TRIP REPORT: JAPAN 2009 (in case you are interested...)
Aug 4th, 2009, 08:35 AM
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TRIP REPORT: JAPAN 2009 (in case you are interested...)
Here's part I of our trip report to Japan. This is our second trip. We are a married couple in our early thirties and planned the whole thing ourselves and figured this might be helpful for others. We'll post the second and third parts later in this thread.
DAY 1-5: TOKYO-NYUTO ONSEN -HAKODATE JUNE 2009
JUNE 24: Flew out of Boston on American Airlines, changed planes in JFK, and then flew 13 hours to Tokyo. Tickets were booked in February and cost $1100 per ticket. For what it’s worth, had I waited, I might have gotten a cheaper ticket, as prices fell after April. However, we got the itinerary we wanted and were able to fly into Narita and out of Kansai.
JUNE 25: Because the AA flight consisted almost entirely of people in transit to other parts of Asia, we breezed through customs. Although we did not plan to activate our rail pass that day, we exchanged our vouchers and then bought, for 3500Y each, a N’EX + Suica pass that included one express train ticket into Tokyo + a card with 1500 yen of usable subway fares (note: this card appeared to work on only one of the 3 subway lines in Tokyo, but it worked fine for our purposes. Once we reached Tokyo station, we changed trains but remained on the JR line and got off at the Hammatsucho station and walked (with the help of a friendly local and her cellphone) ten minutes to our hotel, the Intercontinetal Tokyo Bay, where we paid $140 per night for three nights – which was a phenomenal value. The Takeshiba subway station was two minutes’ walk from the hotel, as was Takeshiba Pier. Originally, we’d hoped to catch a ferry to the Izu Islands but we waited too long to make sure the weather was going to be OK, and by the time we tried to book, in mid-June, the ferry for the night we wanted was sold out. Oh well, next time.
The area was business-y and not as crowded as other parts of Tokyo. It’s not close to any “sights” per se, but ended up being a perfect location for us. We chose not to pay extra for a Tokyo Bay view and our view of the Sumida River was fine. Our extremely endearing trainee bellhop, all 90 pounds of her, would not let us touch our bags until we forced her to let us help her. Upon hearing that we were from the United States, her face brightened and she expressed that she’d always wanted to go there – so many cultures!! We told her, yes, America is wonderful, but there’s no place we like more than Japan. Anyway, we got to the hotel, and instead of going out like we should have, the gorgeousness of the room seduced us so we crashed at five PM in the heavenly bed and snoozed the night away.
JUNE 26 Since we were jetlagged, we were up at 4 AM and caught the red rising sun from our hotel window. That sight alone made us glad we hadn’t forked over the extra cash for a “Tokyo Bay” room, especially since we could go up to the “Business Center” upstairs, check our email, and gaze out of the Bay. The business center was of course not open at 4 AM, but a friendly desk clerk opened it for us anyway. I heart Japanese customer service. Even for us – suspect-looking, discount-rate booking, us, they are so so so nice. They treat everyone like rockstars. Speaking of rockstars, Micahel Jackson died???? OMG. Anyway, there only two computers but in the three days we were there, we never had a problem using the internet whenever we wanted.
Afterwards, we procured some coffee and headed out. Luckily, even though it was supposedly rainy season, it was hot and humid, but not rainy. This is our second trip to Tokyo, and we are people watchers, so we spent the day walking around different neighborhoods and ending up in Ginza, which is so electric and alive at night. We ate lunch at a soba restaurant where you punch your order into a machine, put in 400 yen (about $4) and someone hands you your order. For dinner, we had some sushi at one of the Tsukiji chains and ended up with an enormous sushi and sashimi dinner, with drinks, for $25 US. Don’t believe the people who tell you Japan is super expensive – it’s not!!!! You can get what feels like a 5-star experience at a 3-star price if you do your research.
JUNE 27 Woke up around 4 AM and spent the morning trying to get more sleep. Watched the Seattle Mariners game, read the complimentary copy of the Asahi Shinbun that had been hanging on the door, checked our email, took a glorious bath in the ginormous bath tub, and started to feel sleepy so we kicked ourselves out into the steamy metropolis.
We hit Harajuku and Shinjuku, where we soaked in some youth culture and I bought a great pair of summer sandals for about $40 US. Shoes here are sized small, medium, and large. The mediums fit my size 6.5 feet perfectly. Then, we met a friend, a local girl whom we had met last time we’d been in Tokyo (we struck up a conversation with her when we were sitting next to her at a wine bar), and the girl took us to a kushiage (fried skewers) izakaya in the Shiodome complex. It is wonderful to have a local navigate a menu for you. Apparently, at Kushiage restaurants, after you tell them what you don’t like, they just keep bringing you skewers until you can’t eat anymore. We ate, ate, ate, ate some more.. I have no idea the price because our friend/guardian angel sneakily picked up the check before it was even presented to us (since we barely speak Japanese, she probably did it right in front of us without us knowing). Anyway, she is SO getting the royal treatment when she comes to visit us in Boston. On the way out we were ambushed by the manager who had to be the most adorable little girl-woman ever who wanted us to thank us for coming to her restaurant and wanted to know all about our plans in Japan. So, with the help of our friend, we conversed a bit before crashing, this time at a more respectable hour of 11 PM.
JUNE 28 Sadly, we had to leave the fantabulous Intercontinetal Tokyo Bay. It was not easy, but at least it wasn’t gorgeous and sunny, so that helped as we convinced ourselves perhaps that the rain was finally coming and that we’d escape it. We hightailed it to Tokyo Station, activated our seven-day JapanRail (($276 per person) and took the 10 AM train to Tazawako. We had wanted to take the 9 AM train but it had sold out the day before.
Anyway, three hours later, we were in Tazawa-ko and then we bought 200 yen bus ticket out to Nyuto Onsen, which took another 45 minutes. We had wanted to stay at the famous Tsurunu-yo Onsen but unfortunately it was booked apparently every single day of our trip (we had tried multiple times to make a reservation and actually planned part of our trip around it), so then we finally gave up and booked Kuroyu Onsen, http://www.kuroyu.com/, which was the only other onsen in the area we could find that was supposedly in the rustic “Edo” style with wooden building, mountain-y setting, etc,. It became apparent that there are tons of hiking trails around the area, and you can hike from onsen to onsen if you like – we unfortunately did not have the time to figure out how to do so and there were no English speakers at our onsen whom we could ask once we arrived. We had a Japanese friend book it before we arrived, arranged for the tourist office at Tazawako station to call the proprietor to pick us up at the bus stop. For a 11100 yen each, we got a tatami room in the main building, with shared sinks and bathrooms, two meals, plus three onsen – a men’s, a women’s, and a mixed. Well, there was supposedly a mixed onsen, but everytime we tried to go there it was full of naked men, and no women, so we got confused and stuck to the single sex ones – both of which contained an indoor bath as well as a rotemburo (outdoor bath) with glorious views of the surrounding countryside. Later, we found out that it is apparently the custom there, even for mixed bathing, so maybe we shouldn’t have been so shy. Anyway, as we said, no “eigo” here, so we got by with smiles, nodding, charades, and a lot of pointing to our Japanese phrasebook. The proprietor and the other guests could not have been nicer or more helpful to us clueless, disoriented, jetlagged gaijin.
