On December 13 we took the Shinkansen towards Hokkaido, the northernmost island of Japan. The train goes through the Seikan Tunnel, a 53.85Km railway tunnel with 23.3Km under the seabed. After crossing the tunnel we arrived in Hakodate where we changed trains. We arrived in Sapporo in the early evening.
After checking in at the hotel we went for a walk around the City Centre; we found the Christmas Park, which has beautiful illumination and lots of activities and shops.
December 14 started with a cultural visit to the Historical Village of Hokkaido. This is an open air museum that holds more than 60 traditional buildings, including houses, school, bakery, post office, newspaper printing, etc; from Hokkaido dating from the Meiji and Taisho periods (1868 to 1926).
Then, we took the Moiwa-yama Ropeway, a cable car that took us to the top of Moiwa-san. The views of Sapporo from up there were breathtaking!
In the evening we went to the Sapporo brewery; we did the free tour but it wasn’t very exciting. We did have some beer and cheese! We tasted 3 beers (Black Label, Sapporo Classic and Kaitakushi Pilsner). Later at night we went to the Sapporo TV Tower where we had another amazing view of the city at night.
In the morning of December 15 we took a train to Asahiyama. Upon arrival we asked at the information centre about recommended activities in the city and they suggested the Asahiyama Zoo, so we headed there. It was good, but we would not have gone to Asahiyama just for the zoo.
On December 16 we took a bus towards Asahidake Mountain, the highest mountain in Hokkaido. We were planning on doing some hikes but there was so much snow and avalanche warnings, so we quickly abandoned the hiking plans.
We found Yukoman-so Onsen, a beautiful place where we spent a few hours relaxing on the hot springs. With one of the spring water pools outside this was a beautiful scene given that it was snowing like crazy… just like in the movies about Japan.
We headed back to Asahiyama and with plenty of day left we decided to visit Biei, a small town half hour away. We read that the station was rated on the top 100 Japan railway stations so we wanted to see what the fuzz is all about. Oh well, maybe that was overrated! We had dinner at a local restaurant and they were perplexed to see us there at that time of the evening.
On December 17 we took a train to Lake Toya, a UNESCO Geopark, a beautiful lake formed by the caldera of a volcano. We bought the bus ticket to go to the Observatory at 1:30pm. We went for a stroll around town and had lunch. When it was about time to get on the bus to go to the observatory it started snowing heavily and the visibility was very poor. Since we had not used the tickets the lady at the information centre was kind enough to return our money. We took the next available bus and went back to the train station and caught a train to Hakodate.
We went to Hakodate to visit the fish market, which was recommended to us by a German traveler we met in Alishan, Taiwan. It was an early start on December 18 as we were told that the morning market was best to see before 8:00am. We got there at 5:30am and the shops were just starting to open; we had to wait until 6:30am to see some activity. We have to admit that this is not the market you ride a bullet train for several hours to come to see; there are much more exciting markets somewhere else in Japan.
After visiting the fish market we returned to the hotel for another couple of hours of sleep. We then headed to Hakodate-yama, the cable car in town. The view is beautiful from up there… look at the pictures! We then walked a few hundred meters and got to the Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward. It is a very old and well maintained building.
In the afternoon we visited the Hakodate Museum of Northern Peoples. What an impressive museum showing how the people in the northern part of Japan used to live.
We ended the day by the beach. It was beautiful to see the waves breaking on beach of snow… snow angels had to be done!
We left Hakodate at 16:35 and arrived in Tokyo at 21:23 after another mesmerizing ride in the Shinkansen. With speeds of 320Km/hour this is an amazing experience while in Japan.
