South Korea & Japan Winter Trip 2007 - Day 12

24/12 Hakodate Morning Fish Market, Motomachi, Hakodate Russian Orthodox Church, Hakodate Episcopal Church, Hakodate Episcopal Church, Lai Kindergarten, Old Public Hall Hakodate Ward, Mount Hakodate, Hakodate United Church of Christ

We're quite happy to stay in Ben's apartment as he is a very nice person and his apartment is just located in the city centre that is very convenient for us.  However, taking shower in his apartment was a major problem of us.

Dirty Ben's bathroom...it's very hard for me, I mean I am not so care but the condition was so bad

Out fist place is go to morning market near the Hakodate JR station

You can find many cheap fresh seafood in this market!!  I'd say it's a must go place!

Yes....you can  buy the whole box of crab with 10000yen!!!  If I went with a group of friend, I must have bought it for sure!!!!

With the shells too...

We bought a 2.2kg big crab for our brunch!!!  It's only 5000yen, it's pretty cheap for 3 people to share.  We asked the staff if he could help us to open it and we could eat it immediately, and he said, yes....so we bought it!!

Our big crab ready to eat!

The staff told us we could find some table inside the market and we could sit there to eat.  However, we could not find any seating other in this area where people paid for fishing the octopus then ate it here immediately.   We wasn't sure if it was available for us to sit here, as we neither buy anything for fishing octopus nor buying any food.

So we shifted to a corner and used a coke box as a table and standing here for it

Probably we looked so silly and poor, a Japanese woman told us we could sit in the octopus area to eat!!!!  hahah..we're very silly for sure!!

So we passed by here last night, and I love this little pink house!!!!!!!!!  I must come back to take a picture for it.

This is the Hakodate Beer Factory, we went there for dinner last night.

The whole warehouse..

Cute Santa Clause!

It doesn't look like Japan, it's so westernized as there were many westerners living in Hakodate before.

Meijikan House, we went to the same shop in Oaru too..

Selling the same glass stuff, we're quite enough of it now..

Big Santa Clause ballon~

Elmo is so cute....but you should eat more, you're too slim!!

Totoro~

I really love these dolls....so sweet!!

after visitng the old warehouse, we went to the mid-level district where the westerners first gathered to live here.

Here, you can see many beautiful and cute small house, like this blue house.  I wish I could live here..it's nice than the mid-level in HK.

This tree is cute!

Wow...this Japanese house is so traditional~~

This old car is cool!!!

So we needed to walked up this gentle but icy slope.  I was so scared when I first saw it.  Luckily, there was a stairs without ice......

So I was quite successful to reach the middle top, but later, I skied here reluctantly and I skied backwards again!!!  Terrible, I held a random Japanese guy arm for balancing myself.  haha...his girlfriend was also here...After I stood firm, we all laughed!!!

As this district was used to live with many foreigners, so there were many churches here...

Hakodate Russian Orthodox Church

This is funny, Michelle and me trying to take a self photo but Alban took our picture at the same time..

This is our self-photo

Of course, we 3 should take one together.

Nice...

This is an old Japanese temple.

I love this church building under sunshine..Hakodate Episcopal Church

I like this church beautiful, it's very beautiful and special.  There was an afternoon function held in this church where you could eat at well. I guess it's a special Christmas service.  We came to ask if there any English speaking church, and the answer was NO!!!  That's terrible bad, I don't want to miss any Christmas eve service. The reason why I came here for Christmas eve was also because there were many churches~~~~My last Christmas eve was in Shanghai but I still could find an English speaking church to attend.  I thought we could find one in Japan too.

I love this picture, very beautiful....white snow and red leafs.....haha...my face was also very white in this picture too..You wouldn't believe how tan I am now after the Cambodia & Vietnam trip..

From the mid level an looked back, a very nice harbor.  Unlike Hong Kong, it's very peaceful.  I don't mean Victoria harbor is bad, still I think Victoria harbor is one of the most beautiful harbors in the world.  Here is just something different!

This pink house was so beautiful but it had a sad name

It's called "Lai Kindergarten" which means remembrance of love
 

This giant building called "Old Public Hall Hakodate Ward"....

The background

The wars is very grand, but it actually experienced a terrible fire attack.

As we always found a free way to enter some paid after wr bought the ticket, so this time we tried to visit the back yard first to see if there is any free way to enter

We didn't find any free way to enter, so we paid the admission fee and enter it.  Michelle & Alban got the student cards, so they could buy the discounted student tickets.  I tried to buy the student ticket too.  Thanks for my young face, the Japanese believed I was a student and never checked our student cards.

As the wood floor was very clean, the staff asked us to take odd our shoes and provided us slippers.  I saw some girls wearing old royal dressing and took pictures here.  It's very interesting, so I tried too.  It's 1000yen for 30 minutes.

Alban & me at the back verandah..

Did I look like a princess??

A nice ball room...

My back...

After visiting these places, we were heading to the top of the Mount Hakodate

We chose to take the cable car up, and we saw that long queue......luckily, the queue moved so fast...

We saw the sunset in the mount...there was a big crowd but the view was very beautiful.

Michelle and me....very cold!!!

Very nice.....

It's very cold up the mountain!!!!  So we decided to have our early Christmas eve the restaurant in the mount.  I read the comments on my book, that restaurant was so high class due to its locations.  However, the price was very reasonable!!  It's bad that we didn't make our reservation, so we couldn't sit near the table and needed to wait a bit.  As we had our dinner before  6pm, so not that many people, we just waited for a while only.

This is our dinner.....

with an ice-cream too....The food was good and cheap, we shared the food and everyone paid only around HKD$100 something!!!  I had dinner in the Peak of HK, and we paid like more than HKD800!!  I start to think Japan is not a very expensive country and Hong Kong is!!

After the dinner, we came back to the mountain to see the night view of Hakodate...

Wow...we were shocked!!!  That's very beautiful!!!

