[The following post is from the archives of my In Search Of Incredible blog, originally published on 14 April 2017]

 

Day 6 – 12 December 2016, Monday

Today, we woke up to a very chilly morning, -14 degrees Celsius to be precise. Caught the weather forecast on television and it showed that all of Hokkaido was experiencing sub zero temperatures while the rest of Japan was above zero. It’s only when you’re in a vast country like Japan that you fully realise how much temperatures can fluctuate across latitudes. As I’ve mentioned before, the best way to study physical geography is to go overseas to experience it for yourself because Singapore is simply too small and limited in terms of our land area and landscape.

At 8:08am, we departed our hotel and drove to Sounkyo Valley, just 10 minutes away. We were here to see Gin Ga No Taki waterfall and Ryu Seu No Taki waterfall. They are part of a chain of waterfalls at Sounkyo Valley, which was formed by volcanic movements centuries ago. The falls are quite tall but they have all frozen up because of the cold winter. I can imagine they must be quite impressive and beautiful in spring, when they are in full flow. That’s the thing about visiting in winter – everything is frozen in time. But winter has its charms too.

It was brutally cold the moment we stepped out of the bus, making it hard to appreciate the true beauty of the waterfalls. We jostled for space with the other tourists (from other tour groups) to take photos quickly before running up the bus soon after. It was so easy to get frostbitten in these conditions. My fingers felt numb after removing my gloves to take photos on my iPhone. I had to use my iPhone to take photos because my Canon DSLR refused to operate in the cold. Brrrrrrrrr.

At 8:42am, we departed Sounkyo Valley. To be honest, I was quite happy to seek refuge in the sanctuary of the bus and just watch the beautiful countryside scenery zoom past. At 9:51am, we arrived at Otokoyama (男山) Sake Brewery & Sake Museum at Asahikawa. For the uninitiated, sake is a type of alcohol made from rice and malt. It appears clear like plain water and its alcohol content (alcohol by volume, or ABV) is usually around 15-17%, making it much stronger than beer (around 4-6%) and slightly stronger than wine (usually around 12.5-14.5%).

Otokoyama is one of Japan’s most famous and renowned sake brands, with over 330 years of history behind it. Every bottle of Otokoyama sake that is sold in the world was produced right here at the brewery in Asahikawa. There is also a museum here that is well catered to international visitors. We went up to the third level, where we saw the tools used to produce sake in the old days. From here, we could peer through the glass windows to look at the brewing and storage rooms to get a glimpse of the sake production process.

However, the real highlight of the visit was the sake tasting session. You can sample many of their sakes for free. I tried two of them and I liked the sparkling sake. It was sweet and tasted more like champagne because of the bubbles, and detractors would probably scoff at it for not being real sake, but who cares? Dad liked it too so we bought a bottle for ¥900 (S$11.70).

I also paid ¥200 (S$2.60) to sample a glass of their best sake. I’m not much of a sake drinker so I can’t really tell how good it was. Honestly, if you put a glass of the ¥200 sake next to the free one, I wouldn’t be able to tell the difference! But since we’re there, we might as well try the best sake they had to offer.

At 10:25am, Reiko rushed us up the bus because we had to go to Asahiyama Zoo to catch the penguin parade, which was starting at 11am. Luckily, it was only a short ride away and we reached the zoo at 10:47am. We entered via the group entrance of the East Gate and hurriedly made our way to the penguin walk route. The penguin walk takes place only during winter/the snowy season from December to March, so it was quite a treat to catch it. There are two sessions per day – 11am and 2:30pm (in March, only the 11am session is available).

Pink lines in the snow demarcated the route that the penguins would take. We stood behind the line obediently and waited eagerly for the penguins to make their grand entrance. Before long, we heard excited chatter from the visitors ahead of us in the line, so we knew that the parade had started. And then we saw them. About 15 penguins strutted down the path, looking bewildered at all the attention the humans were giving them. A few staff members egged them forward, careful to guide those who strayed off back to the designated path. As they got closer, we saw that there were two baby penguins among them. They were super adorable! It was impossible not to have a smile on your face after seeing them.

After the excitement of seeing the penguins, we were free to roam around to see the other animals. As the zoo is located on the top of a hill, with the animal enclosures located along the slopes, it had an open, spacious and airy feel, which was very nice. We saw giraffes, hippos, deer, seals, cranes, raccoons, red pandas and polar bears. The most impressive collection was at the Fierce Animal House, with the Siberian tigers, Hokkaido brown bears and snow leopard. The tigers were huge and truly menacing. In all, we spent about 1.5 hours at the zoo but we didn’t manage to see all the animals. If you’re visiting the zoo on your own, you should set aside about 3 hours to see all the animals at a comfortable pace, bearing in mind the sloping terrain.

From the zoo, we drove for about 20 minutes and reached our lunch place. Surprise surprise, it was hot pot yet again. I’m not usually a fan of hot pots but I must admit it was good to have something hot and soupy in the cold weather.

