My first visit to Hokkaido, Japan and Brisbane, Australia

This is a very overdue post for my holiday trip in October 2015.

Somehow when things get really busy at work where I'm constantly creating new tasks and checking those that I'd completed, I just want to sleep in and not listing things to do in my mind for the weekends. I'm supposed to call the credit card company and I'm feeling lazy; I'm supposed to bring in the laundry and I'm thinking later.

So after mopping around for awhile.. it's 9.42pm now, I think this is the only accomplishment I've done for the day. I'm just tired and want to rest. I'd just prepared a few posts, titled them and most prolly will publish them slowly.

Anyway, it's no more SIA and Hello ANA. There's no direct flight to Hokkaido and there's no bullet train there as well. Weather is colder as compared to Tokyo but the air is a lot cleaner (that it made my skin better as I'm suffering from eczema and the haze) and the pace there is slower, more relax. You'll really feel like you're there on a holiday holiday.

Got a red-eyed flight from SG to Narita, switch to domestic and landed in Hokkaido about 3 hours from Narita. Time was tight but still manageable.

Truth be told, I can't remember which airport is this taken from. Most prolly Narita because it'll be dark in SG. As I am quite a picky person when it comes to food, planes, hotels, etc. Food wise is alright, I'd prefer SIA's but seat wise, ANA wins hands down. Although it's an economy class, but the seats were design in a way that it'll move your bottom seat while your backrest is still intact. I prefer that because I won't be affected by whoever is sitting in front of me to suddenly move their seat backwards and causing my food to drop - that can be really troublesome cleaning up. That nearly happen to me during my trip to Australia. I was practically surrounded by oversize people - I'm mean and I'm not that skinny but to feel small when the seats are quite ... tight is really no joke! Especially when they can shift their seat backwards violently (not gentle) and I was glad to be holding onto my food and there was no drinks on my tray yet.




First stop from Chitose Airport - Noboribetsu

It is famous for it's Hell Valley where there're smokes coming out of it, you'll smell sulphur and if my memory didn't fails me, it's an active volcano.

Climbed up all the way to the top and back, found this scenery and it looked really beautiful, like it was taken out of a picture. All photos are taken with my mobile phone by the way as I was lazy to bring a better camera along.

I can't capture the fumes here.





A lot of caution signs not go over the fence; not to put your hands in; the heat; etc.






As it's nearing winter, it's really colder in Hokkaido because it's further up north as compared to Tokyo in October. Tokyo was like 16 degrees low and 20 high while Hokkaido was like 11 degrees with strong wind throughout the day (I kept checking the weather condition). Day is shorter in Hokkaido as well. Sky was dark by 5.30pm (like the skies at 7.30pm in SG), you'll need to wake up earlier than 8am - if I didn't remember wrongly too, shops there open very early as compared to Tokyo. So to make full use of your days there exploring and visiting museums, shops, you gotta be up early and prepare entertainment such as your iPad or laptop to accompany you at night.

Here is the streets of Noboribetsu. Love the "7-11" there as they provide tissues and chopsticks when you bought food there - where you can just use your hands to eat.

Despite the cold weather, I would buy ice cream to eat - it's really nice and tempting... Only to be shivering inside from the cold. Cold wind + cold temperature + cold body = Super cold!

Room book was a traditional style ryokan. :)
It's very spacious and could fit 4 people, there's a balcony overlooking the back garden.
This is how it look like during the daytime and the air con didn't need to be on at all because the room itself it already cold from the air outside. One night stay is definitely not enough but two nights is quite costly as it's about 400+ per night.

You could choose to eat in the room or downstairs in their restaurant. If you're staying in this kind of hotel for at least two nights, I'll recommend dining in the room for 1 night and downstairs for the 2nd night just to have the feel of it. It's different. In the evening around 5~6plus, there'll be someone coming over to move the table and lay the futon for you. It's very comfortable and cosy.





This is the back garden and the left building looks like it's more traditional than mine - I think it's the new wing. It was raining heavily by evening time all the way to morning.

Dinner and breakfast are provided. If you do not eat certain food like seafood or beef, you'll need to indicate it in the remarks column when you're booking the room. So S$400+ per night is totally worth it. There's meals, there's onsen and the room is quite big. The feel is totally different as compared to the modern hotel.

