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| Friendly-looking hawkers |
The next day, we went to the Hakodate Morning Market, taking a train
from the Nanaehama Station nearby to
the Hakodate Terminal Station. Located just beside the station, the
market was famous for its fresh seafood as well as seaweed products like konbu and wakame. The famous and enormous Hokkaido spider crab was astonishingly
expensive. The whole crab would cost between ¥10000 and ¥50000, which could easily costs you two Red Mi Note phones. That must be a food for the rich man I guess. We managed to engage with the hawkers and get best deal for the seaweed and scallop products there despite having a bit of language barrier. The price of different types of seaweed products here
were quite reasonable, ranging from ¥400 and ¥1500. Besides morning market
here, you may find many at the konbukan
located at the outskirt of Hakodate. Unfortunately, we didn't manage to get to konbukan due to time constraint. In the afternoon after having our simple
bento and
onigiri lunch, we went back to our hostel and drove to the
Kanemori Red Brick Warehouse located at the Hakodate main port and just a few minutes away from the
Hakodate terminal station.
 |
| Kanemori Warehouse |
This place is where the development and culture of Hakodate begun. It was a dating spot for the couples who wished to
find a place for date in Hakodate. A businessman by the name of Kumashiro Watanabe was an important and famous person there. Originating from Nagasaki, he was well-known for his warehouse business as well as his great contributions towards the development and prosper of Hakodate, which includes fund donations for the establishment of schools, hospitals and other important infrastructures in Hakodate. Having enough strolls at the area, we then drove to an area at the foot of Mt.
Hakodate. At one of the streets, we found a few stalls selling soft milk ice-cream.
 |
| Famous Hokkaido soft ice-cream |
Of course, we treated ourselves with that creamy-looking ice-cream. The ice-cream was
indeed soft, creamy and delicious. No wonder many said that
Hokkaido’s ice cream were the best in Japan. Despite being creamy and delicious, it’s a
bit expensive, where it costs ¥330 per cone. Well, I guess it is normal to pay a bit higher price for the taste of the best ice-cream in Japan. After treating ourselves with ice-creams and having a short strolls around the streets there, we proceeded to the top of
Mt.
Hakodate via cable car. We parked our car just beside the station at the foot of the hill and travel up via cable car. Mt.
Hakodate is accessible through cars and public transports, but we thought that it would be a wonderful experience to travel on a cable car up there. The round trip costs ¥1280 per person.
It was shivering cold there, ranging between 10°C to 15°C. We managed to get a glimpse of the sun setting behind the hills of
Hakodate as well as the spectacular view of the Hakodate city during the dusk. As it is one of the tourism spot in Hokkaido, hence a large mixture of crowds from the locals as well as abroad is expected at the viewing platform.
 |
| Dusk of Hakodate |
Despite squeezing through the crowds, I
manage to record a 45-min time-lapse video of Hakodate, but a bit off due to
some disturbance from an inconsiderate visitor. Well, what will be it will
always be. There is convenience store and a restaurant available up there, but if you’re planning to take your meal outdoor while enjoying the breathtaking view of Hakodate, please be extremely careful with the crows. They are not only big and black, but aggressive as well. Well, I managed to finish of my
dorayaki within seconds before getting detected by those "
yatagarasu". I think those crows are even more larger than the ones we often meet or see in Klang. Finished with the photography and sight-seeing at Mt.
Hakodate, we headed back down from the hill and went to the
Daimon Yokocho for our late dinner.
 |
| Having ramen as late dinner |
In
Daimon Yokocho, there is are lines of small shops selling food ranging from seafood to
sushi. There, we decided to have
ramen as our dinner. Despite the shop's small space, the bowl of
ramen was big. Note the size of the two bowls of
ramen in the picture at the side. The
ramen costed us about ¥750 per bowl, which we think is quite reasonable for a big bowl of
ramen. Then, we drove to the
Goryokaku Park and planned to take a stroll there, but it seemed to be dark there. Known for it's star-shaped fortress,
Goryokaku Park is one of the attraction in
Hakodate. The star-shaped structure is best viewed from a tower located just beside the park, especially during the sakura-spring season and snowy-winter season, where the view, I believe, is spectacular and breathtaking. Due to time constraint, we didn't view the star-shaped structure, but instead we just went to see the tower and observed the park form the ground during the night.
