Konichiwa! Finally finished watermarking all these 200+ photos in this post, it was absolutely a super tiring job for me, but yes I finally did it bits by bits, feeling so relieved now but there are still more posts queuing up for me. Days have come to the 5th week of my Sem 3, after joining some activities for the first few weeks, school workloads are becoming heavier and heavier, stressful mind just couldn’t get off from me recently, but yet I know that this semester will be an interesting one compared to last semester for sure. I quitted all the dramas, youtube-ing, even my favourite Running Man, and now left the only hobby for me is blogging. It had been more than a month I back from my Japan trip, but still I miss everything there, every moment spent with my family there is so precious to me, I wish I could travelled back in time if I have time machine …
# DAY 5 #
Enough for countryside, today we are going to discover the beauty of capital city of Hokkaido! Sapporo is the largest city on the island, also one of the newest and prettiest in Japan. Although it is far smaller than Tokyo, Sapporo is vibrant and colorful, and even if it lacks the traditional architecture of older cities, its wide open and tree lined streets are lovely in summer and winter as well. We’re going to visit some of the significant attractions of Sapporo today such as the famous Otaru canal, Sakaimachi Street, lovely Ishiya Chocolate factory, Tanukikoji shopping street and many more. But before that, we’ll also pass by Asahikawa which is the 2nd biggest city of Hokkaido and is the semi industrial cum agriculture land scalping zone. Wow! Finally have chance to visit there where always shown in the travel variety shows. Just can’t wait for it! Sapporo, here we come !
Some pics before leaving Sounkyu
The first group photos with our apple tour mates
On the way to Sapporo city which required around 2-3 hours of bus journey. If you choose to follow trip to travel in Hokkaido when moving from one place to another everything is about journey because it’s such a big land unless u are self-drive travel which u can focus on which part to travel. This might be one of the downside of joining trip.
Finally, we are here !
Our first destination today – Otoyama Sake Museum （小樽龟甲藏酿酒厂）where you can learn more about Japan Sake culture and history. The natural drinking water here are so special until the famous and oldest Japanese Wine has to be base at here.
We have chance to visit the factory of producing Japanese sake with the guide who explained the whole making process to us. There are so many steps involved in order to produce good sake, no wonder they are so expensive with a little bottle … But because she was explained in Japanese so actually I’m not really listen to the translation, I was just too busy with snapping photos around. I guess you guys could just pretty understand the general process by the pictures below because I’m too lazy to write about the process name. ^^
Some souvenir selling on ground floor but I’m not much interested on wine
A huge Japanese Sake lamp !
A drinking well that could draw the ‘special water’. Even the pure water in Japan taste sweet too ! Some said that tap water in Japan is drinkable, can’t believe it ! Just try this once in Malaysia and see, I’m not sure what will happen next.
While collecting the water …
I got a bottle of ‘special water’ too ! Will live until 100 years after drinking this ? ^^
Next, we arrived at the north-west of the island and the old port town, Otaru (小樽). When talk about Otaru, most people will surely think of its famous attraction – Otaru Canal where always could be seen on a magazine or travelling book’s covers.
Otaru Canal (小樽運河) was once a central part of the city's busy port in the first half of the 20th century. Large vessels were unloaded by smaller ships, which then transported the goods to warehouses along the canal.The canal became obsolete when modern dock facilities allowed for direct unloading of larger vessels. Thanks to a citizens' movement, a part of the canal was beautifully restored in the 1980s instead of being landfilled, while the warehouses were transformed into museums, shops and restaurants.
This beautifully preserved canal makes Otaru a pleasant stroll during the day, when artists present their works to passing tourists, and during the evenings when old fashioned gas lamps are lit and provide a romantic atmosphere. The canal also serves as the main site of the town's Snow Light Path Festival.
Otaru Snow Light Path Festival is a winter festival held every February in Otaru, during which the city becomes decorated in lights and small snow statues for ten days. The combination of the snowy town and the glittering lanterns creates a very pleasant atmosphere. Really should try visit here once again during winter time !
But then it was such an disappointment that the sky was so dark when we reach there, I think we just stopped by 5 minutes and it started to rain and becoming heavier. I was so sad that couldn’t took more nice pictures there before rushed back into bus.
Just a few simply quickly snap here
Next, coming to Sakaimachi Street (小樽步行街境町通) which is an attractive, preserved merchant street in central Otaru, a short walk from the city's canal area.
During the development of Hokkaido in the late 1800s and early 1900s, Otaru thrived as a port city, and many trading and shipping companies constructed impressive Western style buildings in the city center to house their offices and shops. Many of the buildings along Sakaimachi Street have since been converted into restaurants, cafes, souvenir shops, boutiques, art gallery and museums. There are also a few glass workshops for tourists to enjoy a hands-on experience in creating the local Otaru Glass.