People counted the night view of Hakodate among the world's three best night views along with those of Hong Kong and Naples

I am so proud of the night view of Hong Kong but I still love the night view of Hakodate!!  It gives a totally different feeling and it's so romantic.  I wish I could come again with my future beloved!!

Michelle and me..........

Alban and me~~~

We passed through this Hakodate United Church of Christ in the afternoon . From the poster, I knew they had he Christmas Eve services at 6:30pm, we arrived here after the dinner at 7pm.  Due to the name of the church, I thought they might have the English services.  When we first arrive, a very nice old woman welcome us to sit down.  However, I found that we just missed the singing and the pastor was just started speaking in Japanese.  We couldn't understand at all, so we had no choice but leave the church.  What a pity that I couldn't attend any service today!!!

As we missed the services, we decided to take the tram back to Ben's home to have a mini Christmas party

I appreciated the Japanese so much, they always decorated everything so nice..

This cute Christmas tram..

We came back to Fujiya to buy the Christmas cake...and take the photo with Peko-chan (牛奶妹 ).  The staff here is very nice, normally, you could get a free Peko-chan plate as a souvenir when you bought the Christmas.  However, the staff offered us two free plates for us.....wow..she was very nice to us!!!!  As a result, both of Michelle and me got a free plate to Hong Kong!!

This is the view outside Ben's apartment!

We bought a champagne in the supermarket for our mini Christmas party!!  Ben was also at home, so we 4 had a peaceful small party!!!

Our Christmas cake!!!  What a quiet Christmas Eve night!!

After the mini home party, Ben invited us to his friend's apartment to have another party.   All of his friends were English teacher too, they had a quiet party at one of the teachers apartment.  We stayed here for around an hour.

After that party, we went to a little Irish bar to have a little  drinking and private chat.  It's nice to have Alban around, we met him after Christmas last year in Shanghai.  We spent the Christmas Eve together in HK in 2005!!!!

We counted down our Christmas eve here finally and then went back to sleep.  Ben didn't come back tonight.

South Korea & Japan Winter Trip 2007 - Day 11

23/12 Fort Goryōkaku, game station, supermarket, departmental store, Fujiya, Kanemori red brick warehouse group

As we're planned to celebrate our Christmas in Hakodate, so we will stay in this small town for 3 nights.  I think it's more than enough for this tiny city.  As a result, we didn't set any alarm and let's to wake up automatically.  I think it's very important to give a long sleep for refreshment, especially here come to the mid road of our journey.

So we got up at the 12pm something, and Ben prepared some Corn Flake with yogurt for our breakfast.  Thanks for his niceness.   He left us alone after the breakfast, we thought that it's our responsibility to clean our dishes.  We used the traditional method-

Rock-paper-scissors to determine who was going to wash the dishes!

So bad that I was the loser and so here I was cleaning.  I found there were some dirty old dishes, so I helped him to clean all of them as well.

This strawberry chocolate was bought in Otaru, very delicious!!!!  If you ever come to Hokkaido, you should try it and buy some for me, OK?

Actually, I didn't really like the breakfast and Michelle didn't eat it, so we still go out to have brunch!!!!   There is a noodle restaurant near Ben's apartment

These are the noodle we ordered....very famous..

This is the cold noodle.  Since we ate the best cold noodle last night, so this one wasn't special at all.

He is the chef, haha, so funny!!

As Alban is a French guy, so he was so happy to see some French on street.

There were many churches in Hakodate, that's also one of my reasons to stay here for Christmas.

Actually, Ben live in a tram station called Goryōkaku(�"棱郭), it's very close to the Goryōkaku Fort, we walked to the park after lunch.

Fort Goryōkaku  is famous as the site of the last battle of the Boshin War. On December 9 (lunar calendar October 26), 1868, Ōtori Keisuke and Hijikata Toshizo and their troops entered the fort. A week after Hijikata's death, on June 27 (lunar calendar May 18), 1869, Goryokaku fell to the new army of Japan, and much of it was reduced to ruin.
 

So this the park!!

In Japan, many tree were treated like this.

This Fort is Japan's first Western style fortress. Its ruins are now the Goryokaku Park, which in May becomes one of Hokkaido's most popular spots for cherry blossom viewing.  We are not coming in cherry blossom season, but a snow season!

I think the snow make everywhere so beautiful.

Michelle & Me~~~She was still wearing her pink ski trousers....

We found swings here...

wow...so happy & relaxing..haven't played the swing since the Mid-Autumn Festival 2005 in Hung Hom...with Michelle + yellowah too...

The best thing was not many people here, so it's like we owned the whole park!

Beautiful trees......Alban was trying to climb on the slope but he failed and his jacket and pants got very dirty then...stupid Alban!

If you go up the tower,  you will see the star shape of that park!  However, we're sick of tower...hahah..so we didn't go up...

So this the the park look like.

The milk is so famous here, so that we must try it even we're very full!!

After a short trip to the Fort Goryōkaku , we went to the a shopping apartment as I had to look for the cleanser for my contact lens.  However, we came out to stay here for a very long time..

I wanted to buy a warming hear set like Michelle, but then found out that cute pink hat for Alban...hahah..very suitable for him!!!haha..it's just kidding, he is not gay!

Then we went to a game station and found this game table that we were used to play when we're young!!!

The first Match: Alban Vs Michelle, Alban won!

The second match: Michelle Vs me.  I won!!

Final Match: Alban Vs me, Alban won!!  Haha..you could see we had a good warm up, so take we could take off our jacket to play this final game!

It's very difficult for this big boy get in the police cab!

But it's very for me to get in this new JR!!

We had taken a photo sticker here as it's very cheap (only 300yen)...very good quality as well!!!  We just realized that we had never taken a photo sticker in HK!!!  In fact we hadn't taken it for a long time already!!

