Hokkaido trip 201407 – Part 1

Exchange rate 100 yen to S$1.24

Saturday 26 Jul 2014 Singapore -> Chitose

We were bery heng! We got upgraded to Business class from Tokyo to Chitose. Funny thing is we were actually quite late in checking in cuz we horlan abit hehe

From the pics, is it obvious hw wide the space is?

Cuz of the width, I totally dun feel that i was taking a plane. And very soon we touched down le. Why we didnt get Business class frm Spore to Tokyo? boo hoo~

Upon touchdown and grabbing our luggage, we went looking for the free airport shuttle bus to ANA Crown Plaza Hotel Chitose.

We had a fun time walking up n down various bus to ask and all e drivers dun speak English!

Amazing thing is there are shops open when we checked in to hotel. Went to this small shop tat sells don and udon. Hehe gt my beef don and a fried chicken set. Only 500 yen! Hehe…

And their miso soup gt okura inside!

The hotel is decent sized and not too squeezy and I like their breakfast! Alot of variety

Sunday 27 Jul 2014 Chitose -> Furano

Day started w rain! So sad… And we supposed to go Farm Tomita today boo hoo~

Passed by 1 of those tourists shops that I often went during my first Hokkaido trip. Learnt that such shops are called highway oasis. Even though they r tourist shops, ppl will still feel like buying things here. Cuz everything is so cute n nicely packed!

I bought a 200 yen slice of melon hehe

First attraction of e day is cherry picking @ Ohashi Cherry Farm!

Was still worried abt e rain. But Heng ah e cherry farm is covered with plastic sheets de so light drizzle still ok.

But heavy rain may make e whole place very muddy. Tho there is no worry cuz the Japanese tot of everything!

Introducing the whole grp! Clockwise starting from left: Me, SL, NMS, VT, VW

This is like really a first for me. Just pluck frm tree and pop into mouth haha shiokz~ The cherry are not extremely sweet kind and some are even sour. But it’s for e novelty and tasting of freshness haha.. must pluck with the stem and dun eat those that have splits in them liao.

Got a gardener demo to us and said that after eating just spit the seeds onto the ground.

The cherry trees are on very steep slopes. We actually walked till abit tired and it’s steep until can fall down kind. See hw tired V is after climbing and … he dun eat fruits hahahah all for nothing

There are some ppl picnic-ing there even. Hehe 吃够本。

The price we paid at entrance only allows for “buffet” within the garden. If wanna “takeaway”, nd to pay 450 yen per 100g. heheh We decided to buy 1 box back and share.

Lunch was at this hotpot place tats like packed w ppl. Really like e wagyu beef here haha… but funny thing is i dun hav pic of it haha

Hotpot is soso only but a lot of meat. VW tried something new: beef sashimi! hahah I kop a bite and its actually quite ok haha

Farm Tomita is packed full of ppl despite e rain. But so not enjoyable cuz can’t really take pic holding e brolly. And wind is so strong; I was like freezing cuz I in shorts la.

Brolly was rather heavy so once again I put my selfie skill to test haha … Hold brolly; dun get camera wet, dun block view

Some of e lavender already start wilting le so it’s not as nice as I hope too

Cuz it’s so cold. Ppl say cold cold must eat ice cream. So I bought a lavender mixed w milk ice cream haha tats quite nice. Lavender smell not too strong

After which, I end up w…. Another melon ice cream. Quite nice at first bite but abit 腻 towards e end.

Farm Tomita provided us a brochure with which months have what flowers hehe.. Shall keep here as reference for future visits to Hokkaido

Evening time we went Furano Ningle Terrace. I was abit sianz cuz rain and all but e rain actually make e whole place look quite nice! Haha very romantic feel

Got a colleague told me it will be even nicer at night.

This place is full of very unique arts n craft shop. But they are very expensive. Saw this crafted like wood kind of candle and it cost like 3600 yen haha imagine buying S$40 of something to burn

But I still can’t resist buying a small something frm this place to commemorate the visit. 2 matchboxes bwahhaha…. The furano cost 600 yen while e sunflower wan cost 500 yen.