The first thing we did was head for the onsen. As I was bathing, I was approached by a friendly 60 year old woman, who had been learning French, Spanish and Italian on the radio (!). The intellectual curiosity of the people I met in Japan astounds me. Since I speak French and Spanish, she was psyched to find a conversation partner, and we chatted for a bit. As we did, the other women circled around me and started asking my new friend questions and she became my interpreter. Although I was tired and jetlagged, these conversations energized me and I appreciated the ability to speak with the Japanese, even if I had to speak with in my third and fourth tongues Dinner was an exquisitely prepared multicourse feast featuring fresh fish, local produce, rice, and tofu.. The specialty here is soup with mountain vegetables and it was clear that the menu was seasonal as it was fresh and light for summertime. We learned, however, that it’s better to take an early meal time because if you choose a later one, you are all by yourself and the waitstaff has to sit around while you eat. Plus, as gaijin, we are completely besotted with the preparation (and we are trying to figure out what exactly we are eating) whereas the Japanese are speed-eaters. After dinner, we decided to take another dip in the onsen (not recommended but we aimed to trick our jetlagged bodies into sleeping). On the way to the bath, a friendly Japanese man in his early 60s, who greeted us in French, Spanish, and English. Apparently, he was the husband of the woman I had befriended earlier at the onsen. After we onsened (and watched the sun set while in the rotemburo), we walked past by the man’s lodging, he popped back out and invited us in to their detached little hut. Her evealed himself to be a just-retired journalist, who had travelled the world covering cultural affairs for forty years, and did speak English. All of a sudden we were sitting with him and his wife, chatting about Europe, art, Japan, poetry, youth age, and sports over sake, tea, beer, and snacks. Unfortunately, the convo had to end, so we headed back in the complete dark to our room and crashed, only to be woken up by a gorgeous red rising sun at 3:30 AM. Cripes, but wow – it was worth the lost sleep.
JUNE 29: Taking advantage of the early morning sun, I took a hike around the surrounding hills and streams (not a serious hike, but more like a stroll) and wished we could stay in the area longer. We had been nervous to stay too long in any one place in Honshu because it was supposed to be super duper soul crushing vacation-ruining rainy “tsuyu” season, but our first four days ended up being glorious and sunny and warm and perfect. After my hike, I jumped in the onsen, which I had all to myself because all the early-bird Japanese were already breakfasting. The lesson here is that you want to get to breakfast early so you are not there alone and awkward, but if you don’t get there as soon as it starts, you can nab some sweet, solo onsen time. Breakfast was just as varied and carefully prepared and seasonal and delicious as dinner had been. Again, we ended up being one of the last ones there but finally we saw a couple near our ages (30). Everyone else was over 50 or under 5, with some random young parents here and there. This is definitely a place for families. Anyway, after breakfasts, the proprietor loaded us into the car and drove us to the bus stop so we could start our journey north.
JUNE 29 From Nyuto Onsen, we nabbed the 10-ish bus back to Tazawa-ko ( which is famous for its gorgeous deep lake and reminds me a little bit of New Hampshire), and then embarked on a five hour journey requiring multiple changes of trains (including 45 minutes underground in the Seikan Tunnel) until we finally emerged at the port of Hakodate, a friendly and charming little city in Western Hokkaido that looks like it could be San Francisco West or Far Far East, depending on where you center yourself (California is technically east of Japan, right?)) There is even a flowery hill that looks a little like Lombard Street in SF. Apparently, squid and crab are HUGE here – the sewer grates are engraved with dancing squids, the question and answer poster at the market has a squid on it, holding a pencil. Anyway, after we got out of the train, we grabbed a map and located our hotel – the Toyoko Inn, which was a ten minute straight shot from the station, right past the famous Hakodate seafood morning market and tank after tank of live crabs. For 7600Y we got a teeny tiny but perfectly adequate little room, welcome gifts (choice of hair pins or face masks for me whereas my husband could choose between sock or a nail clipper), free internet in the lobby, loaner pajamas plus a buffet breakfast the next morning. There’s a barber shop attached to the hotel if you are so inclined. There was apparently free “kari raisu” (curry rice) offered at 6:30 PM, but we opted to check out the seafood which the city is apparently so famous for. Plus, we didn’t want to fall asleep.
By the time we’d situated ourselves sin our hotel, it was around 4:30 so we headed out towards the Bay which contains warehouses converted into little markets. Hakodate was an international port, so there’s a lot of foreign influence. It’s also the gateway to Hokkaido. We wandered around and contemplated taking the ropeway up to the surrounding hills to check out the “romantic view” Hakodate is supposedly famous for, but it was cloudy and threatened rain (even though there wasn’t supposed to be tsuyu in Hokkaido!!!!) so we took refuge in a random restaurant in the warehouse area. As soon as we sat at the bar/open sushi kitchen, we watched a chef grab a sea urchin out of the tank, kill it, and put it on a plate for our neighbor. It was still wiggling. My husband opted for a $20 plate of charcoal-grilled king crab legs, which ended up being a mountain of the freshest, most succulent, mouthwatering crab I had ever tasted. He had to fight me for it. I can’t remember what I ordered, which is amazing since I am obsessed with food, but I am sure it was good. What was also surprisingly good was the $3 glass of chilled Hakodate red wine I order. The Japanese. Anything we do, they can do better. After dinner, we crumpled into bed at 8 PM confirming that we must be the oldest, childless, 30-year olds on the planet. I shouldn’t include my husband in that though – I’m the one drags our jetlagged hides all over tarnation, poor guy.
JUNE 30 Got up at the crack of dawn and headed down to breakfast, which looked great but all the seats were taken by the time we got there (dang!). Not everyone was eating but no one was getting up. We were in a bit of a rush since we had an early train, we got a tray, served ourselves, and, copying two other folks to the left of us, then sat on the windowsill to eat. After our fellow windowsill-seaters got up and left, we were accosted by a Japanese man who accused of being “rude” by not sitting at a table. Since sitting at a table would have required kicking intruding on someone else’s breakfast, we had thought we were being polite. Anyway, embarrassed and with our moods ruined, we scarfed down the excellent miso soup, rice, pickles, and omelette, and headed out towards the train station, stopping to gawk at the lively morning seafood market on the way. Next stop: Asahidake.
DAY 1-5: TOKYO-NYUTO ONSEN -HAKODATE JUNE 2009
JUNE 24: Flew out of Boston on American Airlines, changed planes in JFK, and then flew 13 hours to Tokyo. Tickets were booked in February and cost $1100 per ticket. For what it’s worth, had I waited, I might have gotten a cheaper ticket, as prices fell after April. However, we got the itinerary we wanted and were able to fly into Narita and out of Kansai.
JUNE 25: Because the AA flight consisted almost entirely of people in transit to other parts of Asia, we breezed through customs. Although we did not plan to activate our rail pass that day, we exchanged our vouchers and then bought, for 3500Y each, a N’EX + Suica pass that included one express train ticket into Tokyo + a card with 1500 yen of usable subway fares (note: this card appeared to work on only one of the 3 subway lines in Tokyo, but it worked fine for our purposes. Once we reached Tokyo station, we changed trains but remained on the JR line and got off at the Hammatsucho station and walked (with the help of a friendly local and her cellphone) ten minutes to our hotel, the Intercontinetal Tokyo Bay, where we paid $140 per night for three nights – which was a phenomenal value. The Takeshiba subway station was two minutes’ walk from the hotel, as was Takeshiba Pier. Originally, we’d hoped to catch a ferry to the Izu Islands but we waited too long to make sure the weather was going to be OK, and by the time we tried to book, in mid-June, the ferry for the night we wanted was sold out. Oh well, next time.