 |
| Whiskey barrels stored for maturation |
On the third day, we departed for Otaru which took us about 4 hours of driving. We stopped at the Nikki Whiskey Factory in Yoichi town just beside the town of Otaru. Nikkey Whiskey is a famous whiskey brand in Japan as well as
internationally. Well, now I just get to know that spirit turns into whiskey
after maturation. Besides just learning about the process of making whiskey, we
are also offered a chance to have a test drink on their whiskeysm which could be a happy moment for those alcoholic lovers out there. After the
visit, we headed straight to Otaru
and checked in at the Otaru Harvest
Guesthouse. The stay was ¥10875 per night for a four pax family room. The room was comfy with a personal bed curtain if you want to stay private on your bed. They even offered an optional breakfast set at a
cost of ¥400.
 |
| Otaru Canal at night |
If you are driving there, you need to prepare extra ¥500 for the parking fee. In the late evening, we went to the Otaru Canal, located just a few driving minutes away from our hostel. The canal was stunningly beautiful with its
surrounding lights at night. I bet that place will look more breathtaking during winter (there are samples available to be shown by Mr. Google). You may get a ride on its gondola service where it brings you through the canal. If not mistaken it is ¥1280
per ride. Just opposite to a bridge of the Otaru Canal and at the corner of a traffic junction, locates the Otaru Denuki-koji, also a small food street similar to the Daimon Yokocho back in
Hakodate.
 |
| Otaru Denuki-koji |
I guess the tower there was sponsored by the
Shiroi-Koibito with its obvious brand hanging at the tower. The
Shiroi-Koibito tower there
looked just like the
onsen tower in
Hayao Miyasaki's anime,
Spirited Away. The environment in the buiding was quite mesmerizing. Hence, we decided to take a few shots there. Too bad, the food shops there are closed early. As we stroll at the streets nearby, we could only see a few food shops and most of them sells expensive seafood meals. As most of the food shops are closed, we just proceeded to have our dinner at the nearby KFC outlet which appeared to be there surprisingly. The next morning, we continued our stroll
at
Marchen Square in
Otaru, located around 500m away from the
Otaru Denuki-koji. The square was quite lively during the day with tourists everywhere.
 |
| Otaru Music Box Museum |
Just right at the corner of the square, there locates the famous
Otaru music box museum. Here, you can find a variety types of music box, ranging from the string-pulling music box to shaft-revolving music box. There's also some unique music box like
sushi-shaped music box that I bet you haven’t seen before. You might consider buying one as a gift for your loved ones if you happen to dropped by this fantastic museum. Besides the museum, you can also find toy shops, glass-work shops as well as shops selling confectioneries there like
LeTao and
Kitakarou.
LeTao is well known for its delicious cheese cakes while
Kitakaro is famous for its fluffy creme puffs,
baumkuchen cake and other seemingly tasty sweet cakes as well as crunchy cookies.
 |
| "Kita no yume domu" Jumbo Set |
We treated ourselves with the signature creme puff at the
Kitakaro. I ordered a set of
"Kita no yume domu" (translated as the North Dream Dome) Jumbo Cream Puff that came with a beverage and a soft ice cream. The set costs ¥515. The puff was indescribably
delicious, and seriously even without the cream, the pastry itself was fluffy scrumptious. Just beside
Kitakaro, the
Rokatei confectionery shop was located. Famous for its
Marusei Butter Cookies,
Rokatei also offer various types of sweet cakes as well as cookies to be bought as snacks and edible souvenirs. After having enough strolls here, we left
Otaru and departed for Sapporo, the capital city of
Hokkaido. It took us about 2-hours of driving journey to get to
Sapporo as we need to get through the windy hillside roads.
 |
| Tanukikoji Street #3 |
In Sapporo, we overnight at the
Ten-to-Ten Hostel for two nights at a rate of ¥11216. Unfortunately, no private parking
available, so parked at the public parking space for three-days two-nights
without driving. The fee for that duration was ¥2800. A complimentary drink is
given and breakfast at ¥500 upon request. The room was quite small and compact. Even the
upper decker beds was just a few inches away from the ceiling.