We met a very nice and helpful staff here.  As the game machine got some problem, she helped us to reset it for three times, then she actively came to ask us if we want to laminate our photo sticker!!!   So nice!!!  Also, we found that this girl could speak very good English that we had seldom met in Japan.  So I told her I really appreciated her English and job attitude!!!  Then she thanked us and asked where were we from.  Guess what??  She is a Chinese!!!!  She came to Japan for studying and it's her part time job!!!  Then she spoke with us in Mandarin!!!  What a coincidence!!

Then we went to the basement that was a supermarket.  A big tip for backpackers, if you are short of money in Japan, you can come to the basement of all big department store.  As there is always supermarket there and they always provide many free samples, you can get really full here!!!

Doraemon chocolate!!
 

After leaving this department store, we moved to another snacks shop - FUJIYA where you can see a famous cartoon cartoon!!

Peko-chan (牛奶妹 )..IF you buy the Christmas cake here, you can get a free dish!

Very attractive christmas cake

very nice~~~

I was quite sure we'd come back tomorrow as it's Christmas Eve!!

So cute

Then we went to a harbour side where there were a Kanemori red brick warehouse group, but now they were all turned to a shopping arcade.

There was Christmas celebrating function was held here.  We saw some Japanese was performing break dance.

The shops in the shopping arcade were so similar to the shops that in Otaru....I remembered that shop was also found in Otaru too, all products were sold in 1050 yen.

Maria in a small chapel.

Hello Kitty collection!!

Yes..You can find many Hello Kitty in Japan...

So bad that I am not a big fans of hello kitty.

I wanted to eat the big crab so bad last night, but that restaurant was close.  Alban wanted to eat the sausages, but that restaurant was too expensive.  So we didn't eat what we wanted last night.  Alban really wanted to eat the sausages, so Michelle and me let his dream come true.

So this is the restaurant, it looks quite high class!!  However, the price listed in the menu is very resasonable!!
 

Inside the restaurant, it was a beer house before, but now people converted it as a western restaurant.

This cheese soup in bread is very tsty!!!!  It looks very attractive as well!!

So here are the sausages, when we saw how happy Alban when he had the sausages, we felt this money was so worthy to spend.

Very nice food!!!!

After a nice dinner, we took this cute tram back to Ben's apartment.  He was not at home tonight, but he gave us a spare key, so there was no problem for us!!  It's very surprising and quite difficult for we Hong Kong people to understand how could he be that nice??  To be honest, I don't think I am able to welcome a stranger to live in my home and just leave a key to them and I stay in somewhere else. 

Perhaps, we are Chinese and he is a westerner!!!!  I don't know!!!  Of course we are nice people that we don't steal him anything, in fact, there is nothing to be stolen in his apartment too....

South Korea & Japan Winter Trip 2007 - Day 8

20/12  Otaru

My relaxing trip in Otaru continued!!  It's very nice to stay in Otaru as there were many cute and nice shops here.  You can spend days in window shopping.  If you have time and money, you can try to make you own glasses.  We wanted to do so, but we didn't have enough time for waiting it to be cooled, so we didn't do it!!!

Actually the Otaru town is quite small, if you follow the tour, they may only stay here for half to one day, I can tell you must miss many things here!!  We've 2 full days in Otaru and never got bored in this romantic and cute city~~

That is the romantic house~~~

They sell various products here but all are cute & romantic~

They mad the whole shop so romantic, we visited many different similar shop.  Although they sell similar stuff, they have there own differences and give us different feeling!!  So we're always attracted by them and didn't want to leave~~

Some mini glass products~~crabs~

little gift

Christmas tree

kaleidoscope(萬花筒).  Alban loves it so much!!

What you can see from the kaleidoscope

Here is another shop

When I first saw this Ferrie wheel, I was totally attracted and stood here for a long time!!  It gave me a feeling of sweet, and remind me the song from Eason Chan - 幸福摩天輪

More Ferris wheel~

Snowman~~

Do you want to eat all sushi here?? Sorry they're just some glass products~

You can find many historical buildings in Otaru and they're all special~

Cute white house~

This house is so similar to the house of 技安 at doraemon!!

We met the boss of this shop, all wood crafts were hand made!!
We went to this shop where we met the boss here!!  He is a genuine!!!

Every thing in this shop is 2000Yen.  It's great to take a look here!!  We bought our souvenir here to our host in Seoul.

This little snow mountain is quite scary

It looked really tasty and so attractive!!!  We bought it finally and it's really tasty!!

This sculpture is so morden!

This museum showed many Venice arts things.

You can try these dressing and take pictures, I'd like to try at the beginning but found out it's quite expeneisve!

There are many glass made collection

You see the scallop???  They are so fresh and the boss sold them in a very cheap price!!!  It's only 100 yen per each, so we all ordered one to try~

Preparing....

Cooked!!!  Believe it or not, they tasted so good!! I have never tried that tasty scallop in my life!

This is a chocolate shop, you see the sale girl standing at the shop front??  She was distributing the free samples!!!  We like Japan so much as there are always free samples everywhere!

So here we came to the steam clock that is the most important tourist spot in Otaru!

The steam clock has more than 100 years ago!

Suddenly, a big snow came!!

We found a cute shop nearby!!

how come this guy always pretends to be cool?

We're real cute...haha~

This Winnie the Poon is so cold & dirty!!~

This Winnie is warmer, cleaner and cuter!!

Of course Hello Kitty can be found easily everywhere in Japan!

Michelle likes the doll she hug so much, but she didn't show her face to us!

Snoopy family~

Mickey & Minnie...

The ice-cream was fake, you 2 were exaggerated

More fake ice-cream!

Otaru is so beautiful, even in a random street!

It's a fast food restaurant

So it's the fast food - rice cake + milk!!!  Tasty again!!  How come all kinds of food in Japan are so high in quality!

This restaurant was recommended by one of my colleague in housing Dept who is the expert of Japan!!!  He knows everything of Japan as he likes coming Japan every year!!  He even gave me a business card of that boss, and we would like to give it a try to see if we can obtain some discount.  Unfortunately, the restaurant had been closed when we arrived.

