of adventures together.

4 days later, we boarded a jet plane to Cairns, had a short stroll between domestic and international and then boarded another plane to Tokyo. Flight time between Cairns and Tokyo is only about 7 hours and I think we managed to get into Tokyo early. We had some good winds or something. My husband and I always book seats at the back of the plane, because other people are less willing to sit up at the back. It usually means we can get 3 seats to ourselves, which we had on the flight to Tokyo, At just after 5pm in the afternoon (Japan time) we arrived into Narita airport. Passport Control and Customs moved fairly quickly, so less than half an hour later we were on the outside of the building, finding our bus stop to take the shuttle to our hotel, as we weren't continuing on to Sapporo until early the next morning.

Tokyo was definitely a lot colder than Australia (which had hit 37 to 38 degrees in Brisbane in the days before we left) and we shivered a bit as we dragged our bags behind us on the route from Terminal 2 to Terminal 3. 

Our hotel for the night was Nikko Narita, which we had actually booked last time we went to Japan, but never got to stay in due to a days delay with Jetstar. The rooms were quite nice.

We had arrived on Valentines day, and in Japan the female gives the male chocolate on Valentines Day. Men reciprocate a few months later on White Day. Nikko Narita had a Lawson mini-mart on ground level, so we made a quick pit stop there so I could buy Hugh some cheap Meiji chocolate.

We had dinner in the cafe next to the Lawson Mart, before taking a wander around the hotel grounds. 

We pushed open the door to the back outside area of the hotel and walked into a beautiful light wonderland. Rows of dazzling lights lined a tunnel, and the grounds were covered in various coloured twinklers. We walked amongst the glow for a while until my hands became numb and I had to escape back inside.

Inside the much toastier building, we turned to the right to see another restaurant in the hotel. Outside the hotel stood a cute service robot, barely thigh height. A small boy was conversing with the 'Pepper' robot. Pepper's bright blue, large, animated eyes followed him wherever his energetic body moved. Watching the exchange I began to forget that Pepper wasn't human; he had the qualities of a small child himself. Hugh was still outside taking photos of the lights as I watched the child banter with the robot. As the child stood closer, Pepper gently put his arm around the child and drew him closer to caress his shoulder in the manner a friend would. It was oddly beautiful to watch.

Pepper robot. NOTE: This is not my pic. I did not want to be that creepy person taking photos of random kids. Instead, I just steal them off the world wide web.

As the child said his goodbyes, Hugh arrived back inside, shivering, and we made our way up to our room for a quick sleep before getting up early (4am early) to catch our connecting flight to Sapporo.

London - Paris-Brisbane - Day 22 - 6th to 8th March 2016

For the first time on a ‘moving’ day we didn’t have far to drag our suitcases. It was an easy walk this morning from our cheap, chain hotel to Euston International Station. We had a date  with a train to Paris. Everyone talked about the Eurostar – Hugh’s dad to say it was outdated, his wife Margie to say it was great fun, and our travel agent to tell us how much money we would save flying out from Paris instead of London.

St. Pancras Station

It was bad advice. Take the flight out of London. The Eurostar was old and outdated – and incredibly squishy.

Once we’d battled to get our luggage to fit (The Eurostar did not have nearly enough spaces for luggage) the Eurostar actually chugged along nicely – until it got to the tunnel. I’m just going to say that I don’t like enclosed spaces – particularly when there is no way to exit them. So the tunnel bit I was ok with, because it had open ends. The train malfunctioning during the power change-over I was not ok with. I was wondering why the train had been sitting at the mouth of the tunnel  for a quarter of an hour when an announcement came over that we were unable to connect to the tunnel power grid, and essentially we would lose power entirely for an undefined amount of time – including the ability to open cabin doors and the air-conditioning. Best way to get me into a panic attack ever. Despite it being winter, once the power went out the cabin heated up pretty fast. We sat without power for an hour before it finally came back on and we could continue our journey.

I was happy when I could get out of the cramped seats at Paris – having spent an hour more than expected on them.

We checked our bags into the Left Luggage area as soon as we arrived, intent on spending the day exploring, as our flight didn’t leave Charles De Gaulle until 7pm at night. Paris wasn’t really on the same page as we were though.

Before leaving the train station I went to use the ladies facilities, and came back out to see what looked like an impending fist-fight between a British tourist and a Parisian about some money that the Parisian had stolen from the British guy. Loads of people were standing around gawking, including the security guards who were laughing instead of stopping any fight from happening. Hugh and I left the train station as quickly as we could.

Outside the train station was no better. We stopped in for some super duper expensive crepes (disappointing crepes. I’ve had way better in Australia) for lunch, then headed to the Sacre Coeur. Within a few minutes of starting our walk I felt uncomfortable. We saw a man harass a woman with her 2 children for money and then the thief from the train station walked past us. As we got closer to the Sacre Coeur I was feeling very out of my comfort zone. There were scams happening left right and centre. We eventually made our way through the crowd in the streets nearby and found the Sacre Coeur itself. I have a vague recollection that it was quite impressive for the outside, but I didn’t get much chance to look, as anybody who entered the are was beset by illegal immigrants trying to scam or sell you things, every 2 steps. Or in the case of one gentleman, spitting at us when we didn't give him any Euros. 

Almost as soon as we arrived, we turned around and left. An hour after arriving in Paris, we had decided we had enough. It was a horrible, smelly, the French were incredibly rude, and it made me feel so uneasy. So we collected our bags from the deposit, somehow found our way through and headed straight off to the airport – 7 hours earlier than planned. When we arrived we had about 4 hours until we could even check in our bags, so we sat on the outside of the airport, where there were a few cafes, and wasted time there. It was a much better choice than staying in Paris. I wouldn’t go back to that place if you paid me to go.

Several hours later we eventually got to board the plane for a 10 hour trip to Incheon. We had a quick 3 hour layover, where we got to use the free showers, and got to take part in the free cultural activities, which included decorating a hand-mirror that I got to take home as a souvenir.

Decorated hand mirror

We boarded the next plane and finally arrived back in Brisbane at 7am the next morning, to discover that somewhere in Paris, someone had scanned Hugh's credit card and made multiple purchases off it.  I had a thought later that the 'fight' in the train station was probably not real, but a chance for someone to walk around and steal details while everyone was distracted. Thanks Paris, just another thing I'll remember you for. Luckily, the rest of our holiday was amazing, and we just joke about Paris now (our bank refunded the money which was great).

First things First at home: Updating the fridge!