Cely 完美的一天

Yokoso Japan - Hokkaido Day 4

Note: You may wanna read Day 1, Day 2 and Day 3. :)

As I said, we stayed at a very small hotel in Asahikawa town. This is the outer look of the hotel. A very typical town area hotel.

After the hotel breakfast, we were told by Kelvin we are going to Furano.  Furano is famous for its Lavender fields. Off course we are not able to see lavender at this season. But I am damn exciting that we are able to see a lot of flowers at this season.

At first, we were lucky to pluck fruits. Now we are lucky because still able to see flowers.

On the way to Furano which will take about 1 hour from Asahikawa, we passed by a famous shrine. Famous because of the visits of Japan Emperor. But I don’t get the name of the shrine.

According to Kelvin, we all can ‘drink’ the water. The ‘water’ is to ‘clean’ all our sins before we go into shrine for praying.

The surrounding was so peacefully quiet. There were no visitors, not prayers too.

The shrine.

A list of the Emperors who visited the shrine.

This was actually a money box. We as ‘normal people’ were not allowed to go into the shrine itself to pray. We can only stand here, which was outside the shrine, throw money into this box and pray.

The only day with blue sky. Lucky-nya. Because later we are going to flower farm.

One kawaii girl we met at the shrine. She was here because she is 3 years old. So? You guess what’s the big deal? Apparently, Japanese has this Shichi-go-san festive. It’s a traditional ritual and festival in Japan where 3 and 7 years old girl and 3and 5 years old boy will dress up for this Shichi-go-san festival.

KAWAIIIIIIII lor… in kimono somemore. I wanna cubit her.

My tour mates cant help but to take photo with her. I was too shy. I think she was tired of posing already.

I can’t believe we actually spent almost an hour there when no one is allowed to enter the shrine.

Failed to pose.

Better pose like this.

One of my tour mates. We gave him a lot of nicknames. He is acting pretty weird during the whole trip. Mostly talking to himself, reading the signboards loudly, practicing his qi-gong whenever he can.

Hiak!

After bili-bala at the shrine, we head to Furano- Biei. Reached a farm but no flowers. All dying already one.

Can you believe this is LAVENDER? We picked and smell. It’s indeed lavender. But not in beautiful purple color. Poor lavender, drying already.

Some colorful flowers.

Lonely tree.

Leaves are falling. Trees are getting botak, but no worries, soon they are given a white cap. :)

Killing red rose!

Biei is famous for the wide field. There we are! SUPER wide field! and the super fair face of me!

Can’t help to pose a lot and took a lot photos.

Did a Jump too. After I jump, they thought its fun.

And THEY JUMP too. Look at the round belly. HAHAHA. I mean round BELLIES… is there such a word bellies?

Since we don’t see much flowers here. we just stay a while and left.

Some silhouette pose.

Guess what, Kelvin treat us the LAVENDER Ice-cream. Only treat leng luis la. The Japanese has fully utilize lavender. They make a lot of products out of lavender, like aroma fragrance, ice cream, essential oil, shampoo, hand wash liquid, fragrance, etc etc.

How’s the taste of lavender ice-cream? Taste like lavender lo.. :p Sweet la, it’s still ice-cream ma.

Then we were brought to this Biei street, where all the buildings have the year of built labeled on the building.

It’s actually pretty sunny. I am pretending having headache. :p

Built in year 1935.

The time we visit Hokkaido was very near to Halloween day. This is why you see so many pumpkins.

This must be the Biei Station. The train was so short. Cute.

Because Biei street was on our way to the farm, therefore we stop by to see how beautiful was the street. After visiting the street, we went for our lunch.

The food was not too bad. We had some ramen with different kind of soup, Japanese curry and some pasta.

After the lunch, we spent another hour at the market below the canteen. Guess what, everyone is buying the hand cream, some essential oil, all make from lavender. Furano is lavender city ma.

Then we finally reach to our destination - Shikisai farm (四 季 彩 の 丘). It’s privately own and open for public. I am impressed. The farm was open all 4 seasons. They will make sure you have fun when visiting the farm, even winter.

They have made a calender showing what flowers you are able to see during which month. Even winter, you can go there for snowboarding, snowskiing and ride the snow motor.

Visitors can rent this truck if they didn’t want to walk too much.

Good weather, good view. I may not visit to many countries, but Hokkaido is really a nice place to visit. I am truly in love with all the scenery.

I was actually hoping to see flowers blooming. But it’s pretty impossible for this season I guess.

This view look pretty fake. But swear to god, this was what we see over there. OMG, the color is soooooo beautiful.

I love flowers with blue skies.

I told you so, very good weather.

Can’t help to take few more photos with the sun, see the effect of Hongkiat’s camera.

Some not-fully-grown sunflower. Kelvin told us the sun flowers at the back there very beautiful. When we reached, we were disappointed. How can this be beautiful.