So we went to a random Japanese restaurant for dinner

Alban was so hungry~
Alban was too hungry!!

So fast for him to finished all!

After a long relaxing day, we walked back to our hostel.

Before going back to our hotel, we walked to the canal for see the night view of the beautiful Otaru!

We're so lucky that our hotel is very close to the canal!!  It took less than 5 minutes by walking, so great!

I will miss you - Beautiful Otaru!!

Ebeotsu is this small town 40 minutes away from Asahikawa by train. Since we woke up early we decided to explore it a little bit before going to the other festival in Asahikawa. Not much to say about it except that it is peaceful and cold. We did see some really nice landscapes from the train. The snow festival in Asahikawa was amazing. The whole town was full of snow and ice sculptures, a really festive environment  and besides our little group I only saw a couple of foreigners, while in Sapporo they are everywhere. The food was also amazing. We even found this place where you could have a set of pizza, salad, icecream and beer for 980 yen. Back in the mainland you would pay 500 yen for the beer alone. All in all we loved Asahikawa!  We took the last train for Ebeotsu and once again Liz and I had the bath area (really nice, with 5 different pools) all for ourselves. I miss that onsen ^0^!

OK, so this time I let Liz organize the trip to Hokkaido. The party consisted of me, Liz and her boyfriend Adam. We took a ferryboat from Akita to Tomakodai (12 hours) and happened to find Scott and his girlfriend on the same boat! The ferry was cool and the journey was smooth, but we had a huge problem: we stayed in a 12 people room　with a nice group of japanese that included another student from Akita but one old man in the group snored all night long. And I don't mean just a regular snore, I mean SNORE! No one in that room was able to sleep a wink. I grew desperate and just left the room spending my time roaming around in the boat. We got to Tomakodai around 4am, took a bus to the station, waited about an hour for the train and finally headed for Sapporo. The first day we just decided to explore the festival grounds and then go for lunch. We all wanted to try the Hokkaido specialty: crab (it is difficult to get bear meat these days, not to mention EXPENSIVE!). THe restaurant was in this nice old Sapporo Beer Brewery converted into an arts and crafts atelier with some nice shops and eating places. We decided to get a Lamb meat Tabehodai (all you can eat for 60 minutes), plus the crab and some sushi. May I say that was one fine meal, we almost cried of joy given how much better food tastes in Hokkaido than Akita. After lunch we explored the crafts and souvenirs shops and then parted ways with Scott and his girlfriend cause Liz had mistakenly booked us a ryokan someplace far off Sapporo called Ebeosu. And that was really FAR from Sapporo, somewhere in the middle of this snowy wasteland on the way to Asahikawa! But the place was so nice, with ZERO tourists except us that I was really glad Liz made a mistake!

South Korea & Japan Winter Trip 2007 - Day 7

19/12  Otaru

We got up quite early to catch out 9:30 JR to Otaru.  We bought some fast food in the JR station for our breakfast!!

The food in Japan is irresistible, all food are just look neat and nice even it's just some random fast food from convenient shop!!

It's really cold by standing in the platform where is an open area and all strong wind is blowing to you!!

Finally we got in the train!!  Since it's still quite early, you could see all Japanese were sleeping like hell, including me...hahha..

Otaru is quite close to Sapporo.  It's just an hour to go even we're on slow train and here is the JR station of Otaru!

We went out and see the nice European building but with a Japanese flag on!!  I'd say European did have great impact in Asia~

I had book a hotel called "Hotel Vibrant Otaru" via internet.   Again, this hotel is highly recommended!!  It's next to the romantic cannel, and around 10 minutes walk from the JR station!!  The hotel is beautiful, clean and cheap and the staff is helpful and friendly!!

A big Christmas tree in our hotel!

The hotel lobby& cafe.  The building was a bank before!

The front desk staff was so nice and smart.  They knew who we were before we introduced ourselves.  As we arrived quite early that they couldn't check us in, but they can keep our backpacks first.  Our backpacks were then sent to our room directly...wow...so good services!!  We booked a family one (1 double bed and 1 single bed) with a breakfast and it was only 2500 yen (less than HKD180) per each!!!!  So cheap and the services is too good~~~

The cute snowman's decorations in hotel!!

After putting our backpack in the hotel, we passed through a famous ice-cream shop!!

It looked very nice & tasty!!  Although the weather was too cold, we still want to try~

Alban bought one, and pretended to be cool!!!

I bought one too....haha..a photo outside the nice ice-cream shop!!  Strange to see we put heavy jacket, gloves and hat on but with ice-cream!!

Believe me the ice-cream was great!!!!!!

So this is the beautiful canal!!

The shadows of us~

A cool Japanese house!

The ice is really dangerous!!

The ground was still icy, so I had to put some anti-smooth stuff to my shoes for avoid falling!!

We then went to a famous glass shop~~ I love the floor glass tiles~~

Here you can find thousands of small cute glass accessories!

I love this one especially, the whole idea is just so great!!!  I wish I could say it to someone or someone should offer me as gift!!

Japan is a very peaceful country with very low crime rate, so this police boat was just taking rest in the pier~

It's actually a museum, and we're just trying to look for if there was any backyard to let us enter for free!!  haha...but we couldn't find it and we didn't want to see the museum, so just took picture and left.

The church in Otaru~

so we walked around a city and felt hungry, so we found a random restaurant to have our only sushi lunch~~~

it's pretty cool to have some fresh sushi~~

After lunch, we found out that our restaurant provide a very traditional Japanese dining there!!

Guess what it is???  It's a music box!! 

Music box is very famous in Otaru, you can tailor made one or you can buy one on display~~Cute music box, isn't it??

Actually, this big music box shop is just opposite to out hotel!!!  After visiting it, Michelle felt so cold as she only wore a little short skirt with tight, she wanted to change her ski trousers again!!  As a result, we went back to the hotel and found that the staff is already put our backpack in our room!!