The area was business-y and not as crowded as other parts of Tokyo. It’s not close to any “sights” per se, but ended up being a perfect location for us. We chose not to pay extra for a Tokyo Bay view and our view of the Sumida River was fine. Our extremely endearing trainee bellhop, all 90 pounds of her, would not let us touch our bags until we forced her to let us help her. Upon hearing that we were from the United States, her face brightened and she expressed that she’d always wanted to go there – so many cultures!! We told her, yes, America is wonderful, but there’s no place we like more than Japan. Anyway, we got to the hotel, and instead of going out like we should have, the gorgeousness of the room seduced us so we crashed at five PM in the heavenly bed and snoozed the night away.
JUNE 26 Since we were jetlagged, we were up at 4 AM and caught the red rising sun from our hotel window. That sight alone made us glad we hadn’t forked over the extra cash for a “Tokyo Bay” room, especially since we could go up to the “Business Center” upstairs, check our email, and gaze out of the Bay. The business center was of course not open at 4 AM, but a friendly desk clerk opened it for us anyway. I heart Japanese customer service. Even for us – suspect-looking, discount-rate booking, us, they are so so so nice. They treat everyone like rockstars. Speaking of rockstars, Micahel Jackson died???? OMG. Anyway, there only two computers but in the three days we were there, we never had a problem using the internet whenever we wanted.
Afterwards, we procured some coffee and headed out. Luckily, even though it was supposedly rainy season, it was hot and humid, but not rainy. This is our second trip to Tokyo, and we are people watchers, so we spent the day walking around different neighborhoods and ending up in Ginza, which is so electric and alive at night. We ate lunch at a soba restaurant where you punch your order into a machine, put in 400 yen (about $4) and someone hands you your order. For dinner, we had some sushi at one of the Tsukiji chains and ended up with an enormous sushi and sashimi dinner, with drinks, for $25 US. Don’t believe the people who tell you Japan is super expensive – it’s not!!!! You can get what feels like a 5-star experience at a 3-star price if you do your research.
JUNE 27 Woke up around 4 AM and spent the morning trying to get more sleep. Watched the Seattle Mariners game, read the complimentary copy of the Asahi Shinbun that had been hanging on the door, checked our email, took a glorious bath in the ginormous bath tub, and started to feel sleepy so we kicked ourselves out into the steamy metropolis.
We hit Harajuku and Shinjuku, where we soaked in some youth culture and I bought a great pair of summer sandals for about $40 US. Shoes here are sized small, medium, and large. The mediums fit my size 6.5 feet perfectly. Then, we met a friend, a local girl whom we had met last time we’d been in Tokyo (we struck up a conversation with her when we were sitting next to her at a wine bar), and the girl took us to a kushiage (fried skewers) izakaya in the Shiodome complex. It is wonderful to have a local navigate a menu for you. Apparently, at Kushiage restaurants, after you tell them what you don’t like, they just keep bringing you skewers until you can’t eat anymore. We ate, ate, ate, ate some more.. I have no idea the price because our friend/guardian angel sneakily picked up the check before it was even presented to us (since we barely speak Japanese, she probably did it right in front of us without us knowing). Anyway, she is SO getting the royal treatment when she comes to visit us in Boston. On the way out we were ambushed by the manager who had to be the most adorable little girl-woman ever who wanted us to thank us for coming to her restaurant and wanted to know all about our plans in Japan. So, with the help of our friend, we conversed a bit before crashing, this time at a more respectable hour of 11 PM.
JUNE 28 Sadly, we had to leave the fantabulous Intercontinetal Tokyo Bay. It was not easy, but at least it wasn’t gorgeous and sunny, so that helped as we convinced ourselves perhaps that the rain was finally coming and that we’d escape it. We hightailed it to Tokyo Station, activated our seven-day JapanRail (($276 per person) and took the 10 AM train to Tazawako. We had wanted to take the 9 AM train but it had sold out the day before.
Anyway, three hours later, we were in Tazawa-ko and then we bought 200 yen bus ticket out to Nyuto Onsen, which took another 45 minutes. We had wanted to stay at the famous Tsurunu-yo Onsen but unfortunately it was booked apparently every single day of our trip (we had tried multiple times to make a reservation and actually planned part of our trip around it), so then we finally gave up and booked Kuroyu Onsen, http://www.kuroyu.com/, which was the only other onsen in the area we could find that was supposedly in the rustic “Edo” style with wooden building, mountain-y setting, etc,. It became apparent that there are tons of hiking trails around the area, and you can hike from onsen to onsen if you like – we unfortunately did not have the time to figure out how to do so and there were no English speakers at our onsen whom we could ask once we arrived. We had a Japanese friend book it before we arrived, arranged for the tourist office at Tazawako station to call the proprietor to pick us up at the bus stop. For a 11100 yen each, we got a tatami room in the main building, with shared sinks and bathrooms, two meals, plus three onsen – a men’s, a women’s, and a mixed. Well, there was supposedly a mixed onsen, but everytime we tried to go there it was full of naked men, and no women, so we got confused and stuck to the single sex ones – both of which contained an indoor bath as well as a rotemburo (outdoor bath) with glorious views of the surrounding countryside. Later, we found out that it is apparently the custom there, even for mixed bathing, so maybe we shouldn’t have been so shy. Anyway, as we said, no “eigo” here, so we got by with smiles, nodding, charades, and a lot of pointing to our Japanese phrasebook. The proprietor and the other guests could not have been nicer or more helpful to us clueless, disoriented, jetlagged gaijin.
The first thing we did was head for the onsen. As I was bathing, I was approached by a friendly 60 year old woman, who had been learning French, Spanish and Italian on the radio (!). The intellectual curiosity of the people I met in Japan astounds me. Since I speak French and Spanish, she was psyched to find a conversation partner, and we chatted for a bit. As we did, the other women circled around me and started asking my new friend questions and she became my interpreter. Although I was tired and jetlagged, these conversations energized me and I appreciated the ability to speak with the Japanese, even if I had to speak with in my third and fourth tongues Dinner was an exquisitely prepared multicourse feast featuring fresh fish, local produce, rice, and tofu.. The specialty here is soup with mountain vegetables and it was clear that the menu was seasonal as it was fresh and light for summertime. We learned, however, that it’s better to take an early meal time because if you choose a later one, you are all by yourself and the waitstaff has to sit around while you eat. Plus, as gaijin, we are completely besotted with the preparation (and we are trying to figure out what exactly we are eating) whereas the Japanese are speed-eaters. After dinner, we decided to take another dip in the onsen (not recommended but we aimed to trick our jetlagged bodies into sleeping). On the way to the bath, a friendly Japanese man in his early 60s, who greeted us in French, Spanish, and English. Apparently, he was the husband of the woman I had befriended earlier at the onsen. After we onsened (and watched the sun set while in the rotemburo), we walked past by the man’s lodging, he popped back out and invited us in to their detached little hut. Her evealed himself to be a just-retired journalist, who had travelled the world covering cultural affairs for forty years, and did speak English. All of a sudden we were sitting with him and his wife, chatting about Europe, art, Japan, poetry, youth age, and sports over sake, tea, beer, and snacks. Unfortunately, the convo had to end, so we headed back in the complete dark to our room and crashed, only to be woken up by a gorgeous red rising sun at 3:30 AM. Cripes, but wow – it was worth the lost sleep.
