Sapporo station is the place to be

A room with a view

I have a confession to make.  Although we spent three nights in Sapporo, we spent most of our days outside Spporo, doing day trips.  As a result, we didn't see much of Sapporo at all, except for the gigantic and rather enjoyable Sapporo station (co-located with a gigantic mall!)

We stayed at the JR Tower Hotel Nikko Sapporo, located at the station itself.  We took the bus from Furano to Sapporo and were quite delighted to find out that the bus station was literally on the doorstep of the hotel.  It was such a breeze checking in! We had a room on a lovely high floor with a gigantic picture window.  We would spend much time sitting here, just taking in our beautiful view of Sapporo, with the mountains in the background.

Elder-friendly shower

The room itself was pretty decent but what I thought was truly thoughtful was its elderly friendly bathroom, with an enclosed area housing both shower and bath, with a stool to sit in, and the faucet placed at a comfortably low level (taller people could use another set).  The floor looked to be non slip and there were a number of well placed grab bars.  And what I like about Japan - differently coloured toothbrushes so you don't get mixed up on who's is who's. They do these little things so very well.

The beauty of staying at Sapporo station though is that it is handy for everything - buying our breakfast buns, a simple ramen meal, food souvenirs to take home, etc.  We also tried out one of the conveyor belt sushi restaurants here too - enjoyable but my  favourite sushi experience this time continues to be in Furano with the big pieces of fish.

Crab, many ways

We also had one of the most unique meals of our trip here - a kaiseki crab feast at Kani Honke crab restaurant.  The restaurant is a few streets away from our hotel and it is famous for its crab.  We chose from the kaiseki sets available, gorging on crab sashimi, boiled cold crab, crab sushi, baked crab in its shell, crab gratin in a cute little crab shaped clay dish featured in our meal.   There were different varieties of crab available, Alaskan king crab, snow crab etc.  I think we didn't get much more than a bit of the King crab leg but the flesh was really so sweet. Whilst it was fun to see all the different ways crab could come in, at the end of it just that cold boiled crab was simply perfect.  That's the beauty of fresh sea food. 

We also tried out the regional  specialty - "Genghiskhan" or "Jingisukan", named after the conquering Mongol.  It is essentially a mutton BBQ type dish and unfortunately we probably didn't know how to order it. The lean meat was fine but there was also some strange cuts which were quite tough.

I should probably have spent a little more time in Sapporo, visiting some of the sights here. But we could only get the hotel for three nights and so we decided to travel down to Hakodate and spend our last night in Hokkaido there, before flying back to Siingapore.

More photos of Sapporo here!.

Geological wonders - the Shikotsu-Toya National Park

We took a 1-day tour out of Sapporo to visit two caldera lakes, Lake Shikotsu and Lake Toya.  The tour took us also to the crater of Mount Usu, which is a live volcano (!) although its last eruption was in 1977 (quite a spectacular one, as it turned out) and a view of Mount Yotei, a mini-Mount Fuji.

I do recommend these day tours for people who want to see the country side but don't want to have to work too much for it.  The Chuo Bus tour we took left from the bus station just next to our hotel, was very informative, good value (includes lunch), and was very efficiently and well run (just what every good Singaporean wants).  We had an "audio-lingual" tour, ie we had our own set of headphones and so could select the commentary in the language of our choice (English, Chinese, Korean, and of course Japanese).  The commentary covered  quite a bit of background on the development of Hokkaido as well as on the places we were visiting, the flora and fauna of the region, and even (when we were getting back to Sapporo) on Sapporo gourmet delights.

Lake Shikotsu and our glass bottomed-boat

Columns on the floor of Lake Shikotsu

We travelled first to Lake Shikotsu, where we took a boat ride in a glass-bottomed boat from which we could view the lake floor.  The water is amazingly clear at the sides, although it did get slightly more murky the further out we got from the shore.  What was fascinating was that there were these columns appearing at the base of the lake.  The explanation was that this was caused by volcanic activity in the past, when caverns formed by magma collapsed, leaving the columns.  The crater eventually filled with water, creating the lake.  The lake itself is quite deep in the middle, so much so that it does not freeze even in the depths of the Hokkaido winter.  You can read more about Lake Shikotsu in this good write-up I've found on the Lake and surrounding mountains.