Walk along the street in the rain, I’m simply fall in love with all these beautiful Europe style design of historic buildings with different types of unique bricks walls .
Another group of tourists
The cheese cake taste damn nice but we didn’t buy it XD
Mummy and Daddy dating and leaving me behind TT
Resting while enjoying some delicious cream puffs and free black coffee …
The Music Box Museum consists of multiple buildings scattered around the southern end of Sakaimachi Street, one of which houses a small museum about music boxes. The most prominent building, however, is a large shop with a wide variety of music boxes on sale. In front of the building stands a steam clock, a present by the city of Vancouver.
I was so afraid to stand close to those fragile expensive music box that I couldn’t afford to break anyone although there’re really lovely and gorgeous !
Ancient Baroque Style Piano, looks so classic right ?
LOL ! when my mum took a ‘natural’ stupid face of me >o<
It is sweet corn again !!!
Hokkaido honeydew, equivalent to almost RM100 EACH! It is worth it ? Of course we didn’t buy
Even if they are just sample, but aren’t they look delicious too ?
Passed by seafood market and saw these giant eight legs creatures
A squid-made products store where many tourists came to buy some souvenirs home
You must never miss out Hokkaido ice cream or else you’ll sure be regret !
Lovely cone colour of the ice cream which matched with my outfit !
No matter kids or adults, everyone love ice cream !
Ice cream or socks ?
Look at this little greedy cutie !
Her expression is like : Don’t snatch mine !
Italian-Japanese Style Buffet Lunch
Our additional attraction of the day – Hokkaido famous Ishiya Chocolate Factory which also known as white’s lover chocolate （白色の恋人）. The company’s flagship product is the Shiroi Koibito cookie, which consists of two thin butter cookies and a layer of white chocolate in between. I guess most of you should had tried or heard this chocolate brand before right. Personally I’m not really into white chocolate which I prefer dark bitter chocolate, white chocolate is too sweet for me. However, today we’re not going to talk about chocolate or buying any chocolate here as our main theme today is the Shiroi Koibito Park in the Ishiya Chocolate Factory !
From the outside view of this factory, it just simply look like a rectangular red brick building, but you could never imagine that inside is such a big beautiful garden. I was so unexpected and impressed with the floral decorations of the park, just like entering a castle in the fairy tale. I’m pretty sure that Ms.Silver love this place and she’ll definitely scream and shooting non-stop if she visit here, I wish I could stay there longer …
Decoration in Halloween theme in conjunction with the coming Halloween !
My new house ? Just fit my size ^^
Photobomb by a cute Japanese family behind ! They’re smiling to my camera !
There’re some café, coffee house and restaurant at the open area. I’m so sad that we can’t enter the museum and factory that require to buy the passport/ticket where visitors could observe the process of chocolate making through the glass window. Even the garden already be so elegant, could imagine how royal the decorations inside, must come visit the museum next time if have chance !
Try just shooting with different effects
Could you spot us in the Halloween floral bushes ? I don’t even is this kind of effect when I was climbing up there to have a look. So creative for the people that design this !
Are them real ? Looked so fake to me
One last photo before saying goodbye to this beautiful castle !
Moving on to the next destination – Hokkaido’s Former Government Building. It was built in 1888, this building is known to Sapporo residents as “Red Bricks”. It is an example of American neo-baroque architecture of which was borrowed from that of the Massachusetts State House in the USA. When completed, it was one of the largest and tallest buildings in Japan and symbolized the prestige and importance the Meiji Government placed on the development of Hokkaido. The building and its exhibits on Hokkaido history are open to the public. The Former Hokkaido Government Office is Hokkaido’s best-known symbol and the red star on its exterior wall is the symbol of the Hokkaido Development Commission.
We had a 10 minutes stopped by at Sapporo TV Tower situated in the heart of the city of Sapporo. The tower is standing 147.2 meters tall and the observation deck is at an elevation of 90 meters with nice views of the park and the surrounding city. This landmark has been a popular attraction since its opening in 1957.
The tower overlooks Odori Park (大通公園) which is a beautiful park that adorns flowers from season to season and hosts various international events for citizens and tourists throughout the year. The park stretches about a kilometer and a half over twelve city blocks and offers pleasant green space during the warmer months. In early February, the park serves as the main site of the Sapporo Snow Festival. You could see that this park has becoming a romantic dating place for couple or picnic spot for family especially during weekend.
Coming to day 5, it’s time to buy some souvenirs to bring back home. Tanukikoji shopping arcade is definitely a great place to shop that you can’t miss out for easy street-level shopping! Tanukikoji is an approximately 1km-long shopping arcade with around 200 shops that runs east to west in downtown Sapporo since the frontier period. The roofed arcade starts at Nishi-1-chome and ends at Nishi-7-chome which many tourists visit, features both old and new shops, souvenir shops, clothing, restaurants and karaoke bars. Every walk through the lively arcade offers a new discovery. However, we were not able to finish walking all the 7-chome and only able to cover two streets of it due to time constrain.