JUNE 29: Taking advantage of the early morning sun, I took a hike around the surrounding hills and streams (not a serious hike, but more like a stroll) and wished we could stay in the area longer. We had been nervous to stay too long in any one place in Honshu because it was supposed to be super duper soul crushing vacation-ruining rainy “tsuyu” season, but our first four days ended up being glorious and sunny and warm and perfect. After my hike, I jumped in the onsen, which I had all to myself because all the early-bird Japanese were already breakfasting. The lesson here is that you want to get to breakfast early so you are not there alone and awkward, but if you don’t get there as soon as it starts, you can nab some sweet, solo onsen time. Breakfast was just as varied and carefully prepared and seasonal and delicious as dinner had been. Again, we ended up being one of the last ones there but finally we saw a couple near our ages (30). Everyone else was over 50 or under 5, with some random young parents here and there. This is definitely a place for families. Anyway, after breakfasts, the proprietor loaded us into the car and drove us to the bus stop so we could start our journey north.
JUNE 29 From Nyuto Onsen, we nabbed the 10-ish bus back to Tazawa-ko ( which is famous for its gorgeous deep lake and reminds me a little bit of New Hampshire), and then embarked on a five hour journey requiring multiple changes of trains (including 45 minutes underground in the Seikan Tunnel) until we finally emerged at the port of Hakodate, a friendly and charming little city in Western Hokkaido that looks like it could be San Francisco West or Far Far East, depending on where you center yourself (California is technically east of Japan, right?)) There is even a flowery hill that looks a little like Lombard Street in SF. Apparently, squid and crab are HUGE here – the sewer grates are engraved with dancing squids, the question and answer poster at the market has a squid on it, holding a pencil. Anyway, after we got out of the train, we grabbed a map and located our hotel – the Toyoko Inn, which was a ten minute straight shot from the station, right past the famous Hakodate seafood morning market and tank after tank of live crabs. For 7600Y we got a teeny tiny but perfectly adequate little room, welcome gifts (choice of hair pins or face masks for me whereas my husband could choose between sock or a nail clipper), free internet in the lobby, loaner pajamas plus a buffet breakfast the next morning. There’s a barber shop attached to the hotel if you are so inclined. There was apparently free “kari raisu” (curry rice) offered at 6:30 PM, but we opted to check out the seafood which the city is apparently so famous for. Plus, we didn’t want to fall asleep.
By the time we’d situated ourselves sin our hotel, it was around 4:30 so we headed out towards the Bay which contains warehouses converted into little markets. Hakodate was an international port, so there’s a lot of foreign influence. It’s also the gateway to Hokkaido. We wandered around and contemplated taking the ropeway up to the surrounding hills to check out the “romantic view” Hakodate is supposedly famous for, but it was cloudy and threatened rain (even though there wasn’t supposed to be tsuyu in Hokkaido!!!!) so we took refuge in a random restaurant in the warehouse area. As soon as we sat at the bar/open sushi kitchen, we watched a chef grab a sea urchin out of the tank, kill it, and put it on a plate for our neighbor. It was still wiggling. My husband opted for a $20 plate of charcoal-grilled king crab legs, which ended up being a mountain of the freshest, most succulent, mouthwatering crab I had ever tasted. He had to fight me for it. I can’t remember what I ordered, which is amazing since I am obsessed with food, but I am sure it was good. What was also surprisingly good was the $3 glass of chilled Hakodate red wine I order. The Japanese. Anything we do, they can do better. After dinner, we crumpled into bed at 8 PM confirming that we must be the oldest, childless, 30-year olds on the planet. I shouldn’t include my husband in that though – I’m the one drags our jetlagged hides all over tarnation, poor guy.
JUNE 30 Got up at the crack of dawn and headed down to breakfast, which looked great but all the seats were taken by the time we got there (dang!). Not everyone was eating but no one was getting up. We were in a bit of a rush since we had an early train, we got a tray, served ourselves, and, copying two other folks to the left of us, then sat on the windowsill to eat. After our fellow windowsill-seaters got up and left, we were accosted by a Japanese man who accused of being “rude” by not sitting at a table. Since sitting at a table would have required kicking intruding on someone else’s breakfast, we had thought we were being polite. Anyway, embarrassed and with our moods ruined, we scarfed down the excellent miso soup, rice, pickles, and omelette, and headed out towards the train station, stopping to gawk at the lively morning seafood market on the way. Next stop: Asahidake.
Aug 4th, 2009, 09:06 AM
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Wow, loving the level of detail! Sounds like you had a good time. Too bad about not being able to get into Tsuru no yu. It is really nice in mid March with the snow keeping most of the day trippers out. I have always wondered how it would be at another time of year.....
We have been to all the places that you are mentioning so far and it is bringing back pleasant memories. We leave for Japan in 7 weeks so am getting anxious. Can't wait for more!
Aloha!
We have been to all the places that you are mentioning so far and it is bringing back pleasant memories. We leave for Japan in 7 weeks so am getting anxious. Can't wait for more!
Aloha!
Aug 4th, 2009, 10:43 AM
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Thanks hawaiian traveller - your previous trip reports were extremely helpful in helping us plan. In fact, when I said we planned ourselves, I should say we planned with the help of the Fodor's Travel Board. I wish we were going back to Japan but instead it looks like our next trip will be Thailand in January (we are flying ANA though, thru Tokyo).
Japan-guide.com recently highlighted Nyuto Onsen - sounds quite interesting. Please continue.
Aug 4th, 2009, 04:52 PM
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Daisann McLane from the NYT wrote a great article on the area (which is why I chose Kuroyu).. Anyway,
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/tr...pagewanted=all
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/10/21/tr...pagewanted=all
Aug 5th, 2009, 06:38 AM
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DAY 5-9 ASAHIDAKE, NOBORIBETSU, SAPPORO
I have to start this out by adding one thing to my June 28 report of our trip to Tazawa-ko. The Akita shinkansen we took included a section that was way up in the forest so that the training was whizzing among the treetops. It was really really cool.
JUNE 30
The journey from Hakodate to Asahidake was supposed to be a grueling 6 hour train-train-bus affair. We left Hakodate at about 8:30, changed trains at Sapporo, and arrived at Asahikawa on schedule. So far, so good. According to the internet and Lonely Planet, we had 45 minutes to catch a bus from Asahikawa to Asahidake. I went to the tourist info center at the Asahikawa station to get the bus schedule only to be informed that the next bus was at 3:30, meaning we would have to kill 2.5 hours, weighed down by luggage, in the Asahikawa train station area. Thanks Lonely Planet. Further, the bus arrives at Asahidake around 4:45, almost nine hours later. Well, there goes the day.
My husband, who is less than enchanted with my somewhat peripatetic travel style, got a little grumpy, but perked up once we sat down to one of the most sublime bowls of kake soba (soba noodles in a hot broth) ever at the little café in the train station. 400 yen ($4 US). There were some department stores in the area, so we passed the time dragging ourselves and our luggage through them, surveying the masses and masses and masses of consumer goods offered for sale. I read somewhere that if it exists, you can buy it in Japan. Anywhere. The quantity and variety of stuff is overwhelming, however – how can anyone choose between 5 million pairs of gorgeous shoes at Store A when you know Stores B, C, D, and E each have five million different and equally gorgeous pairs. You can’t, which is good, because sometimes when there’s too much to choose from, you can’t choose, you don’t buy. Further, the thought that you have to carry it all way home further protects your impulse to shop.
