Day by day trip report posts!

So as I said in my post-trip reflection post...Japan is a country which I feel like I can keep returning to. At least that was the vibe I got from my first trip there almost 2 years ago with the gang. Returning from that trip, I have already had my sights set on Hokkaido being my next Japanese destination.

Hokkaido is most famous as a winter destination I think, even though other seasons are decent too. Northern hemisphere winter is around December to February. Months I traditionally don’t get to travel because of boss’ leave (December) and proximity to CNY leave (Jan/Feb), so I didnt really set a timeline for it. Until management changes this year and tadaaa! Perfect opportunity to travel.

The sister has been asking me to go on a trip together too for a few years now and her ideal travel period is December too so we could never make it happen. So when I first heard of possible management change news I told her this year we could probably make it...and yep. It happened.

Started sourcing for tickets in July, probably a bit late coz tickets weren’t cheap already by the time we started looking. Ended up with the last week of December and stretching into January to eliminate competition from family with kids, tickets were a lot more expensive for me than her for some reason (her tickets included a Brunei-Singapore portion) but we averaged it out to about 800 per person.

And it’s obviously a lot more expensive to fly direct to Hokkaido so we flew to Tokyo instead which works out well, coz she has never been to Japan and I always thought I didn’t spend enough time in Tokyo the last time round. Just that we had to travel between Tokyo and Hokkaido and we decided to fly instead of taking Shinkansen to save time - it is not necessarily more expensive to fly anyway. While camping for budget airline tickets (they don’t start selling early for some reason) the Hokkaido earthquake happened and next thing we know, full airline tickets got cheaper (I think incentives to promote tourism) so we pounced on it. Both ANA and JAL had this thing ongoing that foreign visitors with proof of a return ticket to Japan are eligible for special fares so we paid about 100++ per person I think for a return flight, pretty good deal.

Trip planning wasn't much but as I have come to get used to, there really isn't a need for much - just need to know roughly where attractions are clustered at and these days Google Maps is your best friend when travelling. Though we still had to work out the city sequences and check out the train timings which, sadly, aren't as frequent. Hence entertained the idea of driving because read experiences of some online who said you just needed to be more careful and drive slowly, as cars you rent would have been prepped for winter driving already. The flexibility in scheduling with self-drive was very tempting but ultimately gave it up and still went with the JR Hokkaido Pass instead, got a nice discount for it during 11.11 sales too. And thank god we did, which you'll see why later.

So picked up the sister on Sunday afternoon, some last minute preparations/shopping, then gamely went to work on Monday morning a.k.a Christmas Eve which as expected nobody really works much. Planned to take time off at 11am, earlier if possible, and somehow still ended up leaving late at 11.15am =.= Don't even remember what I was busy with zzz. Rushed home, just managed to wash my face and off to the airport we go - and there had to be an accident at PIE which got us stuck for a good 20 minutes or so. Got to the airport with about 1.5 hour to spare, managed to take in some sights and quick lunch, and off we go!




Landed in Tokyo Haneda at about 9-ish, and plan was to spend the night in airport. The sister actually suggested while planning to find a capsule hotel or sth for the night, but I find it unnecessary if we are not going to be staying for long - plus there isn't much nearby (I think). So immediate priority after clearing immigration and customs was to scout for a spot to spend our night. Oh and noticed this the moment my luggage appeared on the belt -


Kind of felt like a bad omen but shrugged it off. There was an airport staff lurking around nearby and immediately asked for assistance to produce an incident report for insurance claiming reasons - and it was actually the first time ever that I bought travel insurance out of fears of weather-related flight cancellations and stuff, and hey it proved useful. The lady was surprisingly very fluent in English (other staff can speak English but never fluent) though all of us struggled at trying to describe the part of the belt that broke off - she was like "I never thought of what this part is called in English" and I was like "me neither" lol.

Anyway found a spot somewhere in the arrival hall that we could camp for the night and went off to buy dinner/supper because SQ only provided one meal :( And where else but the trusty convenience stores.


