Hokkaido, Japan
May 6 – May 9, 2016
Since I was following Katsumi and Andy around in Tokyo, I had not had to figure out the trains on my own at all. So Katsumi was a bit worried about me taking off on my own to Hokkaido. She is so sweet that she actually came with me on the first portion of the journey, the train to the train that would take me to the shinkansen (bullet train) that goes to Hokkaido. I have to say I did mostly alright after she left me. I just got on the wrong shinkansen :-). Luckily it was going the same direction but stopped before Hokkaido. I got on too early and got on the wrong train. Luckily I had the JR rail pass so I was able to just get another ticket for the rest of the journey.This was a slower train that went along the coast of Hokkaido affording me excellent views of the ocean. FYI, for anyone traveling around Japan (outside of Tokyo), you should definitely get a JR rail pass. Here’s a map of places I visited in Hokkaido.
I eventually arrived in the city of Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaido and home of Sapporo beer. I stayed in my first Japanese hostel here and I learned that the Japanese really know what they’re doing when it comes to hostels. Most importantly, hostels in Japan are ridiculously clean. You could eat off the floor…probably because you don’t wear shoes inside…like ever, and there are special shoes for just the bathroom. Many have the capsule beds that make you feel like you have your own teeny tiny little home and most of the bathrooms have Toto toilets
My first night in Sapporo I went out for an early dinner; I decided to try an Indian restaurant. I’m not sure why I did that since there is really amazing Japanese food in Sapporo. The food at the restaurant was meh and not truly Indian. I learned my lesson, thou shalt not eat Indian food in Japan!
When I returned to the hostel that night, I decided to hang out in the common area since it was still early and try to figure out what I was going to do the next day. There were a few others in the common area as well. There were a couple of older ladies and then sweet, wonderful Aline, from Switzerland joined us as well. Aline and I started talking and decided to explore the Shakotan Peninsula together the next day. Yay for travel buddies!
So I know everyone thinks that traveling like I am is supposed to make you a better person that respects and loves all and doesn’t make fun of people, well that hasn’t happened to me…yet. One of the ladies staying at the hostel was a bit odd. I thought so when she asked me to add her on Facebook about a minute after I met her. It got really strange when I went to brush my teeth later that night. The sinks were in a common area that was shared by women and men and there was this large older lady in just her undies…no bra. I told myself to be open minded, Europeans (she’s European) are not prudes like Americans, it’s cool man. Then she asked me to help her with something…pointing to her back. I got closer to see what she was talking about. I thought she had a hair on her back that she couldn’t reach but no she wanted me to pop a pimple on her back for her. Yup! For a moment I was so shocked I didn’t say anything and then I just said no and ran away. I heard the next day that she also asked Aline to pop her pimple, she also ran away. We heard another guest finally popped it for her…blech. I stole a song to commemorate this event…it goes like this: Hey I just met you, and this is crazy, but here’s my pimple, pop it maybe? Yes, I’m an ass but now you all know not to ask me to pop your pimples for you.
The next morning Aline and I dodged the pimple lady and headed to the train station. The plan was to visit Otaru and maybe do a boat tour. We arrived in Otaru, walked to the harbor and learned that because the waves were too high there were no boat tours…wah wah. So we walked around briefly and then went to the tourist office to ask what else we could do there. We had asked at the tourist office in Sapporo about how to get to Cape Kamui but were told it’s really hard to get to and that we should just go to Bikuni. We got better information about the busses in Otrau. Technically we could have gone to Cape Kamui but would have had only 15 minutes to look around before the last bus left to go back to Otaru. We decided that would be cutting it too close and opted for Bikuni instead. Of all the transportation modes we used in Japan this was the most basic…a simple local bus that took us along the beautiful coastline to Bikuni. We arrived and immediately realized how teeny, tiny Bikuni was. We walked along the port and saw almost no one around. At this point we were starving and needed food so we started wandering around and after not seeing much decided to try the only place that looked like a restaurant. It was very basic looking on the outside. Inside the decor was very fishy and adorable. We were the only customers and the waiter/cook was shocked to see two random foreigners in his restaurant. He didn’t speak much English but he had a translator on his phone and our conversation was awesomely hilarious. The waiter told us through his translator that we were making him tense. When we asked why, he said it’s because we’re so beautiful. Ha ha! Already a great start! We weren’t sure how to order so we picked a set meal at random and it turns out we did quite well. The waiter/cook grilled us some super fresh salmon with some awesome fixins. It was so delicious!