Anyway, at 3:30, my again-grumpy husband and I boarded the bus for Asahidake, which cost a hefty 1300 yen (at least the return would be free, according to the Lonely Planet), and after we were out of the city, the surrounding countryside, consisted of acres and acres and acres of farms and forest. Unlike a lot of Japan, this area is not heavily developed and is sparsely populated. About an hour into the trip, we entered an area of enchanting green forest, and from that point on, I forgot about the long day’s journey. This is the sight-seeing that I like!!!The bus dumped us off at the ropeway station, which was right next to our hotel for the night, the Manseikaku Asahidake Bearmonte (get it? Bear – Monte. Bear Mountain). I don’t know why they didn’t just pick one language (Japanese? English? French?) but, according to our Tokyo friend, it's trendy to use foreign words, even if resulting phrases and sentences don’t really make sense.
I originally selected this hotel as our one “splurge,” since I knew it would be the culmination of four hectic days of zigzagging around Hokkaido. We booked the last day before the start of the peak season and the rate was still $150 per person, per night, which is more expensive that any other hotel we have paid for. Ever. We were expecting Shangri-La. What we got was a perfectly adequate, but ultimately soulless, combination of ryokan and hotel. The staff was unfailingly gracious and polite. The tatami room was enormous and the view of the surrounding forest was relaxing and refreshing. The onsen was nice, a few indoor tubs and one rotemburo, all of which were, again, nice but they looked like swimming pools, and not the rustic-looking onsen that we love in Japan. There was a “family onsen” but it cost $20 extra. Um, no thanks. Both dinner and breakfast were buffet style and the cuisine was a mix of Japanese and Westen (paella!!! Linguine alla vongole! Beef Stirfy!!) I do have to stay the quality and quantity of all of the offering was very high, especially the vegetables and fruit. In the morning, the area was calm and peaceful, and very refreshing. There was nothing “wrong” with the place – it was a very nice hotel. I felt bad being disappointed but, what can I say? I was.
JULY 1
Anyway, after breakfast, we headed across the street to the Tourist Information Center, where Lonely Planet explained we would get hiking maps to explore the area. We’d been hoping to get a map to hike to Sounkyo Gorge and Onsen nearby. The staffer at the TI was extremely nice but his English was limited and there didn’t seem to be any information in English about the hiking trails around the area. I’m not complaining – there’s no reason that there should be English stuff in a country where English is not the national language – I’m just explaining that the info we wanted was unfortunately not available. We didn’t want to get lost in the woods, however, so we figured to scrap the plans to hike and instead headed up to the ropeway station to take the skilift up.
The ropeway station was across the street and contained a large gift shop. This was the first place during the trip where I found some postcards, so I was psyched. They also had ice cream, and I just had to indulge, even though it was ten AM. Japanese soft-serve ice cream is the best – it doesn’t taste artificial and it’s not too sweet – it is light but creamy. Soon after I succumbed, a line of people followed me. It’s irresistible. Meanwhile, my husband went to the ticket office to buy a ropeway ticket and found out that, despite what they said in the Lonely Planet, you can no longer get a free return ticket to Asahikawa with your ropeway ticket. Thanks, worldwide recession. I blame Bush.
The ropeway tickets were pretty expensive, $28 per person. I would have rather figured out how to hike, but that would have entailed learning Japanese on the fly. Further, that morning I read in either the Lonely Planet that there’s some sort of tick or fly in the forests of Hokkaido (uh-oh) that can cause Japanese encephalitis (brain disease that can kill you or leave you paralyzed or cognitively impaired) and that there’s an impossible-to-get-in- America- but –available-in-Europe that you really should take before you go. Uh-oh. I didn’t bother to tell my husband about this tick because he would have freaked out, adorable hypochondriac that he is. So even though it was warmish, I wore long sleeves and pants and wrapped a light towel around my neck as a scarf. Turned out to be sort of useful, because by the time we got to the top of the ropeway, it was coldish and there was patches snow. In July. It wasn’t that cold, however, as the patches of snow were interspersed with carpets of alpine flowers, which drew oohs-and-ahs from the mostly over-60 crowd that was with us. They were serious hikers with serious gear, and, well, you know how I was dressed. They were polite enough not tor point or gasp at my goofy attire. Anyway, at the top of the ropeway there’s a couple of trails so we spent about an hour exploring the area and basking in the four seasons all at once, snow, spring flowers, intermittent sun, rain, wind – you name it. Not a bad way to kill a few hours in the middle of nowhere,
Around two o’clock we returned to Asahidake Onsen proper and headed to our next hotel, the Daisetsuzan Shirakaba-so, which is a newly constructed hostel/lodge that’s a five-minute walk from the on the main drag (there’s only one). In retrospect we should have booked two nights here and skipped the Oso Mont, but you live, you learn. Since you need to call or fax to book this place, I had my Japanese friend reserve it for us. For about $80 US, per person, we got a basic tatami room (ours overlooked and overheard a babbling brook), with shared bathrooms, a lovely little onsen (indoor and rotemburo), plus dinner and breakfast. There are also dorms and laundry facilities. The only minus was that our comforters smelled a little like smoke, but smoking is allowed, so again, what can you do? The lodge itself is newish, wooden, architecturally interesting (simple but carefully designed) and nestled in a patch of land surround by leafy green trees and the aforementioned babbling brook.
After we settled in, we headed next door for lunch, as Lonely Planet stated that there was little noodle café, only to be greeted by a sign that the noodle café had “retired.” To where? Florida? We asked the first person we saw where we might get some food, and he pointed to a hotel at the bottom of the hill where he said we could find some ramen. We walked down the hill and indeed there was a hotel and indeed there was tasty & spicy ramen. I don’t know the name of the place at all because, everything, as it should be, was in Japanese. Apparently there was an onsen for use by the public there, but dismayed by the hotel-pool-like onsen at the Ours Montana, and since we hadn’t digested yet, we declined and walked back up to Shirakaba-so.
We explored the grounds a little bit. By the time we figured we’d digested the ramen, we hit the onsen. We were alone (because everyone else was probably still hiking). Although the men’s and womens’s bath were separated, we could sort of talk to each other through the walls. The women’s onsen contained two baths, one indoor and one outdoor. The indoor bath was no great shakes but the outdoor one was spectacular – tiny, but hot hot hot (really, almost scalding hot), rocky, and surrounded by the forest. I really felt like I was in the middle of a mountain. You can’t even see, feel, or hear anything else but running water, breezes, birds, and of course, the mosquitoes that may or may not paralyze you. After that, and four days of non-stop running around, I was ready for a nap so we returned to our room, pulled out the bedding, and I closed my eyes so that all I experienced was the sounds of the babbling brook. Sounds boring and a waste of time, but it wasn’t. It was perfect.
I got up just in time so we wouldn’t miss dinner, which is served in a cafeteria by the main entrance. Your room number was on a table and half of the meal was already there waiting for you. As soon as you sit down, a staffer comes by to pour your some hot miso soup and bring a few other items. Beer and wine were extra, but extremely reasonably priced. They even had draft beer. The food was simple and fresh and exquisitely prepared by the cheerful elves that were busy in the kitchen probably working on tomorrow’s breakfast. After dinner, we ended up talking a bit with one of the staffers, who, lured in by our non-Japanese looks, came to find out where we were from and what we were doing here. The rest of the people were Japanese, except for a couple who sounded like they were German. He lamented that the busy season had just started and soon they would be too busy to enjoy the summer. His comment made me resolve to not be too busy to enjoy my fleeting summer when I return to Boston.
At that point, we should have stayed up and perhaps hit the rotemburo at night to gaze at the stars, but I was tired and felt like reading while listening to that glorious babbling brook. So that’s what I did, until I fell asleep.
