For every trip, there’s always a travel day, and that is the day you spend getting from point A to point B. Usually travel days are the least intriguing with not much to do accompanied by mediocre food.
Not in Japan! I love travel days in Japan.
For one thing, we woke up to a beautiful sunrise.
The road became treacherous with low visibility and white out condition at times. We were glad that we hired a local guide instead of braving this road ourselves.
We saw a SUV slipped into a ditch, and thought that it could’ve been us if we were on our own. Continue reading “Red-crowned Cranes – Part2”
For dinner, we picked Uni Murakami. The restaurant owns a farm in Hakodate, and their sea urchins come directly from the source. Because aluminum (usually added as a preservatives) was not used in the processing. the sea urchins tasted more tender and sweeter. Truly melt in your mouth.
We had uni two-ways- sashimi style
and as a gratin, baked in creamy Hokkaido sauce Continue reading “An Interesting Night”
Susukino (すすきの) is a red-light district in Sapporo, teeming with restaurants, bars, and hotels. During the Sapporo Snow Festival, Susukino turns into an ice world where ice sculptures line up along the street.
Some of this year’s ice sculptures are: Continue reading “Sapporo Snow Festival – Susukino Ice World”
After viewing the snow sculptures at Odori Park, I went to JR Tower ESTA to get my friend Akiko the ONE SWEET she really wanted.
There are thousands of sweet shops in Japan, most of them carrying regional specialties. If you see one that you like when visiting a particular area, get it. Don’t wait till you get to your last stop. You will regret. The Duty Free shop in Narita has only basic big brand stuff that are not really that interesting. Continue reading “A Foodie’s day in Sapporo”
The Sapporo Snow Festival (さっぽろ雪まつり Sapporo Yuki-matsuri?) is a festival held annually in Sapporo, Japan, over seven days in February. This year, the festival dates from 5th to 11th of February.
Odori Park, stretching east to west over 1.5km through the heart of downtown Sapporo, is one of the primary festival sites. It contains several large snow sculptures, hundreds of small sculptures made by organizations and citizens of Sapporo, a skating rink, a snowboard jumping platform, and a sliding area for children.
We just came back from a fantastic trip in Japan!
February is still quite cold all over Japan. Unless you go somewhere south like Okinawa, the sakura flowers won’t blossom until late March. But there are still tons of places to visit, with cheaper hotel rates and less crowds.
I will write posts for each places we visited, but first, here is the highlight of our itinerary. Continue reading “February in Japan”
Travel-Gourmand.com 