December 2019 – January 2020
A few years ago while skiing in South Korea, I heard about the wonderful slopes in Japan that receive fluffy powder on a regular basis. After that ski trip, I added ‘Ski Japan’ to my bucketlist. I could not, however, just leave it at ‘Ski Japan’ but rather expand it to ‘Ski Hokkaido’. Although I had been to Japan on multiple occasions, never had I skiied in Japan. Our trip over the holiday season centered on ‘Ski Hokkaido’. Yet, our ski trip turned more into a food tour, filled with ramen, sake, matcha, and okonomiyaki. All in all, our most recent trip to Japan measures up to all of my previous trips.
Yokohama
E and I had both been to Japan, mostly Tokyo at least three times prior to this trip, however, not always together. We both have already seen most of the major sites in Tokyo proper, so we filled our Japan 2020 trips with day trips to towns and cities outside of Tokyo. We first started off in Yokohama. At the time, E’s cousin lived in Yokohama and could show us around. During the holiday season, Yokohama hosts a European-style Christmas market. Although Europe tends to not be high on my list of destinations (mostly because I have visited Europe many times) I always love and miss European Christmas markets. Of course, a Christmas Market in Japan will have a Japanese tinge to it, but Yokohama’s Christmas Market brought a sense of nostalgia of mulled wine and delicious food.
While in Yokohama, we mostly wandered around the city streets and visited some of the major sites. Luckily, we were gifted with warm winter weather during the duration of our whole trip (except in Sapporo, of course!). We based our site-seeing walk to locations along the waterfront. We started at Yokohama metro station and worked our way to Minato Mirai. Minato Mirai brings visitors to major attractions including a large ferris wheel, shops, and parks. Once a year on Christmas Eve night, Yokohama has all buildings in Minato Mirai turn their lights, bringing life into Christmas celebrations. Unfortunately, E and I were in Sapporo on Christmas Eve and so we missed it. We meandered on to the Red Brick Warehouse, which hosted the Christmas Market. After doing some window shopping, we craved ramen for lunch and found our first ramen shop.
At this point, E’s cousin had to return to work, so E and I were on our own until the evening. We found the Yokohama Cup Noodles Museum where we learned about the development of Cup Noodles, we could create our own noodle cup, and try noodles dishes from around the world. Given to the fact that we had just ate and that we didn’t want to wait around to build our own noodles. we mostly just wandered around the museum as I remembered the times as a child where I would choose Cup Noodles to enjoy on my sick days. An interesting fact learned — Cup Noodles were invented on September 18, 1971 and thus, shares a birthday (not year of course) with my grandma!
After the museum, we worked our way through Yamashita Park. We took a break in Yamashita Park for a bit as we people watched and smiled at all the dogs passing by. Once we felt refreshed, we continued our site-seeing tour to Yokohama’s Chinatown. It was in Chinatown, that I had my first (of many) matcha ice cream cone on this trip! We grabbed more snacks, window shopped and then worked our way to Hedgehog Harry- Hedgehog Cafe. At this cafe, we played with hedgehogs, ferrets, and meerkats. Like South Korea, Japan has extensive animal cafe attractions. Certain animals, such as the hedgehogs are also up for adoption from the cafes directly. The animals at these cafes all seem happy and well taken care of, and people receive an opportunity to learn more about animals.
Hokkaido
Now, for the highlight of our trip — Hokkaido! We flew from Tokyo to Sapporo on the second full day of our trip. Upon arriving in Sapporo, we noticed how much colder the weather was up north as compared to Tokyo. We arrived in the afternoon, so we still had some daylight. Since we had not had lunch, we found a delicious Hiroshima style okonomiyaki restaurant, Hina Chan. Although I have had okonomiyaki before, I had not enjoyed it in Japan yet and I could not think of a better place for okonomiyaki. I found my new favorite food at this restaurant! With our stomachs all happy and full, we were ready to do some site-seeing of Sapporo. Sapporo has quite a few unique attractions. Initially, I wanted to visit the Historical Village of Hokkaido; however, we were not able to visit due to the village’s hours of operation and our availability. Instead, we visited the Sapporo Beer Museum on the first night. We were going to get some drinks at the beer museum, but all restaurants were booked until late into the night and the beer tasting had ended by the time we finished walking through the museum. Instead, we returned to our AirBnB, bought a couple of cans of Sapporo, then realized how bland Sapporo beer tasted. Still, you can’t go to Sapporo and not drink Sapporo beer. 🙂
The next day marked the beginning of our ski days. We decided to visit two different resorts, rather than staying at one. We first visit Kiroro and then Rusutsu. Rusutsu was much better than Kiroro. As one of the closer ski resorts to Sapporo, Kiroro felt small with few runs. Granted, after growing in Colorado, I have extremely high expectations of ski slopes. To me, Kiroro felt a lot like skiing in South Korea. While South Korea has gorgeous mountains and wonderful hiking, its ski resorts are no where near the level of Colorado. The mountains in South Korea are geologically better for hiking than skiing, but I digress. Although the slopes of Kiroro were on the smaller side, I still enjoyed racing down the slopes as I always do. A few days later, we went to Rusutsu, which has three mountains and a few more difficult runs. While both resorts had wonderful powder, Rusustu had longer and more runs. The only problem with Rusutsu is that we had to climb frequently between ski lifts, resort entrance, and the gondola. Either way, I thoroughly enjoyed skiing both slopes, eating a big bowl of curry for lunch, and ending the day with a big bowl of ramen back in Sapporo. A note for Rusutsu — Rusutsu is now part of the Epic Ski Pass along with a number of resorts in Colorado and throughout the US!