After lunch, we took a long drive to Sapporo city. Today’s weather was great and we had blue skies in the afternoon. We even witnessed a beautiful sunset from our bus as we headed into the city. After driving for about 2.5 hours, we finally reached Sapporo. We immediately knew we were in the city because the number of vehicles on the road increased and we were moving very slowly. Finally, at 4:05pm, we arrived at the famous Shiroi Koibito Park, aka Ishiya Chocolate Factory or 白い恋人パーク.

Shiroi Koibito is perhaps Hokkaido’s most famous export. No one leaves Hokkaido without bringing home boxes and boxes of Shiroi Koibito cookies. They are European style cookies, with white chocolate sandwiched between freshly baked langue de chat biscuits (white cookies that are baked until their edges turn brown). Here at Shiroi Koibito Park, you can pay ¥600 (S$7.80) to take a tour of their factory to see how the cookies and are made. As we had limited time, we did not go on the factory tour.

There is also a massive gift shop selling the Shiroi Koibito cookies and other confectionary products such as Mifuyu (wafer stick pastries dipped in chocolate) and Shiroi Baum (a round, layered cake resembling our local kueh lapis, coated with their signature white chocolate). A 12-piece box of Shiroi Koibito cookies retails for ¥761 (S$10) here while an 18-piece box goes for ¥1,142 (S$15). However, we held our horses here because Reiko told us that we could get them slightly cheaper elsewhere, at a tax-free shop. So we just tried their soft serve ice-cream, which was yummy as usual.

We also went to the second floor to visit the toy museum, which showcased lots of vintage items and memorabilia from the owner’s personal collection. There is also a Chocolate Lounge and Tea Room, where you can feast on mouth-watering desserts. However, we didn’t have time so we skipped that.

We spent most of the time at the courtyard outside the building because the area was transformed into a Christmas wonderland, with beautiful decorations, Christmas-themed structures and colourful lighting displays. There were many photo-worthy spots, but I later realised that the photos didn’t turn out very nice because the blue lighting was not very flattering. It was very nice in real life though! At 5pm, the clock tower came to life and there was a musical performance at the lower section of the tower. It reminded me a lot of the Glockenspiel at Marienplatz in Munich.

At 5:13pm, we departed Shiroi Koibito Park and made our way to the city centre, where we were caught in a terrible traffic jam. The vehicles were moving slowly because of the icy roads and slippery surface. It didn’t help that the city is designed in a grid and all the roads were full. Only three vehicles crossed each time the traffic lights turned green. Now I know where the term “gridlocked” comes from, and this was a perfect example. It was frustrating being stuck on the bus and letting precious time slip by. It would have been much faster if we took the subway.

Finally, at 6:39pm, we arrived at Ganso Sapporo Ramen Street. It is a narrow alley filled with many ramen restaurants. Reiko brought us to one that was apparently visited by fabled American chef Anthony Bourdain. It was super small and our tour group took up all the seats in the restaurant. Reiko had reserved the entire place for us. There were a few customers who wanted to eat here but they were turned away.

We sat at the bar counter just in front of the two male chefs, so I could see how they prepared our ramen. After the long traffic jam, I was famished so I could not wait to dig in to my bowl of ramen. The serving was big and it came with a generous portion of scallops, bamboo shoots, clams and corn. Best of all, the chashu slices were large and thick. The broth was rich and tasty. Dad found it too salty but I liked it. There was also a serving of gyoza to go with the ramen. After days of having hot pot, it was nice to eat ramen for a change.

I looked at the menu plastered outside the restaurant and saw that the scallop corn ramen we had cost ¥1,300 (S$17). Only the scallop corn crab ramen (¥1,600) and crab ramen (¥2,000) were pricier. The normal ones like corn and chashu ramen cost only ¥900 and ¥1,100 respectively. Actually, ramen in Japan is very reasonably priced while ramen in Singapore is way overpriced, considering the difference in quality and quantity. 

After dinner, we had a few short minutes to walk around the immediate area but there wasn’t much to see and we didn’t have time to venture further. We left at 7:55pm and went straight to our hotel for check-in.

Sapporo Prince Hotel
Address: Nishi 11-chome, Minami 2-jo, Chuo-ku Sapporo, 060-8615 Japan
Tel: +81-(0)11-241-1111
Website: http://www.princehotels.com/sapporo/

As the room was too small to fit three persons, they “upgraded” me and gave me a room to myself! That was a pleasant surprise and a good way to make up for the cramped room we had last night, and for the previous nights of squeezing together in one room.

As we were no longer in the hot spring area, where was no natural onsen here but the hotel still had a hot spring of sorts. Since there was nothing to do at night, I paid ¥500 to use the hot spring. The ¥500 admission fee actually gives you multiple entry from 4:00pm to 10:00am the following day. There was an indoor bath and an outdoor, open-air bath (rotenburo). It was almost empty because it was not free after all.

As I soaked in the open-air bath, I looked up into the sky and saw snowflakes falling gently. Most of them dissipated into the air before they made it to the water surface due to the heat, but the larger ones created tiny ripples as they plopped onto the water. It was a perfect way to end the night.