I guess the upper deckers were meant for kids. That late evening after some rest, we stroll
around
Tanukikoji Shopping Street in
Susukino, the main entertainment center of
Sapporo. You can find various kinds of
shops here, ranging from food stores to pharmacies and as well gaming arcades. There, I discovered
marimo, a unique moss ball that is famous in Hokkaido. Marimos were sold as souvenirs in bottles.
 |
| Marimo |
One can get a
bottle of marimo ranging from ¥400 to ¥2500, depending on its size. It was
rainy that night, so nothing much we could do besides just walking around at
the
Tanukikoji. For dinner that night, we had a spicy curry meal at the
Suage Curry House near
Susukino. The curry house was recommended by the
FoodAdvisor. Located along a small street, it was just a few minutes of walking distance away from the
Tanukikoji street.
There, we had to queue just to get our place inside the restaurant. Before getting yourself a set of curry meal, there are a few steps that you need to do while placing the order. First, you have to choose the type of curry that you want. There are 9-types of curry for you to choose from. Mixed vegetable curry is available for those who practises vegetarian or meatless diet, but please request to the waiter not to include hard-boiled egg if you don't take eggs. Next, select the soup base that you want.
 |
Variations of curry served
at the Suage
|
There are two types of them, one is their signature
Suage soup, while the other is the black soup, made from the squid's ink. Then, proceed to choose the spicy level that you desire, ranging from level 1 to 6. I chose level 3, which is equivalent to the spicy level of a
nasi lemak. The next step, select your rice size. The default size given is a small-sized rice (150g). Additional cost will be incurred for extra rice. The last step is the selection of other side dishes (they call it toppings) and optional drinks. Original
lassi, berry
lassi and pear
lassi are available here.
 |
The Suage Mixed Vegetables Curry Rice Set
with Original Lassi |
I ordered a glass of original
lassi and it was quite nice though.
Tanukikoji closes at 2130 hours together with other shops except for convenience stores. We are not familiarize with that as we felt that the night is still young. Well, when the shop closes, the entertainment world begins. Well, what I mean "entertainment" here are karaoke, night pubs and also the "lust centers". The "lust centers" that are abundant in
Susukino here are related to what many recognize as "red light district". Well, I assume you know what I mean here. Nothing much to do and since it's rainy, we just return to our hostel for the overnight rest.
 |
| Shin-eiji Temple of Sapporo |
The next day, we
planned to rent a bicycle, but the plan was disrupted as the rainy weather continued. Shielded with umbrella, we departed from our hostel and walked towards the center of Sapporo. There are quite a number of
shintos as well as Buddhist temples around Sapporo. We visited the Shin-eiji Temple. The devotees of this temple practises Esoteric Buddhism and worships
Fudo Myo-O or known as the deity of Acala in the Tibetan. As it was still raining, we went to the
underground street to keep ourselves dry. Just like Tokyo, the underground street is connected to subways and many important places in
Sapporo, including the
Sapporo's signature
Odori Park.
 |
| Sapporo Tokeidai |
I guaranteed that you won't feel boring there in the underground as there are many shops for you to do your window shopping. Even the
Muji departmental store,
McDonalds as well as
Kinokuniya Bookstore were available there in the underground. Well, we actually took more than an hour just touring around the underground street. After having our simple lunch in the underground, we went to the Sapporo communication tower at the
Odori Park. It was still drizzling at that moment. Under that weather condition, we walked to the Sapporo Clock Tower or known as
Tokeidai for the locals. It was a clock museum and it needs an entry fee, so we didn't go in but just took a shot from the outside of the building.