JULY 2
After a great night’s sleep, we rushed downstairs to catch breakfast, which was adorable: miso soup, a little omelet and sausage, rice, fish, and artfully arranged exotic vegetables. Yum and something for everyone – I’m American but of Asian descent so savory non-breakfasty breakfasts suit my palette whereas my husband, who is Latin, appreciated the accommodation to western taste. After breakfast, we had hoped to pack and then hit the onsen, but unfortunately it was closed for cleaning (probably because everyone leaves for hiking or snowboarding after breakfast). We had about two hours to kill so we wandered about some more and read the guestbook comments. Apparently this place is a winter sports mecca. And the weather is super-unpredictable.
At around 11:00, the bus to Asahikawa rolled into town and we rolled out. I regretted that we hadn’t been able to venture deeper into the forests and hike around but it had been peaceful and relaxing two days and we’d been super lucky with the weather (no rain). At the bus-stop, and with the help of our trusty Berlitz Japanese-English phrasebook, I conversed with a spry, adorable little granny (she must have been about 80) from Osaka who was on her way up WAY NORTH, to the Rebun-to Islands, and wanted me to take a picture of her next to the national Park Sign. We could only talk about the where are you from, where are you going factoids and I wished I knew more Japanese so I could really talk to her. She’s 80! Meaning she looks like she’s 60, but is probably more like 80 since the people around here who are actually 60 look more like 45. What must she have seen? She lived through WW2 and Japan’s dizzying rise and crash. How cool that she was travelling all around Hokkaido, by herself? Where else had she been? Where did she get all her energy?
Around noon-ish, we arrived at Asahikawa Station and made a beeline to the kake soba place. I could literally eat that for the rest of my life and never get tired. This particular version had a very delicate and fresh broth. The noodles were light as well. We continued on to Noboribetsu, via Sapporo, and then grabbed a bus to the onsen. The whole trip took about four hours, and my husband was less than thrilled, however, the moment he saw the hot springs at our hotel, the Daiichi Takimotan, he concluded it had all been worth it.
The Daichi Takimotan ran about 8600 yen per person and it included: awesome tatami room, use of the 24 hour onsen theme park, plus buffet dinner and breakfast. It is enormous. As hawaiiantraveler (I think) has mentioned, you can stay across the street at the sister hotel for less money, but in our case, the price not that different (about $25 per person). I think we got a promotional, off-season rate. The hotel is a dizzying maze of rooms, shops, onsen, massage, arcades, restaurants, you-name it and they probably had it. The crowning jewel is the onsen – 13 indoor baths and four outdoor ones, each with special healing waters, and four rotemburo, all with varying views of the gorgeous valley of maple trees. We didn’t leave the hotel for 18 hours and we didn’t have to. Dinner and breakfast were an excellent buffet of local produce and specialities as well as popular dishes from all over Japan. Service was faultless. The arcade was particularly amusing – the 1980s all over again. Definitely a modern Japanese experience (as opposed to a traditional one) but loads of fun anyway.
JULY 3
Onsened out (for the time being anyway), we left the next morning for Sapporo. Since we were flying out to Kansai early the next day (using the handy $100 yokoso fare), we selected a hotel near the airport, the Hotel New Wing Chitose, which was cheap (about 9000 yen for the night) and offered a free shuttle to the airport. From Noboribetsu, we took a fast train to Sapporo, then a local train to Chitose, dropped our stuff at the New Wing, and headed into Sapporo.
We didn’t have any real plans for Sapporo – just some vague ideas. Mainly we aimed to wander around and get a feel for the vibe of the place. It was sort of rainy and humid, so we first ducked into one of the department stores to browse around. We wandered around the streets, slurped up some noodles, and people watched. After a few hours, we figured we should check out the Sapporo Beer Museum, so we set off to find it and got totally lost and ended up in an apartment complex where we met three giggling little girls who, with the encouragement of their mothers, guided us to the Beer Museum. They showed us a shortcut through a gate, which was being manned by a not-too-amused woman who held it open. I wanted to get a picture of my husband with the three musketeers, so I said photo? The minute I said the magic word, the munchkins sprang into action and assumed instant poses, of course with the obligatory “V” sign. It was too much. I snapped, waved goodbye, scurried through the gate held by the increasingly irritated gatekeeper, and we were on our way to the Beer Museum.
The Beer Museum was cool. Apparently there are guided tours, but wandering around on your own is fine too. The displays have some English but are pretty self-explanatory. The Germans came, they made beer. Particularly interesting was the archives of beer cans and bottles and advertising posters – you can see the history of modern Japanese attitudes through the stories depicted on the cans and posters. We did a 200 yen tasting of three beers and headed back into the streets. Hungry, we ended up in a mall, which is usually a great place for inexpensive meals, but nothing looked very interesting and we were too brain-dead to scope out the recommended eateries in either the Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide, so we headed back to the Sapporo Beer Museum to try our luck at the adjacent Beer Garden. The speciality there is grilled lamb “jinguskan” (Genghis Khan – get it? It took me a few days) that you barbeque at yout table with dipping sauce and wash down with beer. Basically, you have a grill at your table and you tell them what you want, they bring it, you grill it. It was loads of fun, loads of food, and the bill was barely $30 US for the two of us. Apparently the jinguskan joints in other parts of Sapporo are cheaper, tastier, etc but this place was fine. We ended up talking to the family near us, who were on vacation from another part of Hokkaido. Afterwards, we soaked up some of the atmosphere, including a wacky arcade in the department store adjacent to the train station, and bought a Yu Darvish Nippon Ham Fighters-shirt (for when the Red Sox inevitably sign him) before training it back to Chitose and the New Wing. We thought we’d watch some random Japanese TV but it was all grainy pay-for porn so we just crashed instead, which was probably good since we had to leave at 6:30 the next morning anyway.
I have to start this out by adding one thing to my June 28 report of our trip to Tazawa-ko. The Akita shinkansen we took included a section that was way up in the forest so that the training was whizzing among the treetops. It was really really cool.
JUNE 30
The journey from Hakodate to Asahidake was supposed to be a grueling 6 hour train-train-bus affair. We left Hakodate at about 8:30, changed trains at Sapporo, and arrived at Asahikawa on schedule. So far, so good. According to the internet and Lonely Planet, we had 45 minutes to catch a bus from Asahikawa to Asahidake. I went to the tourist info center at the Asahikawa station to get the bus schedule only to be informed that the next bus was at 3:30, meaning we would have to kill 2.5 hours, weighed down by luggage, in the Asahikawa train station area. Thanks Lonely Planet. Further, the bus arrives at Asahidake around 4:45, almost nine hours later. Well, there goes the day.
My husband, who is less than enchanted with my somewhat peripatetic travel style, got a little grumpy, but perked up once we sat down to one of the most sublime bowls of kake soba (soba noodles in a hot broth) ever at the little café in the train station. 400 yen ($4 US). There were some department stores in the area, so we passed the time dragging ourselves and our luggage through them, surveying the masses and masses and masses of consumer goods offered for sale. I read somewhere that if it exists, you can buy it in Japan. Anywhere. The quantity and variety of stuff is overwhelming, however – how can anyone choose between 5 million pairs of gorgeous shoes at Store A when you know Stores B, C, D, and E each have five million different and equally gorgeous pairs. You can’t, which is good, because sometimes when there’s too much to choose from, you can’t choose, you don’t buy. Further, the thought that you have to carry it all way home further protects your impulse to shop.