Our next stop would be at a little rest stop where (accordingly to the commentary) the locals were famous for their mushrooms.  So we had a yummy bowl of mushroom miso soup, tonnes of mushrooms within for the princely sum of 100Y!!!  A good deal indeed.

Two of the four cute little islands of Lake Toya

We went to Lake Toya next - this is another caldera lake, but with four cute little islands in the middle! No, we did not visit the islands.  Unfortunately for us.  But it was nonetheless an interesting visit, and we spent some time by the lakeside enjoying the scenery.

Lake Toya is clearly more developed and accessible than Lake Shikotsu - there's a few decent sized hotels here - I an see this place being very popular for say conferences or corporate retreats (if the Japanese have such things that is). We had lunch here. It was a pretty good lunch, lots of veggies, but also a hamburger and a panko-encrusted prawn.  

Mount Usu crater

Next stop - Mount Usu, an active volcano which last erupted in 2000-2001.  It was great fun, as we went up a ropeway to the top of the mountain and then saw the volcano crater. Apparently  there is a walk which takes you much closer to the crater's edge but we did not go there....

The mountain actually overlooks Lake Toya, so we had beautiful views of the lake from this vantage point, next to the little volcano Mount Showa Shinzan. Mount Showa Shinzan came up by itself in the middle of a farmer's field between 28 Dec 1943 and Sep 1945 as a result of volcanic activity in the region.   

Lake Toya with Mount Showa Shinzan

Mount Yotei was the last mountain we came close to on our tour.  Japan has a number of mountains which they call "mini mount Fujis", so called because of the regular symmetrical shape of its slopes.  Mount Yotei is one of them.  We did not visit it per se but we viewed it from Lake Toya and also drove near it.  We saw it from various points and this was one of the last photos taken - by this time, it was getting darker, so it looks rather moody from my photo.  

Mount Yotei

Lots more photos in my Hokkaido album on Flickr.

Visiting Otaru

Otaru Canal

From Furano, we took the train to Sapporo, where we would stay for a few days, making day trips out to the surrounding areas. The first of these was to Otaru.  Otaru is an old shipping town, which historically was an important trading centre for countries such as China and Russia.  From the latter, European influences crept in. Today, Otaru is famous for its canal, old merchant houses, music boxes and beautiful glass.  It is also a handy day trip out of Sapporo.

I had forgotten to mention this earlier but it turned out whilst we were safely in Hokkaido, southern Japan was being lashed by Typhoon Nangka. We did, however, experience rather rainy weather on our visit to Shisaki- no-oka, near Biei, and it was likewise a rather windy day in Otaru, with the weather worsening as the day went along. 

But when we started the day, taking the train out from Sapporo station, it was a beautifully sunny day.  The

Otaru Orgel Doh - one of the glass shops,
with the steam clock in front

train would take us also down the coast in some sections, giving us the opportunity to to gaze at the cold blue waters of the sea. When we got off, at Otaru, we followed the crowds and sure enough, they took us to the canal where once upon a time the canal boats would load up from the warehouses situated on the sides of the canal. Today, the warehouses have been transformed to eating places, and tourist boats ply up and down the canal. Strapping young men in striped t-shirts also offer trishaw services - I suppose this is meant to establish Otaru's claim to be the Venice of the East, or at least of Japan. 

The other point of similarity between Otaru and Venice is, of course, glass. There are many glass shops  here

Music Box lovers rejoice!

in Otaru, along the main shopping street of Sakaimachi Street.  This was the old merchants' quarters, and these sturdy houses indeed look a little more European than Japanese at least to my eyes.  Today they are shops - mostly selling souvenirs, glass and music boxes.  Some times they combine the two and you can get a music box, with a little glass figurine of your choice perched on top!  We spent some time looking for and finally found the Music Box museum.  The music boxes mainly feature European themes, and include a rather large organ which is really a music box!  

Other highlights of our visit include a steam clock (a gift from Vancouver, Canada), walking along the old railway line and taking a morning break at  Le Tao.  Le Tao is Otaru's answer to Furano Delice, with its own version of the Double Fromage cheesecake.  But it has expanded well beyond Otaru with branches in Sapporo as well.   We did have another break at Misono, a little ice cream parlour on the way back to the station.

More info on Otaru here and more pictures of Otaru at my Flickr page - Hokkaido album.