So we thought of settling the case by taking a few photos with the sunflowers.

At least I took photos with sunflowers.

Then next to sunflowers were some pink flowers. Beautiful lor!

Must take photo with all the flowers.

Camwhoring with my husband! hahahaha. my husband.

How beautiful if they are blooming.

The snow cap mountain from far far far behind.

Walked further up to the farm, saw more flowers.

But i have no idea of the flower’s name. They might put up the names on the board somewhere.. but I didn’t see any.

FINALLY we saw the beautiful sunflowers that Kelvin was talking about.

I AM sorry kelvin, we misunderstood you. The sunflowers were truly B-E-A-U-T-I-F-U-L!!!!!

Faster say OH MY GOD.

Almost as tall as me. Okay la.. touching my shoulder lo.

Sunflower as big as my face. hahaha!

Nice effect hor?

That’s me and Hongkiat, doing stupid pose.

Hongkiat and his creative shot.

If you still remember, that’s our local tour leader - Kevin. Not Kelvin the tour guide.

This was the mascot of the farm. Actually I’ve took quite a few photos with the mascot, but I think this is the best.

On the way to a Photography museum. We were not allow to take any photos there. We also don’t have too much interest on the museum. This photographer was said to be the famous photographer who can took the very beautiful photos of Hokkaido.

Well, I gotto respect some art work here. (But Hokkaido is already beautiful, I can also take beautiful photos lo?) Haha. Just kidding.

Not much people showing interest to the photography museum, we were then head to the hotel of that night.

The journey from Furano to Sounkaku took approxiemately 2 hours. It was night time when we reach Sounkaku. It was the coldest night ever. I was literally shivering the moment i stepped out the bus.

Sounkaku Grand Hotel. It is a very nice hotel. Spacious room. Tatami-style. Nice buffet dinner. Great outdoor onsen.

As usual, we dropped our luggages at room before heading to dinner.

Our dinner was buffet style. All food were looking good.

They always pre-arranged the bed for you while you went out for dinner. Nicely made. The printing also look good.

Pretty spacious right? Can sleep more people in there. I think this is a family room.

We thought of wearing the Yukata for the last time. Kelvin told us, this will be the last night we stayed at Tatami-style hotel. Also the last hotel which offer free onsen. OMG, i was like, it’s now or never. I must experience the outdoor onsen before the trip end!

So I went to the onsen (please click on the link to see the outdoor onsen). Alone. For the first time. Outdoor hot spring. COLD weather. NAKED.

The experience was funny.

1. First, you need to undress yourself. Put your belongs in the locker. Can only bring a small tower. Not even enough to cover your head.

2. To make sure onsen works for you, you should weight yourself before going Onsen. So you can tell the difference after the Onsen.

3. Then you gotto bath before going to Onsen. Everyone must make sure one is clean. Enter big bathroom. Big, meaning a lot of water pipes there. 1 water pipe is cater for 1 person. A set of shampoo, body shower gel and conditioner are prepared there next to the pipe. Besides these, there were also a small chair and small pail for you to sit there and bath. Oh oh, there was a mirror too.

4. I don’t know about you, but it’s so easy to see everyone’s body. Not to peek? It’s totally hard. I am not a pervert. But I am curious. Moreover, it’s my first time.

5. I quickly took a bath. There were 4 there women in the bath room. Oh oh, in case you are wondering. This onsen is separated by man and woman. Everyone else is taking own sweet time to take bath. I wonder why. It’s so embarrassing. Okay, it’s not my culture.

6. After bath, I soak into a cold water tub. Big tub. Soak for a while.

7. Then went straight to the onsen. It was an outdoor onsen. The weather was soooo cold out there. I quickly run and soak into the hot spring. Can’t even stay 1 more second under cold weather with my naked body.

Soak in the hot spring for about 10 mins. I went again to soak in the cold water for few moments. Then went soak into the onsen again. It was very nice soaking into hot spring on such cold weather. My body was hot but the face and head feeling cold. Heheh. Luckily there was not much light out there. After I soak in the onsen for a while, then came another 2 woman. 1 old 1 young. But cant see them clearly la. :p

After about 20 minutes, I decided to come out from onsen. I took another bath before I come out.

Oh, off coz we were not allow to take photo. But you can click on the link to see the outdoor onsen.

I found the rest of them not yet went for onsen but having fun playing badminton and ping pong. Apparently, we have few talented ping pong players in the group! Wow.

Kelvin has booked the court upon arrival. I watched them playing for about 1 hour. I was not playing because I already took a bath after onsen, I didn’t wanna sweat anymore.

After that, me and Hongkiatk decided to take a walk around the hotel.

The hotel lobby.

Some snack that I bought from the mini mart in the hotel.

This chocolate biscuit was good.

And Hongkiat tapao-ed the Fried rice. Haha. Bought from the vending machine again.

I ended my post with the photo I took the next morning, from the room window.

Happy New Year!!