Cely 完美的一天

Yokoso Japan - Hokkaido Day 1

It was such a thrill that our dream came true. Japan is our dream country.

The day we decided to make Japan as our honeymoon trip, I’ve started my usual routine - check out the places we wanna go, read forums, watch over the currency rate, know-how about the visa application, etc. It will be autumn and near to winter when we visit Japan.

We booked Hokkaido tour during Natas Fair in Singapore and extend the return flight. We wanted to extend our stay at Tokyo after the Hokkaido tour. I know, exciting right? Ok, i heard ‘expensive’ too.

A brief picture to you before I start my 2 weeks holiday:

8 days 7 nights Hokkaido (tour package) + 9 days 8 Nights Tokyo (Free and Easy).

Let’s start with Singapore International airport. We always reach early to the airport. I know about online check in, but still I didn’t want to be too late. Oh btw, we are flying with SQ.

Hongkiat was doing some preparation for his upcoming blog post.

We took 6 hours plus to reach Nagoya Airport. Waited 2 hours at the airport before boarding to Chitose Airport (Hokkaido). There is no direct flight from Singapore to Hokkaido, therefore we transit at Nagoya.

Nagoya is a boring airport. Not much shops around. Probably we didn’t explore enough. The passengers that took the same flight with us were all Japanese. It’s like Subang Airport, everyone go there take domestic flight. :)

The announcements that made in the airport and on the plane were all in Japanese. It’s really like no foreigner who does not understand Japanese will take flight here like that. Felt a bit miserable, alienated.

Flying over some mountains. One of the the flight attendances did try her best to tell us what mountains we were crossing, but I have no idea what she was talking about.

It was beautiful when Hongkiat zoomed in and shoot. My LX3 definitely can’t reach that far. :)

After 2 hours of flight from Nagoya to Chitose, we met with our tour guide (from Japan), group leader (from Singapore) and tour group (about 20 of them). They were flying from Shanghai to Chitose with China Eastern Airline. Well, they were taking different airline, so transit differently.

The first thing we do when we reach Chitose, we head to lunch. 29 tourmates, 1 local tour guide and 1 group leader were all sitting in a coach. It was about 12pm local time. We were brought to a big food court, no, a big canteen.

We are all familiar with most of the Japanese food. Also quite familiar with how to eat and handle the food.

The Hotpot. Just like steamboat la.

Sashimi. You are not suppose to throw it to the hotpot to cook it! You are suppose to eat them raw! But the uncle sitting in front of us, guess he didn’t like raw meat, he throw the ebi sashimi into the hotpot. What’s funny about the act was, he think for a while and decided to throw the sashimi into hotpot after the group leader told him to eat raw.

Scallop.

Inside the hotpot - Prawn and Salmon and bean sprout.

This big canteen was actually a market. Market selling stuff downstairs and canteen upstairs.

Weather was good, considering no raining and no sun. It was about 11 degree at that moment.

I was so exciting to see such colorful vending machines. :p (But then no more exciting about these vending machines after 1 day in Hokkaido)

Big ice cream cone like this was seen everywhere in Japan. Indicating ice cream were sold here. Yes, soft ice cream.

Saw Corn kitkat and Pumkin kitkat there, but didn’t buy any and try. A bit regretted. It says “Hokkaido Only”.

After eating the lunch, we were brought to Noboribetsu Bear Park. Almost an hour drive to the bear farm. By the time we reach there, it’s close to 3.30pm.

Everyone in the tour took picture with this bear. :p

We gotto take a cable ride up to the hill before we reach the bear park. Cable ride was never Hongkiat’s favourite.

All the leaves has got different color. So Autumn-ly beautiful! Ahaha.

Another beautiful moment Hongkiat managed to catch. It was taken during the cable car trip.

Then we reached the bear park. All the bears has got a name and age labeled on the board. But I bear know it meh… all the bears look the same to me, how to differentiate which one is which?

We bought some cookies to feed them. In order to get fed, they have to attract our attention. They will either stand up or wave to us. I don’t know what other people think, but i think they were smart to get attention from tourist. :p We even recorded the actions in video.