 |
| The Sapporo Tower from Odori Park |
As the rain stops, we returned to the communication tower for some photo- shooting. Well, we didn't go up to the tower as the entry is quite expensive, so we just stroll around the park. There, we
could see the workers are arranging the flower beds at the park. I guess they are
preparing for a series of events during the summer time. While having walking around the park, we tried to find the stall selling grilled cobs, but to our dismay we couldn't find it. After some walking and photo-shooting at the park, we returned to the
Tanukikoji and spent the rest of the evening there "look and shop" before returning to our hostel. We're glad that
Tabuchi-san had willingly made time to meet us despite his hectic schedule
. We met coincidentally while he was visiting Malaysia back then.
 |
| Having a lively chat with Tabuchi-san and his friend |
Tabuchi-san was the guy with the white shirt in the photo. Being cheerful, he was a teacher in
Sapporo Shinyo High School as well as a researcher working on his agricultural project. And that is what that had made him hectic. He brought his friend along, however, my bad, I forgotten what was his name. We had a lively and interesting chat despite having to face language barrier. We even had a debate on which country had the craziest weather. He exclaimed that the temperature in Malaysia is crazy as it’s extremely hot. Well, we defended and we even stated otherwise for Sapporo, which he also defended with his stand. Anyway, it was a fun and yet enjoyable night that day despite just meeting for a short while. And thanks to him, we got some information about the stall that sells grilled cobs in
Odori Park.
Tabuchi-san wished to visit my university the next time he goes to Malaysia, and I promised him to take him around. Well, I’m really looking forward to his next visit. I also promised to visit his school if I'm visiting Sapporo in the future again. Well, the next time that I'm visiting Hokkaido again might be during the winter, and I doubt that the school opens that period. Well, let's see how the future goes.
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| Stall selling grilled cobs |
 |
| Odori Park grilled cob |
The next morning, we left the hostel and returned to the
Odori Park in search for the stall. We were delighted that we found the stall, not one but two of them facing each other in the middle section of the park. Costing ¥300 each, the grilled cobs fragrantly scrumptious and delicious. Well, that
shoyu-grilled cob is a must-try-snack in
Sapporo if you happened to visit
Odori Park. Bidding farewell to the center of Sapporo, we travelled to the outskirts and visited the
Shiroi Koibito Park.
Shiroi Koibito is famous for its chocolate cookies aside from
Jaga Pokkuru potato snacks
. 30-minutes driving for the city center of Sapporo, the park was beyond from what we had imagined.
 |
| Buildings from the Shiroi Koibito Park |
The whole place looks dreamy just like a village straight from France. Besides the park, there are also toy museum, confectionery shop selling its signature
Shiroi Koibito products as well as its factory which requires an entrance fee of ¥600. Well, we didn't enter the factory, but just strolling and photo-shooting at the museum and the park. There were musical and statue performance hourly with a bubbly environment at the beginning. Well, we were lucky to have a look on that as we were there when the clock struck twelve.
Shiroi Koibito Park is definitely a must-place-to-visit with it's French attraction besides its cookie factory. Then, we started our journey to Furano, stopping at
Iwamizawa for
onsen and
Ashibetsu for the
Hokkaido Kannon statue.
 |
| Entrance to the male and female onsen |
Departing from the park, we traveled about two hours before reach the Nagomi Onsen in Iwamizawa for a refreshing hot spring bath. Whenever we come across any onsen center, we would came across the character “汤” or “ゆ”. Both of them are pronounced in Japanese locals as "yu" which means bath. The onsen costed us ¥530 per entry. The first rule that we need to follow before going for public onsen is we need to get naked. Yup! Fully stripped from top to bottom. I guess not every Malaysians could accept being naked in front of the public. But, this is the first rule that you need to follow in order to really have an onsenic experience. Well, that was my first time of course. Fortunately, the onsen rooms were divided to males and females section respectively, so we were required to get naked, but just in front of the individuals of our own genders. There was a moment of embarrassment initially, but eventually you would get used to it. Before you can immerse yourself in the onsen pool, you must first get yourself cleanse up. This is to reduce unnecessary impurities from our skin from contaminating the onsen pools. When immersing yourself in the onsen, do aware of your body condition. Not everyone could withstand the heat for a long time. Even myself as well could withstand for only three minutes upon immersion into the onsen pool before feeling a bit dizzy and fatigue. There's even spa as well if you would like to go for steaming. After an hour and half of refreshing onsen session, we continued to our destination. While on our way passing by a town by the name of Asahibetsu, we noticed an enormous standing Kuan Yin deity statue by the side of the Sorachigawa River.