Below is the list of food they are serving us. They'll bring them in one by one and although the portion isn't big but you'll be full by the time you're reaching the last 4 dishes of your meal. They'll prepare a "room" for you to dine in and I was quite amazed when they actually asked who's the one having NO Seafood and I sit according to where the menu is. It's quite cold in the dining area and I was glad to wear my jacket out (and glad to have invested in a really good jacket for all seasons) but I was shivering on my legs.

Lake Toya was the next destination - Don't have much photos taken there because most of the tourist places are closed due to the strong wind running at 50km. Most of the diners were closed after lunch and open in the evening from 6pm onwards. So I sat outside in the cold for close to 30 mins to wait for the owner to arrive, prepare and finally open the door. The hot soup and ramen really warms my body while watching the news on tv - talking about the strong wind and a typhoon may hit our area with a probability of 2%. It's quite worrying for me because I've never encounter such natural disaster overseas - SG is really too safe and back in the hotel room, I kept looking at the newsflash (the type when the guys are being called back for reservist) and checking out the areas listed. The news kept reporting about the strong wind in other areas; water waves were too strong 'cause of the wind and it went over to land, 3~4 people were dead, etc.

By the next morning, the weather was calm and well like nothing happen the night before. Hah.

Oh yah, due to the strong wind, the train service from Noboribetsu to Lake Toya were cancelled and we have to find another way over - the longer way.

From Lake Toya, we shift down to Hakodate (saw a status of Date!!!!!!! when my train passed by an area). It was hotter there with 12 degree and 25km of wind. The place reminded me of Hiroshima / Nagasaki where you can complete the area with a map and there are trams! Did a lot of walking there and ended the day with a beautiful view of Hakodate.

Took a cable car up to the highest point but there were too many people. A mixture of locals and tourists, I realised there are a lot of Chinese tourist too - seems like Japan is one of the popular destination for them aside from Thailand and Hong Kong.

Look at the looooooooooooong queue! It moved quite fast though.

but it was worth it. :)

Waited for awhile to get a window seat (not very long) to enjoy my dinner with the view.

Next was Otaru - Went to the Rail Museum and took a video of the steam train for Eli and he loves it very  much when I played it for him back in SG. Chanced upon a shop that sells ALL TOTORO stuffs!!! Nearly went crazy inside and bought a lot of stuffs which I brought back fortunately. There was another back which we left at the ramen place only to remember about it on the last day of stay in Hokkaido.

After Otaru was 2 nights stay in Sapporo - visited the Sapporo beer museum. :)

So the way back to SG, our flight from Hokkaido was to Haneda then we have to catch a limousine bus to Narita (it was a very smooth ride despite the heavy traffic on the highway. I really wonder how did they do that.) then catch the plane back to SG. That explains the 3 hour window period between the flights from Hokkaido to Tokyo and Tokyo to SG. Thought I'll have time to do a little shopping even though my luggage is threatening to burst. I was quite worried that it'll be overweight since I've never experience that before and have never exceed the weight.

Came back to SG after a week, suck in a few breath of the hazy air, unpack and repack for summer as we are heading to Brisbane, Australia the next day. It was a huge gamble but it all went well and it was really fun to do that. I was glad that my travel partner went along with my plan.

I was a bit worried throughout my whole trip in Australia about meeting racist locals or experiencing them since my friends have quite a bit of experiences with that. Luckily for me, it all went well, the salespersons in the malls are quite friendly.

And yes, it's a must for me to try out McDonalds in every countries / cities I'd visited. :)

Stayed at a friend's place and I really saved a lot on accommodation plus the weak Aussie dollar against SGD. It was my last night in Brisbane and I took the chance to hug and take a picture with Koguma, the dog who doesn't like to be close to human.

We visited the very huge gardening mart and I couldn't resist but to buy some seeds to plant here in SG. These are suitable for our weather and hopefully I can grow them successfully, harvest them and cook it!

Ohh.. it doesn't hurt to give my beginner's luck a test. :)
I didn't win in the end. Tsk.

A summary of my trip in the land of OZ.
It was quite a pleasant journey so far and I must say, it was tough trying to get myself adjusted to the different level of service in Japan and Australia then back to SG. I don't think things are really expensive there for now because of the constant sales they have - I could buy a decent pair of shoes for Mark with A$10, buy clothes of good material cheaply as well. Food servings are quite big and I definitely cannot finish them by myself. It's good if I can share with my friend then yeah, eating is cheap there. McDonalds is waaaaay more expensive there then again, their burgers are bigger so it's quite worth paying for it.

Would I still go visit Australia again? I might if the exchange rates stays the same as now but I'll want to visit Korea, Taiwan and Hokkaido for now.