Hokkaido Day 2: Furano to Abashiri

Day 2 of the trip! After a tiring first day of a midnight flight, + driving in the dark/rain/winding roads to Furano, it was a clear skies on the next day!

Chu totoro gets packing and ready to go! Outside, autumn colours!!

One of many japanese vending machines, this one dispenses TV cards to watch pay-TV in the hotel

One of the most amazing milk ever at the hotel breakfast. This small bottle would have cost ~160yen in the shops, >SGD2.

Wenhui all decked up in boots and ready to roll! Prince Furano hotel in beautiful temperate light!

Our first stop Furano Ice Milk factory, producing cheeses of local milk! Here Wenhui corresponding with the milk producer.

Yummy cheese samples for tasting! The black ones on the left are blended with squid ink! Oooh!!

The 2nd stop was the Furano Wine factory. Here an expansive shot of the entrance, aptly named Chateau Furano!! I guess the French influence on wine is everywhere!

Too used to Australian Chardonnays, blancs, some German Rieslings and some French whites, the description of this 'Ciel' wasn't in any sort of book which we have comed across! Nevertheless, we felt that this was great and we bought a couple of bottles! Ciel means 'sky' in Japanese,...I stand corrected!

The next stop was Shikisai no Oka, with cultivated flowers of a myraid array of colours! The sunflower season seems to have ended reently with dead beds of sunflowers. Here a classic view of blue skies, and rows of colours! With a white house to boot!!

Still at Shikisai no Oka, another shot which I like.

Japanese accessories/sourvenoirs are impeccably made and packaged. Here's an exmple of plastic encased flowers, in backlit situation.

Our next stop is at the Otokoyama Sake brewery. This was a great day, with cheese, wine, and now sake!! Here's 男山, one of the most famous sake from Japanese. And this is the highest grade of them all! Tasting remarkably different from regular sake, I couldn't decide if I like it! This has hints of Moutai to it rather than the usual sake signatures.

Wenhui putting on a 男山 costume, ready to make her own sake!!

Light was falling fast, we spent too much time on cheese, wine and sake, and this was enroute to Abashiri at Ryusei & Ginga falls. It was really windy and conditions were very cold. I didn't bring any ND filters nor tripod and can't pull anything more than 1.3 seconds on the shutter and this was the best I achieved with limited gear.

With light fading fast, the skies changed and we stopped to snap when we felt like it. Here Wenhui's dad capturing the last light of the day.

Trees beginning to be barren in the autumn.

My usual practice, start stripping shoes etc and take a shot of the hotel, here at hotel Abashirikoso with a traditional tatami seating area.

The gigantic portions of the dinner, what you see is not the complete set for ONE person,YET!! Hurray!!! We tried our first Onsen (common bath/hot spring) tonight and I didn't really enjoy....seeing naked men all around...sigh.

A long and satisfying day of cheese, wine, sake, great lunch (not shown here), cold afternoon, nice sunset, fantastic dinner!

Hokkaido, Nagoya 2009! Part 1

A wonderful trip, in several chapters, between 10th October to 19th October 2009. A fly-and-drive trip, with Wenhui and her parents, have us set off on the 10th October onboard an SQ flight at 1am. I had thought they would serve food on board, and I was starting to be damn hungry, and a leading stewardess said, oh..we only have biscuits. I'm like.. WTF...trying to pull crap? And she instructed another stewardess to pass the biscuits to me. And the biscuits were crap, similar or worse than Toh Guan stuff. But I had to eat, and chomping I went. After I almost finish my plate of biscuits, the leading stewardess came back and asked if I wanted instant noodles. Not a newbie SQ flights, this is terribly disappointing to have them offer this at a late stage. I wasn't full, but I wasn't hungry..and I let it go. The rest of the trip was tough, a 1am flight is never fun and we reached the transit at Osaka ~6am local time.... and the rest of the magical journey begins!!


A beatifully lit Osaka terminal greets us as we left the aerobridge.

In search of better food than SQ crap, we started fumbling at orders. Here's the REAL deal!! Everything in Japanese!!!

A plate of 8 Tako (Octopus) balls constitutes a meal for them. This is extremely starchy, and after the 3rd or 4th..it gets really quite tough to continue...hee

One of the many Japanese wonders, a solution analyser to ensure that your water bottle is safe to be brought onto the domestic flight..to Hokkaido!!!!

More beautiful light on the ANA plane. Very nice interior and great service!! The stewardesses greated every single one, and sincere and wide smiles throughout!

A hand at a 'grabber' before the flight..hee. Arcade games are terribly expensive at >100Yen and above (Exchange rate ~100yen to SGD1.60)

After meeting our tour leader and collecting our car, it was straight to the first place of interest, the setting sun of a temperate country is... wow..here backlit lavender? flowers.

A field of crops again backligt in the setting sun.

It was bloody cold...(~12C? with howling winds), I was in a dry fit tee and the thinest wind breaker but enjoying the hell of the time!! It's like enlightment to be faced with the fresh cold air and light from heaven. Here's Wenhui burrring in the cold..hee.

A quaint little house of Gelato magic.

Amazingly flavourful, not too sweet with the right body, this was my favourite gelato for the entire trip!

A super long and ardous journey across dozens of winding roads in RAINING and PITCH DARK conditions brought us to our first accommodation in Prince Hotel at Furano. One of the most luxurious meals (~4000-6000yen) awaited and this was...*slurp*..an unforgetable meal!

Till the next day....