We took a trip to Hokkaido for the long weekend to relax for a bit. On the agenda: country side, hot spring relaxation, delicious food and nights out!
As we arrived to the new Chitose airport (Sapporo), we took the first train to a small city north of Sapporo called Asahikawa. We had read that the city itself wasn’t mind blowing, but it was a great departure point for a small hot spring village in the national park nearby. Indeed the city of Asahikawa wasn’t really exciting, a bit soulless to be honest. Our small business hotel, the Dormy Inn, had lovely hot spring on the rooftop, so it kind of made up for the lack of excitement! After a beer, we decided to go for ramen, which the city is famous for. We picked a highly recommended restaurant. It looked a bit dodgy but we’d been to dodgy looking places and had delicious food, so it did not bother us. However, we did not like the ramen at all! Asahikawa, you disappointed us a bit more…
Anyway, after a great night of sleep, we headed to Sounkyou hot spring village for a bit of nature sightseeing… The village is located in the mountains in the middle of a national park. We checked in at our ryokan and then took a rope way, then a chair lift and after a walk, we were able to admire the autumn views of the forest. It was really beautiful and so refreshing to get in such a place! However, it was so cold! Coming from 30 degrees in Tokyo to 10 degrees at the top of that mountain, we surely were surprised! In all honesty, it was very pretty and great to get out of Tokyo, but definitely not the most scenic place we’ve been.
The evening crab set that we chose for our dinner was amazing though and so worth the trip! There were a good 8 crab dishes each… Delicious!
The following day we headed to Sapporo, the main city of Hokkaido, that we had visited five years ago during the snow festival. After a quick visit to the hot spring facilities of our Dormy Inn, we met with a friend of Dave for lamb barbecue, a specialty of Sapporo. It was so yummy and the recommended restaurant, in the basement of the Sapporo Beer Museum) was really interesting, with its huge dinning room (an old factory room). I swear there were at least 100 tables with mountains of meat on each one of them!
As we were in Sapporo, we had to visit the Sapporo Ramen Republic where it’s possible to sample ramen from the various areas of Hokkaido. It’s a really cool place even though it’s a bit kitsch!
After Sapporo, we took a train and then a bus to the lake Shikotsu where we booked a night at a great ryokan on the lake. The lake area was stunning and our room had a superb view of the lake with the mountains in the background.
The onsen (hot spring) facilities were amazing. What is more relaxing than taking an outdoor bath while looking at such a beautiful scenic lake?
Then, there again, we had a really tasty dinner at our ryokan. It wasn’t crab, it was “seasonal specialties” such as autumn sashimi and mackerel rolls … yummy seasonal specialties!
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