Anyway, at 3:30, my again-grumpy husband and I boarded the bus for Asahidake, which cost a hefty 1300 yen (at least the return would be free, according to the Lonely Planet), and after we were out of the city, the surrounding countryside, consisted of acres and acres and acres of farms and forest. Unlike a lot of Japan, this area is not heavily developed and is sparsely populated. About an hour into the trip, we entered an area of enchanting green forest, and from that point on, I forgot about the long day’s journey. This is the sight-seeing that I like!!!The bus dumped us off at the ropeway station, which was right next to our hotel for the night, the Manseikaku Asahidake Bearmonte (get it? Bear – Monte. Bear Mountain). I don’t know why they didn’t just pick one language (Japanese? English? French?) but, according to our Tokyo friend, it's trendy to use foreign words, even if resulting phrases and sentences don’t really make sense.
I originally selected this hotel as our one “splurge,” since I knew it would be the culmination of four hectic days of zigzagging around Hokkaido. We booked the last day before the start of the peak season and the rate was still $150 per person, per night, which is more expensive that any other hotel we have paid for. Ever. We were expecting Shangri-La. What we got was a perfectly adequate, but ultimately soulless, combination of ryokan and hotel. The staff was unfailingly gracious and polite. The tatami room was enormous and the view of the surrounding forest was relaxing and refreshing. The onsen was nice, a few indoor tubs and one rotemburo, all of which were, again, nice but they looked like swimming pools, and not the rustic-looking onsen that we love in Japan. There was a “family onsen” but it cost $20 extra. Um, no thanks. Both dinner and breakfast were buffet style and the cuisine was a mix of Japanese and Westen (paella!!! Linguine alla vongole! Beef Stirfy!!) I do have to stay the quality and quantity of all of the offering was very high, especially the vegetables and fruit. In the morning, the area was calm and peaceful, and very refreshing. There was nothing “wrong” with the place – it was a very nice hotel. I felt bad being disappointed but, what can I say? I was.
JULY 1
Anyway, after breakfast, we headed across the street to the Tourist Information Center, where Lonely Planet explained we would get hiking maps to explore the area. We’d been hoping to get a map to hike to Sounkyo Gorge and Onsen nearby. The staffer at the TI was extremely nice but his English was limited and there didn’t seem to be any information in English about the hiking trails around the area. I’m not complaining – there’s no reason that there should be English stuff in a country where English is not the national language – I’m just explaining that the info we wanted was unfortunately not available. We didn’t want to get lost in the woods, however, so we figured to scrap the plans to hike and instead headed up to the ropeway station to take the skilift up.
The ropeway station was across the street and contained a large gift shop. This was the first place during the trip where I found some postcards, so I was psyched. They also had ice cream, and I just had to indulge, even though it was ten AM. Japanese soft-serve ice cream is the best – it doesn’t taste artificial and it’s not too sweet – it is light but creamy. Soon after I succumbed, a line of people followed me. It’s irresistible. Meanwhile, my husband went to the ticket office to buy a ropeway ticket and found out that, despite what they said in the Lonely Planet, you can no longer get a free return ticket to Asahikawa with your ropeway ticket. Thanks, worldwide recession. I blame Bush.
The ropeway tickets were pretty expensive, $28 per person. I would have rather figured out how to hike, but that would have entailed learning Japanese on the fly. Further, that morning I read in either the Lonely Planet that there’s some sort of tick or fly in the forests of Hokkaido (uh-oh) that can cause Japanese encephalitis (brain disease that can kill you or leave you paralyzed or cognitively impaired) and that there’s an impossible-to-get-in- America- but –available-in-Europe that you really should take before you go. Uh-oh. I didn’t bother to tell my husband about this tick because he would have freaked out, adorable hypochondriac that he is. So even though it was warmish, I wore long sleeves and pants and wrapped a light towel around my neck as a scarf. Turned out to be sort of useful, because by the time we got to the top of the ropeway, it was coldish and there was patches snow. In July. It wasn’t that cold, however, as the patches of snow were interspersed with carpets of alpine flowers, which drew oohs-and-ahs from the mostly over-60 crowd that was with us. They were serious hikers with serious gear, and, well, you know how I was dressed. They were polite enough not tor point or gasp at my goofy attire. Anyway, at the top of the ropeway there’s a couple of trails so we spent about an hour exploring the area and basking in the four seasons all at once, snow, spring flowers, intermittent sun, rain, wind – you name it. Not a bad way to kill a few hours in the middle of nowhere,
Around two o’clock we returned to Asahidake Onsen proper and headed to our next hotel, the Daisetsuzan Shirakaba-so, which is a newly constructed hostel/lodge that’s a five-minute walk from the on the main drag (there’s only one). In retrospect we should have booked two nights here and skipped the Oso Mont, but you live, you learn. Since you need to call or fax to book this place, I had my Japanese friend reserve it for us. For about $80 US, per person, we got a basic tatami room (ours overlooked and overheard a babbling brook), with shared bathrooms, a lovely little onsen (indoor and rotemburo), plus dinner and breakfast. There are also dorms and laundry facilities. The only minus was that our comforters smelled a little like smoke, but smoking is allowed, so again, what can you do? The lodge itself is newish, wooden, architecturally interesting (simple but carefully designed) and nestled in a patch of land surround by leafy green trees and the aforementioned babbling brook.
After we settled in, we headed next door for lunch, as Lonely Planet stated that there was little noodle café, only to be greeted by a sign that the noodle café had “retired.” To where? Florida? We asked the first person we saw where we might get some food, and he pointed to a hotel at the bottom of the hill where he said we could find some ramen. We walked down the hill and indeed there was a hotel and indeed there was tasty & spicy ramen. I don’t know the name of the place at all because, everything, as it should be, was in Japanese. Apparently there was an onsen for use by the public there, but dismayed by the hotel-pool-like onsen at the Ours Montana, and since we hadn’t digested yet, we declined and walked back up to Shirakaba-so.
We explored the grounds a little bit. By the time we figured we’d digested the ramen, we hit the onsen. We were alone (because everyone else was probably still hiking). Although the men’s and womens’s bath were separated, we could sort of talk to each other through the walls. The women’s onsen contained two baths, one indoor and one outdoor. The indoor bath was no great shakes but the outdoor one was spectacular – tiny, but hot hot hot (really, almost scalding hot), rocky, and surrounded by the forest. I really felt like I was in the middle of a mountain. You can’t even see, feel, or hear anything else but running water, breezes, birds, and of course, the mosquitoes that may or may not paralyze you. After that, and four days of non-stop running around, I was ready for a nap so we returned to our room, pulled out the bedding, and I closed my eyes so that all I experienced was the sounds of the babbling brook. Sounds boring and a waste of time, but it wasn’t. It was perfect.
I got up just in time so we wouldn’t miss dinner, which is served in a cafeteria by the main entrance. Your room number was on a table and half of the meal was already there waiting for you. As soon as you sit down, a staffer comes by to pour your some hot miso soup and bring a few other items. Beer and wine were extra, but extremely reasonably priced. They even had draft beer. The food was simple and fresh and exquisitely prepared by the cheerful elves that were busy in the kitchen probably working on tomorrow’s breakfast. After dinner, we ended up talking a bit with one of the staffers, who, lured in by our non-Japanese looks, came to find out where we were from and what we were doing here. The rest of the people were Japanese, except for a couple who sounded like they were German. He lamented that the busy season had just started and soon they would be too busy to enjoy the summer. His comment made me resolve to not be too busy to enjoy my fleeting summer when I return to Boston.