So this was our room!!!  Alban Carbon, you're so rude to sleep on our bed, you should go up to your own bed!!!  You know what??  Alban was so bad during this trip by always stealing my hotel's slipper!!

After taking a short break we continue our tour~

This shop called romantic house (浪漫館), don't you think it's romantic??

Very cute little dummy for only showing the necklace~

After a bit Otaru in town tour, we went to an outlet in Otaru!!  I didn't take any picture in the outlet as it's just an shopping mall!!!  Yeah, they've great items there, we've put all our big jacket into the locker and running for shop!!!!  It's bad that the heater of indoors is always so hot!!

No idea who is that man neither nor the intention of Alban for imitating him!

We stay late at the outlet until it close and we went back to the town to have our late dinner!!

We went to a little restaurant randomly.  This kind of restaurant is a very great place to meet some local Japanese as well as the boss of the restaurant!!  All customers are just sitting around the boss and staff!!  At the beginning, we didn't want to enter this one as we saw some drunk Japanese old men there, but they're so passionate to invite us to come.  As a result, we came in and they talked a lot with us.  Their English was so funny, and they're actually very nice to explain the menu and help us to order the food!!!  They even offered us some food as well!!!

So this is the fish they introduced!!

And the soup rice~

They're the snack offered by the drunk man and they're very tasty!!

We found out there were many photos the board, they told us there was a HK artist came to their shop for introducing the food!!  I took a look and found it's Yuki!!!hahha..very interesting that we came here after they came, and the TV series hadn't on shown!!  What a coincident!!  I think this shop is going to be famous soon!

The staff was so nice to us as well, and we did some language exchange.  As I've some Japanese language worksheet with me, and we can try to speak some, and they asked us to teach them Cantonese as well!!!  The girl next to me is so cute, she is still in university, it's just a part time job for her!!  The girl next to Michelle is the sister of the boss!!!  The boss suggested us to take a picture, so that he could stick it on the wall!!! wow...so good idea!!!  If you happen to visit this shop, you can see my picture next to Yuki!!!!hahha...

The man next to me is the boss!!!  I saw him later in the TV!!! 

What a happy and relaxing day in Otaru!!!  I think I'm falling in love with Otaru!!

South Korea & Japan Winter Trip 2007 - Day 6

18/12  Sapporo Fresh Seafood Market, Shiroi Koibito Park, Sapporo Beer Museum, Clock Tower, Sapporo Odori Park, Nakajimakouen, Mount Moiwa

So this is our room, not so neat, and look quite ugly, but it's OK for us as we wouldn't spend a lot of time in the hostel.  It's just a place to sleep, and I can actually sleep in everywhere.

We planned to have an intensive sightseeing today, so we bough a day pass in a subway station.  I highly recommend you to buy the day pass if you plan to travel different locations in a day!!!  The 1 day pass is only 1000yen, and you can use the card to take bus & subway to everywhere!!!  Since the single ticket costs at least 200 yen, so if you take more than 5 rides, you can get your money back!!

The subway station in Sapporo~

Inside the subway.  Well it's quite old and I think that the HK one is better!

It's well known that all high school students in Japan like wearing mini skirts as their uniform even it's under zero degree!!  We didn't expect they wore the same type of boots for school before, it's quite fashionable!!

As I'm from Hong Kong, it's my first time to see so much snow & ice...the ice can be quite dangerous sometimes!!  I could imagine if one of those icicles fell down and hit someone's head, the person might get injured seriously!!

Our first stop was the fresh seafood market.....you see, there are plenty of huge crabs

It's our brunch.......quite good....After we left this restaurant, I realized that this restaurant was actually recommended in my book!!!

After having such a nice brunch, we're heading to the Shiroi Koibito Park!!

It's very nice to have snow on the 2 sides of road!!  Thanks for those workers to remove the snow on road, it's much easier for drivers.  On the other hand, people like Michelle and me found it is really difficult to walk on the pavement with snow covered!!!  We're walking like skiing!!!

Shiroi Koibito Park is a kind of theme park by Ishiya, a famous local chocolate company.

There is a little museum there showing how to produce the chocolate, but we arrived and found that the museum was closed for maintenance and would be re-opened in 2008!!  What a shame!!

Anyway, the park itself was interesting enough to recommend people to come for visit, especially for girls and young couples!

It's really cute to have this tiny house...it's so neat and cute!!

It's actually so funny for us to take a picture with this little cute house and we made an agreement to put on our facebook as our profile pictures.  Do you remember, we did put it!!!

OK~~Bigger picture here..It's difficult for Alban to get in!

Inside of the mini house~~

This little horse-drawn sleigh is very cute..we're like living in the fairy tale!!

This little white house is very cool as well!!  I appreciate the Japanese, they can make everything cute!!

This is the soccer park in Shiroi Koibito Park, but it's full of snow now, I don't think people can play soccer anymore in winter!!

Alban felt hungry after visiting the Shiroi Koibito Park, Michelle and I were still full, we order a bowel of rice to share!!  I was attracted by the egg...but it tasted really bad!!!  It's like we're eating saliva!!! Although it's quite cheap, I won't recommend anyone to try this!!  Actually, it's the first food that I really hate in Japan!!

Then here we came to Sapporo Beer Museum~

The whole building with the star gave me a feeling of Germany~~

Inside the museum~

Of course, we bought some souvenir here!!!  This is Sapporo Draft Beer Candy!!  It's very interesting to have a candy with beer taste!!  I've never tried, and I like it quite well even I hate drinking beer!

We thought we could see the process of beer manufacture in the beer factory but we couldn't find it, so we asked the staff there.  Guess what?  The beer factory had been converted to a shopping mall!!!!

