Yoshino Baigo

ON Sunday we went to Yoshino Baigo, near Hinatawada, for the plum blossom festival. We left early in the morning and we took 4 different trains. It was a really long trip of 2 1/2 hours to get there. Btu it was very beautiful, there were tens of thousands of plum trees blossoming. The Ume Matsuri has been a tradition in Japan for many centuries. People go to look at the plum blossoms and have drink while watching the petals fall. the blossoms on some trees are pearl white, other are pinkish and others almost red. Many people showed up thanks to the first warm and sunny weekend day in weeks.
We walked around for a few hours and watched some dancing and musical performances. It was really great.

Hokkaido trip

HOKKAIDO was really great. We left early on Thursday morning. Our flight was set to leave at 6:30 am. We got to the airport in time and met up with others who were coming along. It was really early and we hadn't slept well or much the night before, but we were excited to go!

As we got closer to the boarding zone we realized the plane we were going to take to Hokkaido was one of the specially painted ones. We were flying in a Pikachu painted 747... Even the inside had Pokemon and Pikachu pictures everywhere.

The flight was short, only 1 1/2h, and uneventful. It was quite a shock to see all the snow everywhere as we landed though, it looked like we had flown back to Canada!

We all took the train from the airport to the main station in downtown Sapporo. We split up because different groups went to different hotels. Finally at around 9 am we dropped off our bags at our hotel.

It was about -10 to -15 on average during our stay. We really felt like we were back in Canada!

We then walked around towards the Snow festival. We saw many ice sculptures and snow sculptures. It was really busy! There were many food vendors selling lots of different foods things which we had never seen before.

Lunch consisted of Sapporo fries, hotdogs on sticks, a chicken/fish burger and drinks.

After wandering around until late afternoon we went back to the hotel at 3pm and checked in. It was nice to be in a warm room after the many hours we had just spent walking around. We all took naps for a few hours.

That night we went to the famous ramen street and had amazing ramen! I tried miso-ramen, it was the best I've had so far.

After dinner we went back to the snow festival and saw the great light shows and music shows which were played onto the big snow sculptures. We stayed until 10pm at which time they shut all the shows and lights down.

We went to the hotel and slept well.

The next morning we ate breakfast (sweet breads, water and coffee) and then took the train to Otaru. It was a great little town about 30 minutes train ride from Sapporo. They have a few canals in the town which are famous, it is called the Venice of Japan. There is a lot of seafood in this town and many places to have sushi, but the prices were ridiculous ($30-$40 for 8-10 pieces of sushi).

We looked around at many glass blowing workshops and looked at many great glass works. We also saw many fish mongers, crab is also a big delicacy from here.

Lunch was chicken stir fry for Jen and I had salmon and seafood tempura. It was amazing! So good!

We went back later that night. I decided to have fresh Sapporo sushi and sashimi (much cheaper!) and it was good too.

The next morning we went to another part of Sapporo and visited the Chocolate Factory. We walked around the museum part and then looked at the manufacturing section. Finally we went and did some souvenir and gift shopping.

That night we went to a "beer factory" and had Genghis Khan. It was decent but not great. It was a big plate of rather fatty thin slices of lamb and some vegetable which you cook yourself on an inverted skillet.

The next morning we packed our stuff, did some shopping around and then went back to the airport to go home!

Disney Sea

FOR December 24th we went to Disney sea, it's a common thing for couples to do in Japan. It was my first time at a Disney place, I liked it. On this day there are few kids and it is mostly adult couples.

We did rides on the famous one like the Haunted Hotel and the Indiana Jones rides.
We saw a couple of special Disney sea shows for the holiday season and their Xmas fireworks.

Overall if was an awesome day!

Kabuki

WE saw a play Japanese style, Kabuki. Kabuki is classical Japanese dance-drama. Kabuki theatre is known for the stylization of its drama and for the elaborate make-up worn by some of its performers. All performers are men, women are portrayed by men wearing white masks.

Kabuki plays can last entire days but we went to see only a small hour show. The particular show we went to see had as a star a famous kabuki performer of women roles.

It was very interesting and very different from other theater. Unfortunatley there were no pictures allowed once inside so the only shot is from the outside.

Sumo fight

THE latest adventure is something I really wanted to see while I was in Japan, a real sumo fight!

We went to a special building for the Grand Basho, one of the big tournaments in the sumo series. It was next to the Tokyo Edo Museum where we had gone before. The seats were decent but we brought binoculars which ended up being a good idea.

The place was enormous! The fights were real interesting. This video shows one the super stars of sumo, Baruto. Interestingly enough many of the top sumo fighters are north Europeans or Mongolians. Some fights were very violent, with fighters flying out of the ring and into the spectators.

The white stuff they throw is salt being thrown to bring good luck in battle. The fight can't start until both make a specific move indicating they are ready. Intimidation plays a big part in sumo fights. And like in any professional sport, there is advertising, in this case people walk around the ring and show the sponsor's flags. The actual fighting is rarely more than a few seconds.

Namja town

ON the 11th of January, we went to a place called Namja town. It's across between an interior fun house and a food theme park. On our menu were Gyoza and Ice cream.

Inside it's a great place for parents and kids, there are many games like a treasure hunt game that uses special viewing machines to find clues all around the park. We went only for the food since all the games are in Japanese and are a bit hard for us to follow.

There is a gyoza museum which we went to. There were many different kinds of gyoza. We all bought some different types and shared a piece with each other. It was a tasty experience.

Then we went for dessert. The ice cream museum is the one in Japan with the most flavours of ice cream! We tied some pretty tame ones but there were some incredible flavours available, like jellyfish, lamb & raisin, sweet potato, charcoal, wasabi, eel, tulip, deep seawater, fish sauce, cherry blossom, barley, bottle gourd, fried noodle, caviar, squid, octopus, shark fin, soy sauce, potato & butter, cheese rizotto, garlic & mint and of course... viper!

octopus ice cream with real pieces!

Our exploration group

Back!

Whoo! After a few months I'm back online. I was out of internet and have a huge backlog of posts to make.