爸爸去哪儿-北海道之感想篇 (上）

Long article ahead

Didn't really plan for this in advance, even to the point that my accommodations were only finalised just 2 days before flying off. 

It all started with the thought that I had to clear a good number of annual leave before end of the year, and with the kids usually "forced to" behave better when daddy is around, it just came to me that I should bring one of the kids out for a 1 to 1 holiday, and see how he/she survive with daddy (or the other way round). It was also triggered by an article that I read long time ago that one of China action movie actor (can't remember whom was it) did the same with his boys many years ago, though that was more of a boot camp to toughen up his sons that he deemed was overly soft and pampered at home

Of course, the more modern and fashionable version is the 爸爸去哪儿 series that's in the rage for the past few years 

Mummy didn't think mei mei will survive with daddy alone, and Ryan pretty much obeys daddy, so the choice was obvious on which one to bring. And with him going to move to  P1 in 14 months, there isn't much time left for  an adventure without the burdens of adhering to the school holiday schedule nor homework

Original choice was to bring him to Taiwan for a scooter backpacking trip again, but the price for air tickets was 3x the normal rates, and scoot just launched a new direct flight to Sapporo. Timing is pretty decent too. With tickets to Japan cheaper than Taiwan? The choice is a no brainer 

The dates to visit wasn't the most ideal as it is during the fall to winter transition, which means that there is no glorious colours of autumn nor full winter festivals available. But hey, the cheaper room prices for low season makes up for it as a first foray into a new destination. It didn't have to be a perfectly planned holiday for the whole family. It's just quality boys time together. What we actually do or visit is secondary

Ryan was fully anticipating the trip after I had made the bookings and he told everyone in school about it. Mei mei didn't really understand until the morning that I sent her to school alone and told her I'll be away for a week with Ryan. She missed her brother quite badly in subsequent video calls that we made

First night in Hokkaido was spent at the airport hotel. Functional and made perfect sense since the flight touched down at 7+, and it would have been a mad rush to get to the city for dinner and check in by taking the JR train. And to think that we will be driving off with the rental car the next morning, it wouldn't make sense to go to the city without having the time to actually see it. Saved the trouble and picked up the rental car next day at the airport. Great decision 

Day 2

Picking up the rental car from Budget was smooth. The service staff kept emphasizing "drive slowly" endlessly as accident rate is high for people not accustomed to driving in snow and ice. Took the HEP package for highway toll at 6700 yen for 5 days. Good choice #2 since the total cost on highway toll that I would have incurred on ala carte prices will be far more expensive. (I didn't know at the point of purchase. Was just thinking of convenience then)

Drove to Jigokudani (hell valley) near Noboreibetsu for the sulphurous hot spring. It was snowing when we reached. This is Ryan and Daddy's first encounter with snow (falling from the sky, not the dirty ones next to the roads). Boy was exhilarated to see the falling snowflakes and went on and on creating tracks in the snow covered ground. First time stepping on fresh snow and ice feels.... Soft yet Crunchy... Snow wasn't thick enough for snow angel yet so that had to wait till our visit to the ski resort on Mount Teine on Thursday 

Brought him over to the nearby Oyunuma foot soak for a bit of hot spring water foot down but a combination of nature's call and first encounter with freezing temperatures meant that I had to skip the foot soak even though we were already at the location.

Drove around to find the famed ice cream at the town before leaving for Lake Toya. Pretty good stuff. Glad I didn't skip this. Never thought that eating ice cream in freezing temperatures would make sense, but I eventually downed another 4 on this trip. 

Driving tip: Always plan to end your drive before dusk on day 1 of driving. Night drive is high risk for neophytes. 

Checked in at Daiwa Ryokan at Lake Toya. It was more of a half ryokan half hotel. Futon beds check. No in room toilet check. Yukata provided check (kids yukata costs extra 300yen). Public bath check. 

Brought Ryan for dinner at Boyotei just across the road from our stay. It was a quaint Classic European cottage styled restaurant, serving quality Japanese Western fusion food. Atmosphere was fantastically romantic for dating couples, but just neat for us. 