After the beer trip, we took a bus to return main city.  As we were told both beer and chocolate factories were quite far away, we supposed the bus might take long!!  However, we found that the city of Sapporo was actually very small, we reached back the city very fast!!!!

I like the town planning of Sapporo city, as they manage their street very neat, you won't get lost in this city!

We reached the Clock Tower again where is not only the symbol of Sapporo but also one of the major directions to our hostel.

The building was constructed in 1978as a drill hall of the Sapporo Agricultural College. The US made clock was added in 1881. The Clock Tower has been designated an Important Cultural Property and now houses a small museum.  We watched some videos inside the museum to see how people renovate and repair this old building.  I was interested in watching it as it was what I learnt in school but Alban was also interested in it as well!!

So this is the clock, I didn't see this special though!

Japanese trusts everyone very!! Why? Do you remember what I told you in the last entry we bought the ticket to Noboribetsu  date historical village, but they never checked our tickets even in the main gate!!  For this clock tower, if you enter from the main entrance, you've to buy a ticket, but if you enter from the backyard, you don't have to buy ticket. 

I found it accidentally when I went to the toilet.  I found that the toilet was in the back yard, outside the museum of building.  There was no security guard nor gate for checking you when you came back from the toilet back to the museum.  So, if you a short of money, you can go to the toilet first then come to see the museum!!

They had a guestbook there for visitors.  I had made a comment there and remind the museum to have some security measures for the entrance problems.  Not only because they will loose money, but I don't want to see some bad people came and destroyed this nice place!

We walked pass the Sapporo Odori Park again!!

Then we came to a very nice park called Nakajimakouen (中島公園)!!  I love this park a lot!!  Highly recommended!!  In comparing to the Sapporo Odori Park, I think here is nicer and much less people.  I'd say it's  empty in fact!

Remember this logo! 

And we actually played snow here...so happy~~

It's beautiful, isn't it??  It's a lake in summer time but it's now fozen!

A silly picture!

You see, this park is really beautiful and I was glad I've made a visit to this unpopular park!

Then we took a cable car to the Mount Moiwa~~ There were some big jackets provided in the cable car station, you can take one with you to the mountain for free.  Again, they trust everyone will return the jacket back, so no registration is required.

The cable car could not bring you up the top, you've to interchange with this couch and a bit hiking as well!!  It's my first time to take this snow climbing couch, I guess it's much safer!!

So we reached the top!! I could tell, it's really cold, I wore my ski gloves and 2 big jackets but I sill felt very cold!!!  So, if you come here in winter, it's better to wear more or take the big jacket in the cable car station!

Snowman..Guess what?? Michelle broke the snowman after taking this photo!!

It's bad that our hands were shaking, the night view of Sapporo was quite pretty and neat!!

Still, I think I prefer the night view of Hong Kong!

We went back to the city again!!  It's great for Japanese to build many subways in town, as they understood the weather of Sapporo was very cold in winter.  They didn't want people too walk in the street in that cold weather, they built lots of subway, and even a whole shopping street in underground!

When we're on the way of finding food for our tonight dinner, we found this cooking studio!!  We're all attracted, I'd like to take a cooking class here for sure, but the point it we didn't speak Japanese!!!

We found a famous local fast food restaurant in Japan!!  It's called 松屋, I wish they could open their store in HK, the food there was much better than 吉野家!!  IT's our dinner~~~nice and cheap!!

Michelle and me were very hungry as we didn't eat much today, only the brunch and that shitty tea...but after having this very great dinner, we're very full and decided to walk back to hostel instead of taking train.

This is the street near our hostel~~~~

Excellent location for ski trip, as the ski lift is just outside the hotel door, free lockers for boots, skies and boards in lobby. Free Wi-fi access in lobby. Restaurants are good but closed at non-meal hours. Both indoor and outdoor hot springs are good and free access for residents. Buffet breakfast is good. Bar serves "all you can drink in 2 hours" for 2000 yen per person. I stayed there in January 2007.

The location is okay, about 5 minutes walk to JR station and the shopping street. Indoor hot spring is good. Buffet breakfast is good. Room is small but clean. I stayed there in January 2007.

South Korea & Japan Winter Trip 2007 - Day 5

17/12  Noboribetsu  date historical village, Volcano, Sapporo, Noodle Street, Odori Park.

We slept so early last night!!  It's just soon after we enjoyed our nice hot spring because we wanted to get up early today so that we could enjoy the sun more!!!

So this is our bedroom!!  It isn't that bad...quite good in fact, but we just made it too messy after one night!!!

We had a nice buffet breakfast at hotel and asked for some travel information at the help desk.  We met a couple from HK, they suggested us to go Noboribetsu date historical village rather than the bear park.  They also suggested us to take a taxi to there because the bus to there was expensive and they didn't run so frequently.

So, we took their advice, picked the discounted coupon at the hotel counter and the staff in the hotel helped us to keep our luggage and call taxi to there.  It's our first time to take taxi in Japan.  I had never planned to take taxi in Japan as I didn't think I could afford it!!!!!!  However, it wasn't that expensive as I expected!!

So here is the entrance of Noboribetsu date historical village, we met a huge group of Hong Kong people following the tourist trip to there...so strange to hear that much Cantonese~~

A big hint here, I know it isn't good to tell this kind of trick, but if you don't have enough money, you can try but I never tried!!  We waited for Alban for helping us to buy entrance tickets to the village while we're just taking some silly pictures with those performances.  After Alban coming back we entered the village but found that there were no entrance gate at all, they didn't check our tickets for entering everything!!!!  So strange, and the ticket office is located far away from the entrance as well!!!  So I think you don't have to buy a ticket for entering it, but of course it's illegal!!!!!  I hadn't tried that, we're good people, we  didn't do that illegal thing, we bought the tickets that were quite expensive!!!

So we're heading to the village now!!

The village is so nice, it's just like bring us back to the old time although we know everything is faked!!

Michelle and me were just too happy to see these kind of traditional Japanese building, we wanted to have take some cute pictures here...haha..so cute around here...