Walked around a bit (strangely didn't discover the Level 4/5 areas which had lots of seats and probably quieter). Had dinner, washed up a bit and attempted to sleep - went a lot better for the sister than me, I think I managed like an hour plus of uninterrupted sleep and another hour or two of interrupted ones. Gave up and woke up at 5am, there was this crazy homeless lady prowling around talking to herself loudly and shouting at the security staff who was tailing her to make sure nothing goes wrong. Night was definitely not silent.

Freshen up and we decided to head over to the domestic terminals via train, there are free train tickets available if you showed proof that you are foreign visitor and have an internal flight to catch, so we collected it the night before from the airport information centre. And I suppose Haneda's core business is domestic flights so there are two domestic terminals and a lot more shops there (as opposed to Narita which I remembered the domestic terminal being kind of sad too). So we found a spot for breakfast and stoned till a good time for us to check in. Terminal 2 serves I think almost exclusively ANA flights and everything is self-service, which means you can't cheat on luggage weight and the sister had to remove a few things to meet the 20kg limit (as opposed to 30kg when we arrived in Japan). Otherwise, pretty uneventful until we boarded the flight.


Cleared immigration and headed for lunch! While the sister was napping in flight I still managed to find time (and energy) to do a bit of research on what to eat in New Chitose Airport and almost unanimous recommendations for this ramen place called Ebisoba Ichigen whose ramen broth is shrimp stock based, but the queues were crazy and we kind of want to head to our next stop early (coz we paid a lot for it lol). So we went to this place called Restaurant Yukku instead.





Went down to the train station and ok, I admit we didnt see this coming but there was a long queue to exchange JR pass. Almost decided to postpone it by one day coz we bought a 7-day pass and we had 8 days, so either the first or last day had to be without the pass anyway. But a bit uncomfortable with the idea of exchanging it at Noboribetsu the next day (plus didnt research, not sure if we can even do that there) so just joined the queue. About half an hour wait for our turn during which a couple of trains left and we had missed our intended connection to Noboribetsu sigh.


Reached Noboribetsu at about 4pm, as the sky begins to darken - one thing that was a bit not ideal was how early sunset is given that it is winter, but not a big deal actually. Caught a local bus to Noboribetsu Onsen Bus Terminal, researched previously but forgot that it takes a while to get there - and there are a lot of people, each with a huge luggage, who wanted to head there. Still lucky enough to get a seat though.



A bit wow-ed by the suite we booked. Noboribetsu wasn't our first stop initially - while planning, intention was to find a ryokan with private onsen, didnt manage to coz we really only started looking for accommodation a month prior and everything - the higher rated ones, had been taken. So settled for hotel instead and this one had rooms with private onsen (we were both not keen on public ones at first, me coz of skin issues and her maybe body image issues too) and on closer scrutiny, there's a suite available at a similar price if Noboribetsu was the first leg of our trip. So after slight deliberation (mainly coz I had my city sequences done up) we reversed our sequence and made it our first stop (as opposed to the last before Sapporo). And I daresay that decision was a correct one! Bit of pampering after two days of travel is exactly what we need to kickstart the whole trip.




 


Rested a bit and head out for dinner. Most hotels have what they called half-board which means they offer dinner - just as well because there really isn't much in this onsen part of the town. Slight regret that after two trips to Japan, still havent had the chance to try kaiseki meals (which would have been the case if it was a ryokan I think). This one is a buffet, a very forgettable one in fact.


No plans post dinner and we popped by the public bath area to take a look, but neither of us made it past the changing area hahah. So adjourned to our suite for the night - and while the sister took her turn in the onsen, I suddenly noticed that it was snowing outside! Excited much and changed back to my jeans and just ran out (without even wearing winter jacket). I was the only sakai one actually. Hahaha. But it truly was my first real snowing experience - there was a short burst in Jeju, another short burst in Kyoto, neither of which counted because they felt more like hail than snow. And on a Christmas night no less :)

Returned to the room and took my turn in the onsen. The heat took some getting used to and once I started sweating heavily and felt pulsing in my head I stepped out. But felt good, which contributed to a very good night's sleep.

That's Day 1!

Labels: holidays, japan, travel