Obasan in Kimono outfits
OMG! It’s my favourite hello kitty shop!
See how happy am I that time! But at last, I actually ended up nothing walking out the shop.
Do you know what is this? This is not just a normal car park which we used to see. In this modern technology country, land space is so precious to them so with their brilliant creative ideas came out this extraordinary automatic parking. Sounds new right ? See this couple above, they are just giving the car number and waiting for their car to come down, in less than 5 minutes time, their car moves out and even rotate automatically without wasting time of finding car park lots and worry about car being stolen. When will our country have this method ??? Sometimes, travelling let us to expose to the outside world and give us opportunity learn the culture and compare the ways of living style which different from us. I’m really appreciate it !
Start engine and go !
Sapporo JR Tower is a skyscraper, shopping mall and office complex in Sapporo. The Tower is located above JR Sapporo Station South entrance, and the height of the tower is 173m with 38 stories. Officially, Sapporo JR Tower includes not only the Tower itself, but also the Sapporo Stellar Place, the Daimaru Sapporo branch store, the Sapporo Cinema Frontier, the JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo, office complex, and other sections neighboring JR Sapporo Station. The underground shopping center is known for its glass dome which rises to street level. There are souvenir shops that sell local products as well as sweets from a well established store, a food theme park “Sapporo Ramen Kyowakoku”, an electronic retail store and a rooftop garden. Visitors can enjoy shopping while taking a stroll to the connecting elevated structure of the station or JR Sapporo East and West wings if have time to explore it.
Really didn’t notice that I acted this way when snapping photos =.=
JR Station filled of people rushing back home after working. Every Japanese especially in the city trained to walk with a super fast pace to catch up the next train!
Daimaru sweets & souvenirs selling corner on ground floor. Just go in and have a walk one round, you’ll sure full with all the testing food given. They are really generous in giving the portion of sample food, it’s not just like a small piece, while they can give you a big piece of sushi instead !
Among all the fruits I had tasted in Hokkaido, I could concluded that none of the fruits taste sour, even the oranges taste sweet too! Perhaps the Hokkaido lemons taste sweet as well.
巨峰 is a type of grapes that taste with alcoholic flavor just like the grape wine, maybe some of you might that accept that taste, but I love it !
After done with shopping, the bright sky just now had turning into dark night sky. We came out nothing from there after shopping for around 2 hours as the things are not suitable and too expensive for us. Now, it’s time heading for our dinner !
Here’s our dinner tonight after a tiring day – BBQ Seafood dinner @ 宫之森 restaurant. The main characters of tonight’s dinner are Kobe beef and dancing abalone. My aunt had pre-ordered a small cuts of kobe beef which cost around RM300, my god! Kobe beef (神戸牛肉) refers to a special grade of beef from the Wagyu cattle, raised in Kobe, Japan. It is known that these cattle are massaged with sake and are fed a daily diet that includes large amounts of beer in order to produce meat that is extraordinarily tender, finely marbled texture and full-flavored that’s why it is extremely expensive for a small cuts. Kobe beef usually can be prepared as steak, sukiyaki, shabu shabu, sashimi, teppanyaki, and more.
Please don’t mistaken, it’s not the whole plate, just one piece of it !
A small piece is around RM50 each, do you think is worth it ? Maybe, but definitely not for me O.O See how satisfied my aunt enjoying it !
Dancing abalone which the abalone rotating and moving around when temperature increased.
After dinner, we went out to explore the heart of Sapporo’s night life – Susukino which covering nearly 20 blocks in the southern section of the city center. Susukino comes to life at about 6pm and carries on well into the wee hours of the morning. Bars, Nightclubs, Restaurants, Cafes, and live houses mingle with a variety of Hostess clubs, Cabaret clubs, Go-go bars, and other red-light establishments. In mid July, the Susukino Festival takes place and many of the people who work inside the buildings come out in the street to mingle with the public and enjoy live entertainment at hock stands in the streets. Of course, we just have a walk around the street but not entering those entertainments areas.
Hotel tonight - Tokyu Inn
We almost lost in the Susukino night street just now but luckily able to find the way back to hotel after an hour. It’s already midnight now and it’s time to rest after visited to a sequence of places today. It was absolutely a tiring yet interesting trip for me today! Sorry for flooded this post with 200+ of photos, but I really had a hard time on minimized the number of photos from 500+ and choosing some of them to post out. Hope you enjoy them too! As for post 6.0, I might not able to post out recently due to lots of tests and exams coming in few weeks time. I’ll surely continue writing after all these workloads, just be patient and stay tuned to my next post ! Thanks for reading and hope you enjoy your weekend !
To Be Continued 6.0 …
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