Alban join ed us as well..we wanted to imitate the TVB actress Yu Mei who came to Japan for producing a Japan tourist programme,   She was so cute during the TV, but we knew she was just pretended to be cute..

Haha...I didn't pretend it, just natural cute....hahah

Very nice street...like at the old time..

Suddenly, a big snow.....I've worn my ski trousers with a tight inside...so quite warm...

Can you see the snow flying??  We entered the house for watching a show.  Alban enjoyed it quite well, but Michelle & me felt quite bored as we totally didn't understand what they're speaking. 

There was one interesting to let you know, when you first enter the show room, the staff will give you a piece of paper, guess what is that used for???  After the show, the staff will ask you to throw money to the stage, if you like their show.  It's all optional, we didn't throw it out but it's funny to see people throwing money.

It's just nice to take many pictures because everywhere is so beautiful.

Very big snow, this man must be so cold.........Nevertheless, he was so professional.

We went to watch a funny show, I had totally no idea what made the audience laugh a lot!!!  After the show, we went to take a pictures with the artists....I found their pictures in my book which means they have been working here for a very long time.

we've a big snow.....

We're pretending that Fortune cat..

so silly we were....

Don't you feel we're so happy and relaxed??  Guess what? Michelle got cramps (抽筋) while she's doing this post.
 

This house is so funny, I love most, highly recommended!!

So here is inside the house...

Funny illusion, I was standing straight, but the house built in a way let me look like falling..cool!

Then we found a house where the staff was taking rest there (I guess), they asked us come to join them because they're heating up some water to keep themselves warm...wow..so nice to us!!!  As a result we came close to the boiling water for warming...then somebody helped us to take a pictures, they're so professional to make some cool postures for us!!!Yeah~~~After we left that house, I just told Michelle they're so professional even they're 蛇王中!

So after visiting the village, the staff there helped us to call a taxi back to our hotel's area, we went for hiking!!!!

The volcano area, we've been there last evening, we're going to hike in day time!!

The volcano is totally different from day and night time.

It's very difficult to hike here as they don't have some deep slope, but the snow made the road so smooth!! Michelle and me were like skiing...ah...so bad..I didn't want to ski here....

Michelle would like to try the foot bath introduced by the hiking map, we finally hiked to this foot bath, but whe she saw this situation, she was speechless.  Eventually, she gave up her plan.

A very hot spring....the smell was quite bad!!

Nice picture!!

haha..裕美again~

Guess what???  How Alban did it??  He supposed to write his name, but his tool was used up...hahah..guess what is that tool..it's a very nasty thing in fact....  I won't say it here!

A straight road back to the hotel....

After the hiking, it's time for us to leave this little rural city and back to the biggest city in Hokkaido - Sapporo!!!

We took a bus in front of the hotel to the JR station of Noboribetsu.  The JR is very convenient transportation in Japan, but it is not the only way!!  Bus is another convenient transportation and usually cheaper than JR.  However, it normally takes a bit longer time, so if you're in a short trip, you may not want to try it!!  In our case, we've time to spend, and in fact it's like only 30-60 minutes different...so we always take the cheapest way!!!  The bus in Japan is quite similar to Hong Kong one.  I don't mean their physical design but the system to announce the  next station we are going.  There is a display panel on the front to let all passengers know where you are!!!!

So we arrived Sapporo, the bus stop near the JR station, and our hostel is located near the JR Station as well!!!  We booked a YHA hostel, it's like a 8 persons dorm, but there were only we 3 living in this room!!  So, it's pretty cool.  Anyway, after settle down, we went out to find some good food!! 

We couldn't believe that Sapporo was that tiny, we could walk to most tourist places on foot!!!  All streets were systemic, it's very easy to find all places, you won't get lost in this city!

Here we come to a street that is full of little noodle restaurant.  It's my first time to have Japanese noodle in this kind of small restaurant!!  It's very popular in the Japanese TV drama series!!

We've a dinner here...you can see the whole cooking process, but the taste wasn't very outstanding.  The price of a bowl of noodle is at least 750 yen.  I'd say you can eat better with that price.  Anyway, it's good to have a try, but it's only worth for once only!!!

This is the Odori Park...very famous tourist spot in Sapporo~~

It's nice and romantic here when the park was covered by snow!!

The tower like.. Eiffel Tower???  No..I don't think so, this one is much shorter!!!  Alban said he was sick with the tower...hahah..yes....me too..we've no intention to go up and see because I know there is a mountain in Sapporo where have a better view!!!

Snow fighting....  hahah..we're just like kids...Alban wasn't nice to us...he started the fight.. both Michelle  & me were put to lay on the snow...it's really cold!!!!!!!  However, it's very fun at the same time!!!

This is another famous clock building....we would visit it again in the day time.

After a long day, we came back to the hostel to sleep...I wouldn't recommend people living to close to the JR station, because it's really noisy when the train passing by!!

Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 5:21 AM

 Subject: Greetings from the land of the rising sun!

       I'm sending this message out to share my tales of adventure while I am out here.  The quest is to ride across Japan with my buddy Dave by bicycle from Hokkaido, the Northernmost island, all the way to Kyushu, the Southernmost.  For any necessary travel between islands it's either ferries or tunnels.