Dinner was at Masaya; recommended by Viv’s colleague. A lot of ppl ordered their curry omu rice cuz it’s chef’s speciality. Hehe but I think I preferred their omu fried noodles.

We ordered some okonomiyaki with potato and cheese but I find it not as nice as the one w squid and ham which V&V ordered

We also ordered their pork steak. The cook still said it’s a show! Haha and they off e lights and lit our pork steak on fire!

Hahah very humorous guy…. Their pork steak is really gd but think very few ppl order. Dunno why.

Oh and its quite big!

3 of us ate to a total of 3060 yen for the 3 dishes and 2 beer and 1 drink.

Our hotel Furano Natulux hotel was very good! There’s 3 of us sharing a room so we gt upgraded to … A suite which is in an annex next to the main building.

There’s actually a washing machine cum dryer in e room ! and a big L shaped sofa. Easily our most spacious room of the whole trip and the biggest bathroom too~

The bathroom have a shower area and a bathtub area and it comes with lavender bath salt. Haha I was e last to bathe so I got to soak! Hehe

Now comes e best part: they gave us a bottle of red wine! The staff was very cute. He said it’s for us to drink; if we dun drink, we can bring hm! "Just take away"

Then since there is red wine, we decided to venture out to buy some snacks to go w e wine. It was …. 14 degrees and we were in shorts hahah amazing right. 3 mad women. Frm far, sure can tell “tourists”!

Monday 28 Jul 2014 Furano -> Asahikawa

Hotel is very good in all aspects but 1. Their windows are blinds de so sunlight streamed in frm 4+am onwards… Woke up a zombie

First stop is ice cream making at Furano Cheese Factory. Actually it’s rather out of way n surroundings not very nice so can give it a miss for next time.

This place offers cheesecake making and pizza making too heh…

All of us have to put on apron before entering. The guy in e middle is our driver for the trip; Katty.

All r given a cup of milk then add in 2 teaspoon of sugar, 1 teaspoon of skim milk powder and 1 scoop of thick cream. Stir well and…. Pour into ice cream making machine which will keep stirring the mixture.

While waiting, we go make waffle! Haha but e waffle mix is prepared by the staff liao so we just nd to scoop the waffle mix into e pan.

VW broke his first waffle by pressing too hard

Ding! Ice cream is rdy! And it’s very nice!! It’s not e very creamy kind and more icey feeling. I like! We were given strawberry jam to go w it. I think I like Japan’s strawberry product; all taste natural not artificial sweetening.

During our drive, Katty-san told us that we going through a roller coaster road with fantastic view. hehe… ok la the roads just look scary but no roller coaster feel.

View captured from the car.

He then let us stop here to take pics.

Its actually a pretty quiet road; no tour coaches at all.

Then came highlight of e trip. Our 2nd flower garden! 四季彩之丘 and weather is fantastic this time. So is e crowd. Fantastically packed hahah

We rented a buggy that VW drove. Only 15 min rent and I was wondering if can longer.

Shortly after a while I realise why e buggy rental so short le. Cuz…. It’s betta to walk! Hahha buggy very big; hard to park n take pic. So it’s more for u take a brief round the garden.

Some view from the buggy. Haha yeap human n buggy share same lane

Very soon we returned e buggy n started our walk!

Think this garden nicer cuz the flowers seems more alive.

So I can do my fav closeup of flowers hehe against the multi color backgrd at tat!

Somehow the photos cant bring out the feeling that you have there when u turn anywhere and its colours and colours that is natural…. not dyed or painted.

This is supposedly to be crowded. But actually on looking back, its not really that crowded cuz we still hav personal space to take pic n all

I wanted to achieve the immerse in flowers kind of pic but its all barricade up… oh wells~

And we chanced upon a sunflower field too! But the sunflowers here soso only

Last pic before we leave 四季彩之丘. I actually set the angle for a passerby to take and he actually shifted the angle abit to get an even better pic

Nxt up is Biei Blue Pond which is kinda boring… It looks nice n all but the pond looks… dead. Like no animals stay there like that.