The bear park was closing at around 4.00pm, we can’t stay any longer. But tour guide quickly brought us to a higher observation deck to see Lake Kuttara.

It was beautiful. But bearly unlucky, we can’t stay longer because the park keeper kept on shoo-ing us. We have to take a cable car ride back to where we from. Oh By the way, the don’t call it cable car, instead they call it Rope Way. :D

Japan is one hour faster than Malaysia/Singapore. Day is shorter than night at this season. Sunset start around 4pm. It will be night by 5.30pm.

Then we took another 1 hour from Noboribetsu to our hotel of the night - Toya Park Hotel Tensyo. It was the biggest hotel at Lake Toya.

To me, the hotel consider pretty big and grand. It has got outdoor onsen (hot spring), big restaurant (More like a canteen), mini mart (souvenir shop), pachinko, slot machines etc etc.

The local tour guide (I am going to call him Kelvin from now on) said we were very very lucky.

1. Our rooms are facing the lake view. Totally awesome.

2. There will be fireworks events at about 8.50pm. It was because there were some VIP staying at the same hotel, therefore the hotel arrange the firework events. Double the awesomeness.

Lucky right? Staying at hotel only, can see fireworks. where to find?

Upon checking in to the hotel, it’s dinner time. We dined in the big restaurant of the hotel. Very high ceiling, buffet style of dinner.

We were told to experience the Japanese culture. Kelvin suggest we all wearing the Yukata that hotel provided. After dinner, relax for at least 30 minutes and head straight to Onsen.

Isn’t he looking cute in yukata? :p

Almost everyone wear the yukata and meet up at the restaurant. It’s our first night afterall. :p

Most of them are Japanese. Lake Toya is a very famous spot in Hokkaido. Even japanese themselves will come here for holiday. :)

The food in the restaurant were all good. So many choices and taste good actually.

Shiok. This dinner actually set a hig bar for the rest of the journey. haha. Off coz we were talking about the food in hotel, I mean, no one expect hotel food would be good. :p

Hongkiat with this satisfying face.

Talk about onsen, I dare not go. The idea of sharing big bath tub with all the strangers got me chicken out. I did persuade myself: Oh come on, you have come this far to Japan, just experience the culture. But then, I can’t. Not for the first day. I didn’t wanna see my tour mates naked body. Haha.

Kelvin told us, the onsen in the hotel has a very nice view. Again, it’s lake view. Oh, and it’s outdoor. I can imagine how great the view would be if it’s day time. I can also imagine how great it would be bathing in hot spring during cold weather.

But, excuse me, for the first day. I am not joining.

So we decided to get change because we want to see fireworks at the lake side. We can choose to see the fireworks in the room but we thought it would be better view to see it outside.

We walk around in the hotel, visit the mini mart and pachinko center.

Hongkiat was excited to see Ice-cream vending machine. So he decided to buy 1 ice-cream (130 yen).

Slot machines.

We underestimated the cold weather. We were not that cold when we check in to the hotel. But it was so much colder after the dinner. It was like below 10 degrees. The longer we stand by the lakeside to wait for the fireworks, the colder we felt.

But everything worth it. The fireworks last for 30 minutes. They were so beautiful.

Guess what make the cold weather even colder? WIND! We were literally shivering when the wind blow right on our face. Hehe! What an experience.

Okay, no point I put up all the fireworks pictures here. But these fireworks were not those cheap cheap one. Good quality right? Almost like what we saw during New Year celebration! I was really happy to see the fireworks.

Now it’s time for a good sleep. We did not rest well for the whole day. Long hours flight and a whole day journey visiting here and there.

Room was spacious.

This was how it looks before the dinner.

Yea, i know.. Tatami Style!

But after the dinner, there were people help to arrange the bed. Then the room look like this.

Once you look at this, you know it’s comfortable! The blanket can really keep us warm. I was actually awake caused of sweating. We didn’t even on the heater in the room and also let the windows wide open.

But I had a good night sleep. :D

I’ll end my day 1 post with the lake view I see the next morning when I walk to the window

This is the Lake Toya. Great view? Too bad we only stay for 1 night.