 |
| Hokkaido Kannon statue |
In the GPS, it's written that the statue is the
Hokkaido Kannon (
Kannon is the deity of
Kuan Yin in Japanese). According to the website sources, this colossal statue is the third tallest deity statue in Japan succeeding
Sendai Daikannon in
Sendai. It was already 1730 hours the moment we arrived. Unfortunately, the place was closed. We are not sure whether its visiting hour has ended or it's closed temporarily. Anyway, we manage to revere and snap a photo of that colossal statue before continuing our journey to
Furano. We reached Furano about 1900 hours. It was a little dawn by then. After checking in at the
Goryo Guesthouse, we went for a stroll at the
Furano town center while seeking for our food sources as well. We stayed at the guesthouse for two night for ¥2500 per person. Upon reaching the center of
Furano, everything was quiet and peaceful, with only a few shops and stores opened. It was a lucky strike for me to have found and catch a
Farfetch'd appeared here in
Furano surprisingly. Well, I was talking about
Pokemon Go though.
 |
| A Fartfetch'd caught |
I was quite excited actually as I had failed to detect any of them during my walk at the
Tanukikoji street back in
Sapporo. The sky was quite clear that night. The guesthouse that we stay there was very dark, with just a few lamp posts just about 200m away. Alright, another opportunity came!
 |
| Milky Way captured with Canon EOS 750D |
The conditions for a astrophotograph session were favoured. Yip and me had grabbed this opportunity to photograph the night sky with Yip using her Huawei P10 Leica camera while me using my Canon EOS 750D camera. We tried a few shots while continuously adjusting to a right ISO and exposure with the lowest aperture set. Fortunately, we manage to capture some beautiful shots despite a bit blurred and not up to that quality of the professionals. The picture above was taken with ISO 1600, aperture of f3.5 with 30-sec of exposure. I was very excited to have finally photographed a Milky Way! Well, of course it would be better if the camera is of higher specifications and wide lens is used. I'm sure that tell will be a chance to take that again in the future. I was an awesome experience for me though. By the way, the sky was not exactly clear though. Due to some thin layers of clouds, the background seemed reddish. That reddish background was caused by the slight reflection from the neighbouring lamp post. After about an hour of astrophotographing, the sky started to turn cloudy. Well, at least I could get to photograph a few amateur
Milky Way shots than none at all.
 |
| Furano Cheese Factory |
The next morning, we departed for the cheese factory nearby. That was my first time visiting a cheese factory. In Furano Cheese Factory, there's a television located near the factory entrance showing a video documenting on how cheese is made using fermented milk. At the first floor, there are various cheese products and even exclusive Furano milk sold there. Besides the products sold, you may even get a chance to enroll in their cheese ice-cream or cheese cake making lessons for a reasonable fee. Just beside the factory, there's a cafe selling snacks and pizzas as well as a parlour selling ice-cream (sofuto). They are various type of flavours to be chosen from.
 |
| Kids selecting their sofuto |
The ice-creams are sold either in single cone, double cone or cups. I've tried their double cone ice-cream with asparagus and cheese flavour. Well, their cheese ice-cream were beyond my expectation. The taste was deliciously indescribable I could say. Well, I recommend you to try out their cheese ice-cream if you have a chance to visit the cheese factory. Located just beside the parlour, there's a small forest where you can have your portrait photo taken with the spectacular forest view as the background. There's also three three rockers and a tractor placed nearby. Located just behind the factory, there's a cemetery which you might not be interested though. Just a 15-min drive from the factory, we visited Rokatei Grape Farm and the Furano Wine Factory. At the grape farm, we get to try ourselves grape-flavoured ice-blended. Besides the ice-blended and edible goodies sold there, the scenery from the farm were breathtaking too. At the wine factory, we had the opportunity for wine testing. Beside just the bottled wine, there are also other edible wine-made products sold there like wine chocolate, cookies and etc.