The nicest part of the Biei Blue pond is…. not the pond hahaha some random rapids round e corner

Lunch is at Asahikawa Ramen Village. We wanted to try Santouka (which is sold out ) and Baikoken (which is full n super long q). Met a tour bus when we r there so quite packed.

Katty-san told us this Kobo Kato place also quite nice. Tats why we went lo. Queue not as long mayb cuz its not gone international yet which is a gd thing to me anyway.

And its a gd recommendation! Hahah The meat is very tender and the egg is just nice~

Their 招牌 is some mature soy sauce but I prefer a simpler taste so I chose shio which I quite like but the rest finds it too bland. Hehe I very scared of salty ramen cuz it gets very 腻 at e end.

After lunch is zoo! We reached zoo at 3.30pm and Katty-san told us zoo close at 5.15pm so he will wait for us outside.

Every ticket has a different animal. Mine is a tiger!

I tot i wun spend so long at the zoo too. Boy, was I wrong haha

First stop is flamingos

And they r brightly coloured! No smell and dun looks dirty at all~

This forms the entrance of the zoo. The water portion reminds me of Sentosa haha

This reminds me of university

Their penguins enclosure really has quite a few penguins waddling ard and there are different sections. indoor, outdoor and in the waters. The penguins are all rather active; will waddle ard or flap their wings kind hehe

Oh oh and we get to see the penguins at quite a close distance

This polar bear paced ard the enclosure and he will pause and raise up at the exact same spot. Makes us wonder if he is trained to do so.

Polar bear enclosure also have a few parts. See the glass bubble at the bottom left of e pic? Its for ppl to go in there to see polar bear. haha

Another cute animal but for the life of me, I cant rem e name.

There is no glass between us and the animal. Its just a moat. This zoo is quite interesting in the sense that they use minimal glass barrier or fences. Another amazing enclosure is the monkey’s enclosure.

The structure behind me is playgrd for the monkeys. I keep wondering if the monkeys will jump frm their playgrd onto me anot

The playgrd looks quite fun hor?

Even the wolf is just segregated by a moat haha Wonder hw…. they mitigate their risk haha or all these wolves r herbivores?

King Julian must b real dangerous tho haha. He gotta have a cage. The kids ard us keep shouting King Julian when they at this enclosure

Saw the biggest peacock I ever seen in my life there. But this peacock quite loser. All the hens just ignore him

Close to the zoo closing time… we heard… Auld Lang Syne! Very international way of saying goodbye haha… On our way out, we pass by the giraffe enclosure and there were no giraffes inside le. NMS was saying wonder if giraffe are trained to go back indoor once the song is played.

NMS dun hav real giraffe so take pic w fake giraffe lo hehe

Goodbye Asahiyama zoo~ U r even better than Mandai zoo! I will be back!

Our hotel for the night is Loisir Hotel Asahikawa. Good location cuz its near the shopping stretch but the lobby looks pretty old. And its so tough to wait for the lift. We waited like 3-4 lifts to just go breakfast.

Pic of the room

This should be 1 of the bigger bathrms for the nxt 3 nights.

Amazed by the DHC toiletries provided hehe

Check in done and its time for dinner of course!

Katty-san recommended Tenkin Izakaya. But it was full at 6.30pm! The obasan crossed her hands and said rather fiercely that its full so my travelmates were rather turned off. But I was pretty determined cuz I like izakaya in SG haha On our way back ~ 9pm, i tried again. This time another obasan said its full. sad

Anyway, so we went Baikoken, their first shop, and was sorely disappointed!

Charsiew more tough than the SG one at Taka Their beansprout only have a little bit of meat stir-fried into it. Only redeeming grace is… the soup is nicer than SG’s cuz can taste e miso more. Will strongly discourage anyone from trying here.

Hehe after today’s overdose of ramen, I think…. will stop having ramen for the rest of the trip. Not exactly my fav Jap food hehe