At that point, we should have stayed up and perhaps hit the rotemburo at night to gaze at the stars, but I was tired and felt like reading while listening to that glorious babbling brook. So that’s what I did, until I fell asleep.
JULY 2
After a great night’s sleep, we rushed downstairs to catch breakfast, which was adorable: miso soup, a little omelet and sausage, rice, fish, and artfully arranged exotic vegetables. Yum and something for everyone – I’m American but of Asian descent so savory non-breakfasty breakfasts suit my palette whereas my husband, who is Latin, appreciated the accommodation to western taste. After breakfast, we had hoped to pack and then hit the onsen, but unfortunately it was closed for cleaning (probably because everyone leaves for hiking or snowboarding after breakfast). We had about two hours to kill so we wandered about some more and read the guestbook comments. Apparently this place is a winter sports mecca. And the weather is super-unpredictable.
At around 11:00, the bus to Asahikawa rolled into town and we rolled out. I regretted that we hadn’t been able to venture deeper into the forests and hike around but it had been peaceful and relaxing two days and we’d been super lucky with the weather (no rain). At the bus-stop, and with the help of our trusty Berlitz Japanese-English phrasebook, I conversed with a spry, adorable little granny (she must have been about 80) from Osaka who was on her way up WAY NORTH, to the Rebun-to Islands, and wanted me to take a picture of her next to the national Park Sign. We could only talk about the where are you from, where are you going factoids and I wished I knew more Japanese so I could really talk to her. She’s 80! Meaning she looks like she’s 60, but is probably more like 80 since the people around here who are actually 60 look more like 45. What must she have seen? She lived through WW2 and Japan’s dizzying rise and crash. How cool that she was travelling all around Hokkaido, by herself? Where else had she been? Where did she get all her energy?
Around noon-ish, we arrived at Asahikawa Station and made a beeline to the kake soba place. I could literally eat that for the rest of my life and never get tired. This particular version had a very delicate and fresh broth. The noodles were light as well. We continued on to Noboribetsu, via Sapporo, and then grabbed a bus to the onsen. The whole trip took about four hours, and my husband was less than thrilled, however, the moment he saw the hot springs at our hotel, the Daiichi Takimotan, he concluded it had all been worth it.
The Daichi Takimotan ran about 8600 yen per person and it included: awesome tatami room, use of the 24 hour onsen theme park, plus buffet dinner and breakfast. It is enormous. As hawaiiantraveler (I think) has mentioned, you can stay across the street at the sister hotel for less money, but in our case, the price not that different (about $25 per person). I think we got a promotional, off-season rate. The hotel is a dizzying maze of rooms, shops, onsen, massage, arcades, restaurants, you-name it and they probably had it. The crowning jewel is the onsen – 13 indoor baths and four outdoor ones, each with special healing waters, and four rotemburo, all with varying views of the gorgeous valley of maple trees. We didn’t leave the hotel for 18 hours and we didn’t have to. Dinner and breakfast were an excellent buffet of local produce and specialities as well as popular dishes from all over Japan. Service was faultless. The arcade was particularly amusing – the 1980s all over again. Definitely a modern Japanese experience (as opposed to a traditional one) but loads of fun anyway.
JULY 3
Onsened out (for the time being anyway), we left the next morning for Sapporo. Since we were flying out to Kansai early the next day (using the handy $100 yokoso fare), we selected a hotel near the airport, the Hotel New Wing Chitose, which was cheap (about 9000 yen for the night) and offered a free shuttle to the airport. From Noboribetsu, we took a fast train to Sapporo, then a local train to Chitose, dropped our stuff at the New Wing, and headed into Sapporo.
We didn’t have any real plans for Sapporo – just some vague ideas. Mainly we aimed to wander around and get a feel for the vibe of the place. It was sort of rainy and humid, so we first ducked into one of the department stores to browse around. We wandered around the streets, slurped up some noodles, and people watched. After a few hours, we figured we should check out the Sapporo Beer Museum, so we set off to find it and got totally lost and ended up in an apartment complex where we met three giggling little girls who, with the encouragement of their mothers, guided us to the Beer Museum. They showed us a shortcut through a gate, which was being manned by a not-too-amused woman who held it open. I wanted to get a picture of my husband with the three musketeers, so I said photo? The minute I said the magic word, the munchkins sprang into action and assumed instant poses, of course with the obligatory “V” sign. It was too much. I snapped, waved goodbye, scurried through the gate held by the increasingly irritated gatekeeper, and we were on our way to the Beer Museum.
The Beer Museum was cool. Apparently there are guided tours, but wandering around on your own is fine too. The displays have some English but are pretty self-explanatory. The Germans came, they made beer. Particularly interesting was the archives of beer cans and bottles and advertising posters – you can see the history of modern Japanese attitudes through the stories depicted on the cans and posters. We did a 200 yen tasting of three beers and headed back into the streets. Hungry, we ended up in a mall, which is usually a great place for inexpensive meals, but nothing looked very interesting and we were too brain-dead to scope out the recommended eateries in either the Lonely Planet or the Rough Guide, so we headed back to the Sapporo Beer Museum to try our luck at the adjacent Beer Garden. The speciality there is grilled lamb “jinguskan” (Genghis Khan – get it? It took me a few days) that you barbeque at yout table with dipping sauce and wash down with beer. Basically, you have a grill at your table and you tell them what you want, they bring it, you grill it. It was loads of fun, loads of food, and the bill was barely $30 US for the two of us. Apparently the jinguskan joints in other parts of Sapporo are cheaper, tastier, etc but this place was fine. We ended up talking to the family near us, who were on vacation from another part of Hokkaido. Afterwards, we soaked up some of the atmosphere, including a wacky arcade in the department store adjacent to the train station, and bought a Yu Darvish Nippon Ham Fighters-shirt (for when the Red Sox inevitably sign him) before training it back to Chitose and the New Wing. We thought we’d watch some random Japanese TV but it was all grainy pay-for porn so we just crashed instead, which was probably good since we had to leave at 6:30 the next morning anyway.
Aug 5th, 2009, 08:52 AM
#11
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I am loving this report. Thank you for taking the time and effort to do this. We get virtually no information on this site on the areas you are reporting about. We will be in Sounkyo Onsen in a few weeks and will spend an over night in Asahikawa so your reports shed some light on our upcoming travels. We will rent a car for a week out of the Asahikawa JR station and head to Shiretoko, Lake Akan and finally return via Sounkyo.
We just loved Noboribetsu and the Daiichi Takimoto. You really have to see the place to believe it and I am glad you had the chance to experience it. Looking forward to more!
PS Have you burned that Lonely Planet guide yet,lol?
We just loved Noboribetsu and the Daiichi Takimoto. You really have to see the place to believe it and I am glad you had the chance to experience it. Looking forward to more!
PS Have you burned that Lonely Planet guide yet,lol?
Aug 8th, 2009, 10:03 AM
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Your report is wonderful! It really gives the flavor of traveling in another land where you don't speak the language, and getting along quite well anyway. Thanks for posting the link to the first onsen--it looks amazing! I hope to get back to Japan within the next year, so this just whets my appetite to make it sooner rather than later. Looking forward to the next installment.
Aug 9th, 2009, 08:08 PM
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There is a Part III - Kyoto, but we didn't "do" as much, as we were hanging out with friends. Glad people are finding this report useful. As I mentioned before, this trip was a BEAR to plan.