 |
| Looking across from Rokatei Grape Farm |
After our visit at the wine factory, we travelled about 25 minutes to the
Tobita flower farm. There, we managed to see various kinds of flower, including lavender, dandelion as well as the poppy which was banned in Malaysia. The lavender was still small however as that time was just the beginning of summer when we're there. We get to try lavender
sofuto there and it was my first time. For me, the
sofuto tasted like the fragrance used in toilets. Well, maybe my family are used to lavender fragrance for toilets. Lol~
 |
| Baby lavender |
 |
| Poppy |
 |
| Dandelion |
Next, we went to a quite isolated site in Biei where the famous Lone Christmas Tree was located. That place was a perfect spot for some landscaping photography. Unfortunately, no trespassing is allowed there. Hence, we can only capture that tree from afar.
 |
| The Lone Christmas Tree |
Located about 30 minutes from the Lone Christmas Tree site was the
Aoi-ike or the Blue Pond. Well-known for its magnificent bluish-coloured water,
Aoi-ike was the result of works carried out at the Biei River (
Biei-gawa) after the 1988 Mt.
Tokachi eruption as protective measures against the volcanic mudflows, and its water was thought to be resulted from an accidental presence of colloidal aluminium hydroxide in the water. It was drizzling when we were there. But, that didn't stop us from enjoying the scenery of the pond. Just further down from the Blue Pond is a observatory platform where visitors may able to see the once-erupted Mt. Tokachi from the platform and also the
Biei-gawa located just off below from the platform.
 |
| Blue Pond (Aoi-ike) |
That was our last excursion for that day. We had our evening dinner at a curry house in Furano known as
Yuiga Doxon. It was quite cramped inside, but it was comfortable and not to mentioned their scrumptious food. There are various kinds of curry rice delicacies there. Different from Japan curry elsewhere. the curry here are quite spicy. Well, there;s a practice here where you need more curry sauce, you need to proceed t the counter with your plate and say "Ru Ru Ru Ru Ru" in order to get your curry refilled.
 |
| Yuiga Doxon Curry House |
 |
| The Little Grey |
Next day, we return back to the Cheese factory for their sofuto ice-cream before departing for Chitose. We shall miss the
sofuto ice-cream there. We noticed that there are melon farms along the road while we were still in Furano. It took us about 3 hours to reach Chitose. Arriving in Chitose, we checked in into a guesthouse located strategically beside 7-11 convenience mart and opposite McDonalds. After checking in, we took a stroll to the Lake Shikotsu (
Shikotsu-ko). It was raining heavily throughout our journey and we have to be very mindful and careful while driving to prevent accidents. The Lake Shikotsu was as vast as the sea despite being just a caldera lake. Imagine, if the mega volcano became active again, I guess it will have a massive impact around the globe. Lake Shikotsu was formed some 50 thousand years ago as a result of a super eruption. The lake was surrounded by three volcano at its rim, name
Eniwa-dake,
Tarumae-dake and
Fuppushi-dake. We initially planned to parked our car there and have a walk around the lake. However, due to the bad weather and the expensive parking fee, we have to let go of our intention. After the
Shikotsu-ko trip, we returned and bid farewell to the grey
Nissan Note for accompanying us throughout the trip. We were thankful and grateful to that Little Grey. At night, we travelled to Rera Shopping Mall through subway and spent our night there window shopping and strolling.
 |
| Rera Shopping Mall |
The next day, we departed for Shin-chitose as earlier as 6:30am via subway. We managed to reach the airport on time for luggage check-in. At 0950 hours, we finally leave Hokkaido and back to Malaysia. This was my first time organising such trip and also driving overseas. It was an interesting trip there. I'm looking forward to be back again to Hokkaido in the future, hopefully during winter, if there's chance.
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