We took a ski break in between our two days of skiing and took a short trip to an onsen in Jozenkai. Jozenkai is cute village a short bus ride outside of Sapporo. Jozenkai has a great route to visit local shrines, enjoy onsen eggs, and find little kappa statues. Jozenkai is a great day trip, especially when you end with a trip to the onsen. We visited Hoheikyo Hot Springs. Although smaller than we expected, Hoheikyo brought about a restful ambiance with delicious food. We ordered a regional dish specialty, Jingisukan (pronounced as Genghis Khan), which consisted of stir-fry lamb and vegetables. This dish paired perfectly with the hot springs’ homemade naan. Upon returning to Sapporo after a restful day, we meandered through Sapporo’s illuminations, kept warm in the matcha cafes, enjoyed matcha and Hokkaido milk ice cream, and roasted sweet potatoes. In the end, Sapporo proved to be a gorgeous city with a gorgeous naturescape nearby and we could only wish to have seen more of the region.
Enoshima and Kamakura
Upon our return to Tokyo area, we stayed a few more nights in Yokohama before moving on to our next location. During our stay, we took another day trip to Enoshima and Kamakura. Of all the shrines that I visited on this trip, Enoshima would have to be my favorite. Situated right along the waterfront, Enoshima Shrine and related activities spreads across a large hill that overlooks the water and surrounding cities. Traveling around Enoshima felt like a small hike with pockets of activities and scenery throughout. Like all other day trips, this visit consisted of a food tour as well, with regional Enoshima pudding, various rice cakes, and seafood snacks. After we had our (temporary fill) we jumped back on the metro and moved on to Kamakura.
To get to Kamakura by metro, you take one of the oldest metro lines in the area. This line cuts right through neighborhoods like it is a regular street. The train travels along the waterfront and has also been featured in a popular manga/anime — Slam Dunk. As we rode along the train’s route, we could see tourists taking pictures of locations that had been featured in the manga/anime. Kamakura itself is a historical city with shops selling traditional goods, historical souvenirs, affordable pottery, and delicious snacks and food. Most notably, I found my new favorite snack in Kamakura, warabi mochi! Warabi mochi is jelly-like dessert traditionally made from bracken (a type of fern) starch, but can also be made from potato starch. Unlike rice mochi, warabi mochi seems to melt in your mouth. After many snacks, we ended our tour of Kamakura at Tsurugaoka Hachimangu, the primary shrine in Kamakura. Another interesting fact — in 1219, the shogun, Minamoto no Sanetomo was assassinated on the steps of the shrine by his nephew in order for his nephew to become the shogun.
Saitama
During the final leg of our Japan ski and food tour, we relocated to Omiya in the Saitama prefecture. Here, we visited Hikawa Shrine on New Year’s day, ate wonderful New Year’s food from the adjacent food stalls, and walked around the parks. From Omiya, we took a few day trips to Kawagoe and to Tokyo.
My friend from college organized a trip to Japan that coincided with our trip. We met up with her in Kawagoe. Kawagoe is another historical city to the north of Tokyo. Unfortunately, I did not take many photos of Kawagoe, mostly because I asked my friends to do engagement photos for us in Kawagoe. We started our photoshoot by visiting several of Kawagoe’s shrines and walking along the residential streets. We grabbed some coffee and tea, grab snacks and looked at shops in Kawagoe’s Kurazukuri District Street. We ended at Candy Alley and found a wonderful restaurant that served eel. Since I do not eat eel, I ordered tempura. After our late lunch, it started to get cold and dark, so we returned back to Omiya and then on to Tokyo for some New Year’s Eve celebrations.
During the last few days of our travels, we took short trips to Tokyo. We met up with E’s family for some karaoke and drinks. We met up with my college friend to see a Sailor Moon show. With my friend, we enjoyed one last bowl of the best ramen that I have ever had. We ordered at garlic oil ramen at a restaurant, Fukunoken, near Akhibara. We also walked around Meiji Shrine, Yoyogi Park and Harajuku. We visited Ueno Park as well. We ended our Tokyo travels with Kaiten sushi at Katsumidori and anmritsu at a matcha cafe. Anmritsu and a matcha parfait became the cherry on top of a wonderful trip.
Until next time,
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