Dusted off the dinner and went back to the hotel, planning to go for the first dip into a public bath. I clearly forgotten about the objective of visiting Lake Toya for the White Illumination, until I saw the brochure at the reception. 

It was a short but cold walk from our hotel. The White Illumination was just a 70m tunnel fitted with lots of LED lights that looked awesome in photos. Not a huge place but still a pretty good photo stop for maybe about 20 minutes before it got too cold and we had to adjourn back to our room for the hot bath. 

It was my first time at a public bath too so I didn't really know what to do or expect, though I had seen some glimpses through movies /animes. Good thing that the bath was empty so we didn't have to worry about not following whatever protocol. He had a field day playing in the warm bath and splashing water around. 

Futon beds were pretty comfortable from our last trip, so it was a good night sleep for both of us after a long day

Day 3

Cold wet morning with limited views on Lake Toya, though to be fair, our room has a fantastic Lake view, just that the weather wasn't playing nice. Brought Ryan for a short walk by the lake side for some phototaking before going to a nearby cafe for breakfast. 

Ryan wasn't feeling well and puked at the table so I just rushed him back to the warmth of our room to wash him up without finishing the food. I was worried that he had fell sick from the cold. Luckily it was probably just that his stomach didn't agree well to the yogurt milk he drank earlier. 

Checked out and off we went to the next ice cream place: Cafe Lake Toya

The ice cream was pretty good, but not as impressive as the one we had the day before. There were 2 separate shops in the same farmhouse. Ice cream parlour on the left and cafe on the right. We popped over to the cafe after finishing the ice cream, and the pastry looked pretty good and they had hot milk available, so I just bought the milk, pastry and pudding to redouble up as Ryan's breakfast, which he wiped almost everything. I can imagine that the views of this cafe will have been impressive in other seasons as it overlooks a vast swathe of farmland, which was already covered by snow when we reached

Off we went again and it will be a long and difficult drive to our next stop, cutting across the mountains. It started snowing as we drove uphill, and the snow much got heavier as we went higher

And what luck do we have! We actually chanced upon Kokusai ski resort along the way. This was the original ski resort that I was planning to go to as it opens earlier than others. Stopped by and went in to take a look. There were already high piles of snow at the car park so Ryan and I were already throwing snowballs at each other before we walked to the resort. After watching other people ski, Ryan decided that throwing snowball was much more interesting and we just pretty much did only that at the ski resort till we left

Reached Otaru in the late afternoon, and experienced my first challenge of driving in snow /ice /water. Since this was urban driving so speeds were dead slow and I didn't have too much issues with driving. 

Circled around a few times before finally locating my accommodation. Level 4 with narrow stairs, so I just had to leave the big luggage on the car and carry only the backpack to the room. Good decision #3 to bring the big backpack

Going out for dinner was a disaster. 

The roads were covered with snow, ice and water, so apart from being slippery, it meant that water will seep into our shoes too. I didn't change into my SAF boots before going out as it was in the car. Bad decision #1. So we ended up with wet shoes after visiting the famed Otaru canal and getting our Sushi dinner. 

Packing tip: Pack a couple of days' worth of clothes and toiletries in the big backpack for easy access when it is difficult to Manoeuvre the big luggage

The heater in the room works fantastically well as a clothes dryer though and all the wet clothes/socks/shoes were dry by the next morning

Day 4

Walked to the nearby Otaru train station, where the Sankaku fish market is located next to. Touted as one of the top "To-Do" attractions on TripAdvisor, I found it to be underwhelming, especially when we had visited Tsukiji Fish Market in Tokyo earlier this year. Sankaku is just a miniaturized version of Tsukiji, and it's just a short street with limited seafood instead of an entire neighbourhood with more variety. Nonetheless, Hokkaido seafood is undoubtedly the best in business, and the Seafood bowl that I had really turned my buds on for more fresh sea urchin on this trip. Never really liked Uni until this meal.