      First off, my plane left O’Hare at 12 noon on Saturday and I was in daylight for over 24 hours.  I tried to set my internal clock by staying up all of Friday night, but had only marginal success.  It's amazing how all the Japanese one studies over the past few months just flies out of our head the first time it's needed.  The customs officer was very concerned with what the 4 by 7 foot box I was pushing contained.  After about five to ten seconds of straining my brain I managed to blurt out "This is a bicycle" in Japanese.  So, after landing and meeting Dave (he was already in the country for over two weeks) I was ready to collapse and he was rearing to go.  The youth hostel where we were staying actually offered to pick us up from the airport without prompting.  Are these nice people or what?  The room was actually about the size of a small house bathroom.  The bathroom of that room was actually about the size of an airplane bathroom with a very small, but very deep bathtub.  I had to get used to everyone looking, looking away, and then quickly looking back again to make sure that they actually saw the strangers they had just looked upon.  Soon after dropping off baggage we went straight to my first ever true Japanese restaurant.  Tatami mats, cushions, and a menu I couldn't even begin to understand was the gist of it.   For those that aren't familiar the Japanese writing system actually consists of three sets of "alphabets" that they mix constantly in the same sentence.  There are 47 base Hiragana symbols (there are accents that can be put on them to slightly change the sound) and each represent a different syllable like 'KA' 'SO' and 'SHI' to name a few.  Also, there is one 'N' sound to be used at the end of syllables only.  There are 47 base Katakana characters as well, but it is used for all imported or borrowed words like supu, salada, and orenji (Hiragana is intended for original Japanese words only).  You can technically create any of the Japanese words with these two syllables sets, but it's not that easy.  Kanji is another "alphabet" and consists of an entire ideographic set of characters that can represent just about anything (like Egyptian hieroglyphics), and are often multiple syllables for just one character.  There are about 5000 of these characters, and if a kanji character exists for something it is often used instead of spelling it out in hiragana.  Anyway, the curious owner, as well as many of the people that we meet are very anxious to here what brought us there.  Luckily Dave studied about 9 years of Japanese, and can tell the tale.  Even so, memorizing all the Kanji is almost an insurmountable task, especially without daily and repeated exposure.  Even town names are often written in it!  After that good night's sleep it was time to be off.  During breakfast the strangeness of where I was really started to sink in.  The Japanese really seem to over-do it with cartoons on TV.  They are in almost every commercial and even the news.  The sun and the clouds all had faces on them for the weather report, the raining cloud was actually frowning and crying the rain.  Our first 50km brought us to Kashima, where the Kashima Shinto Shrine landmark is.  The primary deity seemed to be one of the warrior gods for the Shinto religion.  The entire place had a powerful peaceful energy about it.  The trees were two to three times taller than any I have ever seen.  Also, the roots of the martial art Iaido (simplified as way or art of the sword) are to found here.  Dave is an avid practitioner of the art and there was even a dojo there.  He was most pleased.  Soon after visiting the dojo we both purchased authentic Bokken, wooden katana swords, that may well have been blessed by the monks there.  We'll attempt to clarify that soon.  So, not only did we have a tent, two backpacks, 4 panniers, and two backrack packs to lug with us, now we had wooden swords sticking out the backs of our bikes.  No one would resist looking after that.  After the shrine and lunch it was a 40 km trek to Oarai on the Pacific coast.  Any maps of these areas for those curious can be checked out at http://www.mapquest.com and http://www.mapblast.com.  Anyway, one thing learned quickly is that no one here seems to have any competence in giving distances in kilometers.  It's always minutes, and it's always about a mere 20% to 30% of the amount of time the helpful citizen specified.  One person that we actually asked how many kilometers it was ended up being about 30% off.  When we had ten kilometers to go, it was dark (all the time spent in the shrine area) and we were extremely tired.  Food was the goal.  Any food at all.  Oh, did we need to find any place with food.  Any place open past 8 was becoming harder to find.  Eureka!  We find what appears to be a Ramen restaurant.  It was very difficult to fight off the urge to just lay down on those comfortable cushions.  The smell of our food coming surely assisted.  After that, it was time to lay in the dirt in front of the store for a little bit.  Oh boy, it was heavenly.  I couldn't believe how incredibly comfortable dirt was under the right circumstances.  Dave and I concluded that we should just go to the nearest beach, public or not, set up the tent, and sleep.  The restaurant lady informed us how to get there, three lights down and turn left.  Unfortunately, the oh-so-helpful restaurant lady led us to a nuclear research facility.  Just what we needed!  We couldn't tell it was that at first though.  There were little cartoon people on the signs and security guards riding up and telling me to stay back with the bikes.  After some talking to Dave, he found out that it was indeed some high-security nuclear facility of some kind and that we shouldn't really camp on the beach.  Then it occurred to me what the cartoons were.  They were atoms and molecules with happy faces!  We mustered what strength we had left and pressed on.  Finally we saw an advertisement that said "Camp!  Barbecue!  Fun!" and we quickly got off the road.  No camp, no barbecue, and no fun was anywhere nearby.  There was a beach though.  There were several people there (remember it was past ten on a weekday here) mostly setting off fireworks and drinking.  We steered clear of everyone and dragged our bikes and gear on to the beach to set camp.  We were a little tired for that so I laid out my bikebag, collapsed on that, and fell asleep to the sound of the crashing ocean waves.

     This sleep was very short lived, indeed.  I faintly hear Dave's voice telling me that he thinks there is trouble.  Let me tell you about trouble.  What was once a relatively peaceful beach several minutes ago was now filled with flashlight wielding Police officers and paramedics.  I sure did hope Dave had really good Japanese while groggy!  I made sure I was primed to whip out the phrase "I don't speak much Japanese."  I had a feeling I was going to need it very soon.  They were upon us moments later, and Dave was saying blah blah blah CAMPU blah blah.  They promptly replied "Blah blah CAMPU?!?! Ha ha ha ha ha."  After a lot more blah blah blah, we showed them our Passports, explained our situation, and signed a release form that the ambulance had (that we were okay, I believe).  After they left, Dave explained that one of the beach occupants was worried and called them to come check on us.  Anyway, the massive temperature drop caused us to pitch the tent.  It took hours to fall asleep after that.  Many patrons kept walking by making comments and laughing while I tried to translate whatever words I recognized to make meaningless sentences.  Just a note, the heavenly dirt from before was much better than the sand.

     Alright, next day.  We were in Oarai to catch a ferry to Hokkaido.  It was the cheapest way to go.  Lot's of rest would help a