After lunch, the waiter/ cook told us about a look out spot that we could walk to for views of the ocean. We walked through the quiet and empty town and climbed up a hill to get to amazing views of the Gold Cape. Aline also figured out that we could get stamps (not the mailing kind) to commemorate each city/town we visited…so we got stamps in our little notebooks. Hokkaido has a cute deer/ antelope/ jackalope mascot and they had little lapel pins with the mascot that you could buy. Japan is so cute.
We had time to spare after Bikuni so we caught the next bus back and decided to get off in Yoichi. Yoichi is also adorable but quite a bit bigger than Bikuni. It actually has the Nikka whiskey brewery and Japan apparently makes world class whiskey…who knew. We wandered the brewery and were hoping for a tasting but got there too late. So we bought some whiskey for later.
From Yoichi we were able to take the train back to Sapporo. At Sapporo we hit up the train station whole foods on crack, bought some dinner and headed back to the hostel. When we got back, the ladies at the hostel were making a dish called Gengis Khan…which as far as we could figure out was grilled mutton (sheep) and they were kind enough to share with us. The Gengis Khan was okay but I really loved the side dishes. One was just simple ramen noodles with some kinda amazing sauce. Aline got the recipe. We also had our whiskey…and Aline told me about her sordid affair with a 22 year old Japanese baseball player…we don’t remember his name and he might not know they’re dating :-).
The next day, Aline and I decided to explore Sapporo. We wandered around the main square area, went to Maruyama Park and finally saw the cherry blossoms complete with cats in hats, checked out the olympic ski park, and then we went and found ramen alley (featured on No Reservations!). To end the day we walked through Hokkaido University. It was a big day.
At this point Aline and I were ready to move our relationship to the next level and travel together. So we decided to go to Hakodate. On the way to Hakodate, we stopped in a cute little town called Onuma where they have the Onuma Quasi-National Park. The park seemed pretty real to me, so I’m not sure why it’s a quasi park. It was a very nice scenic stopover with a beautiful lake and adorable bridges and a mountain. We did a short hike around the park and then got lunch. I just remembered that we walked in to one restaurant and saw a lady pulling up her pants like she just came out of the restroom. We did not eat there. After lunch we walked a bit more on the other side of the tracks for some beautiful views of the lake and then got on the train to Hakodate.
When we arrived in Hakodate it was a bit later in the day so we just wandered around the water front saw a pretty nice sunset and then started searching for food. We ended up at a sushi place. This was the second and last time I had sushi in Japan. There was a sushi conveyer belt, it was super delicious and it was accompanied by yummy sake. We learned that when you order sake, they bring a cup that is in a saucer and they over pour so you get some in your saucer and while they’re pouring you’re supposed to keep asking them to pour more. It’s a whole production. Fun times!
After dinner we went in search of dessert but surprisingly had a hard time finding a restaurant that served dessert so we just went to a convenie…I think I got ice cream…don’t remember what Aline got. I forgot to mention this but somewhere along the way we developed an obsession with Japanese desserts…especially mochi. I told Aline about ice cream mochi and our search began! It’s surprisingly hard to find ice cream mochi in Japan…you can find normal mochi everywhere…and we did…but not much ice cream mochi. We did find one really good one in Hakodate…sweet potato ice cream I believe. Delicious!!
Anyway, the next day we started out by going to the Hakodate morning market, then we got some adorable pastries and we ended our time in Hakodate by taking the tram out to the cape. To get to the cape you pass through a cemetery where a famous poet is buried. He isn’t from Hakodate but he lived there for a whole 3 years I think and died there so he’s really important and they even have a stamp for him.
The views from the cape were quite amazing.
That was the end of our time in Hokkaido and our time traveling together. I headed back to Tokyo for a couple of days and Aline headed to Nagasaki…I think. I don’t remember but we parted ways :’-(. It really was a delight to explore Hokkaido with Aline. Definitely one of my favorite places in Japan and one of my favorite people I’ve met on this journey.
I can’t believe I still need to blog about Kyoto, Nara, Shikoku, Osaka and Okinawa!! At this rate we’re going to be in Japan forever…which is not too shabby.
nomadshak 
Glad you had a good time in Hokkaido. You can find the ice cream wrapped in mochi at the convenience stores or super markets. So jealous of all those fresh seafoods!
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But we looked and we didn’t find them. Maybe we were looking for mochi in all the wrong places 🙂
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