Back to the ryokan for checkout and drove over to the well-reputed LeTAO main store. Managed to stumble across an industrial area nearby where I could park for free, so we ended up spending close to about 1.5 hours in the area.

Numerous blogs/sites/travel tips have pointed to LeTAO as a must visit site at Otaru, that their cheese cakes/cookies were to die for. I had no idea what to expect until I saw this image on Google

then I realized that I had been buying their cheese cookies for a long time thinking that the brand name was OTARU instead of LeTAO.... Aha & Dumb moment...

Ground level was their main store where the service staff were handing out generously portioned samples to customers in the shop. Brought Ryan to their cafe at level 2 for a sit-in experience and to take our time for a nice cafe/cake/tea break. The cafe wasn't ostentatiously decorated. Simple, clean, bright and comfortable. Traveling during the low season has its perks. We got the best corner sofa seat and the cafe was almost empty at 11am.

The Double Fromage and Choc Fromage cakes was simply out of the world. I'm no cheesecake connoisseur by any means, but the Double Fromage is simply the best cheesecake that I had ever tasted in my life. Now I understand the rave about it. Ryan wasn't too interested in the cakes though, still thinking about going out to play with snow all the time.

Dropped by at the Post office across the road to mail a postcard back home to mummy but it wasn't open, so it was just a few quick snaps with the cute classic postbox


And off we went to the nearby Mount Teine Ski resort for Round #2 of snow play.

It was conveniently located just within 40 mins drive from Otaru, and the drive isn't anywhere as treacherous as the drive across Nakayama pass that brought us to Kokusai the day before.

My colleague had recommended Teine over Kokusai for the better ski facilities and runs, and I could see why, on reaching the location. However, since we weren't planning on skiing, so it was just a simple task of finding a spot with fresh powder that is easy enough for Ryan to make snow angel,  snow balls and build our first ever snowman.
 
Now then will I appreciate the fact that Snowman is not easy to build, especially if you have no proper equipment. We spent probably about 15 minutes to build a snowman that was around 60cm tall, and it wasn't as easy as it seem to just pile the snow. The base was rather straightforward, but shaping the head and making sure it doesn't roll off while making it bigger isn't the easiest task.
We didn't have any spare accessories with us to decorate the snowman, so we just had to make do with the nearby twigs and leaves. Collateral damage - frost bite on my right hand. Seeing the boy's radiant satisfied smile on completing his first ever snowman? 千金难买


Oh, and I came across an abandoned kid snow sled at the carpark, so it was a first for us playing on the snow sled as well! Works pretty well on slightly compressed snow as it was easy to pull Ryan around
 
Spent about close to 2 hours here before driving off to our next destination: Asahikawa
It was going to be a long drive but on the expressway, so it wasn't that bad, just that it took a little bit longer than expected and we reached our next stay after nightfall. Good thing that it wasn't snowing so the drive was relatively smooth.

The next stay was at Route Inn Grand Hotel, which was just a stone throw away from the Asahikawa JR station, so it was easy to find. Ryan was fascinated by the automated car park at the hotel and was peeping through the window when the car lift spun our car around before lifting it up for parking.

I was starving by then, as we didn't really take regular meals but took numerous small snacks most of the time. Brought him to the TripAdvisor top rated Genghis Khan BBQ shop for dinner.




Bad decision.
The food was delicious without a doubt, but it wasn't the best place to bring a 5 year old as the entire restaurant was super smoky and oily. The sputtering of the oil and fats that was melting off the meat didn't endear the boy to the food, and he was soon put off and just took mostly plain rice instead. Easily ranks as one of the poorest choice I had made in this trip

Brought him back to the train station area as there was a large AEON shopping mall just next to it to hunt for more food but he simply mentioned that he wasn't hungry, so it was just another packet of milk for him to end the night.

It started to snow lightly again when we were going to return to the hotel. The large open space just infront of the train station made it easier for us to hold our hands out and wait for the snowflakes to land on our hands

After putting Ryan back to bed, then it started to snow much more heavily. The roads were fully covered with snow within an hour. It's gonna be a fun day tomorrow in snow!