22 Decembre 2009
The land was of uniform colour, a full fledge of white…land after land. It was the first time that I’ve witness a place all covered with white white snow.
Land of snow
Upon reaching Chitose Airport, the couple brace themselves up and prepare themselves for the expected cold.. lowest at -5degreescelsius. We took turns to exit the airport to have a feel of how bearable/unbearable the cold out there was. Having went first, I was surprised to be back with the conclusion that ‘it’s okae.’ Perhaps we were better armed with the winter clothings.
It was exciting to see snow after snow on the airport transfer. Place after place, house after house and roads after roads. And it was true that the houses, buildings, and roads were at least 2 times bigger than Tokyo’s.
Snow, snow, snow.
The very first sight out of the station was soft and shaped snow surrounding the sides of the pathways. Nobody said it looks like a place where people make snowballs out of (yea, probably not by the road where there’s only a small pile of snow) but we took a lump of it and mould it into a snowball in any case. And yes, it was freezing but we didnt care. That was the first encounter with snows. And before we know it, a loud ‘thud’ comes falling out the roof edge. And in winter, snow or rather ice just falls from the roof suddenly; so sudden that it’s better to not walk directly under the roof edges…
Look! I’m not even wearing gloves! The CLOSEST contact with snow 
Odori Park was a nice place; completely covered with snow up to the calf level. Unlit illuminations were seen at different spot of the park. Since Odori was somewhat in the centre of the city, we immediately felt the city. A very quiet & peaceful city. The city generally just takes a slower pace. That was pretty impactful as it immediately slowed our souls down too. A real holiday mood. People there are nice & helpful. Along the trip, we see them volunteering to take photos for us (suddenly) even though sometimes they seem to be rushing off to somewhere else.
As we walked further and further away from the roads, there came a point in time when the pigeons gathered and begun munching on the apparently mini food servings on the ground. And i was pretty amazed that they could withstand the cold so well with their seemingly similar feathers like those pigeons of SG. What’s more? They are not even afraid of humans, in fact, they kinda go nearer & nearer to you.
me, hopping around in the thick snow!
Heavenly delicacies
Such heavenly delicacies was found not in top-restaurant and a small little warm & cosy shop in a market – The Nijo Market. Recommended also by the JTB, the house has been patronised by many celebrities..based on the number of signatures on the wall. At this place, we choose what we want off the menu and the chef will retrieve the ingredients straight from the market. Freshness goodness! That explains why the food there is SOOOO good!
This was awesome! With fresh smooth sashimi and huge JUICY SWEET roes.. and yes!!! I never had such nice roes before or rather never did i ever thought that roes could be SO nice! SO SWEET SO JUICY!.. perhaps, i didnt expect Japanese rice to be so nice as well. It totally blew my mind off that even if it’s just plain rice, i would still enjoy it alot coz it’s really that nice!! Awwww, i’m missing it now!
This was mine! Big fat Sashimi with Scallops.. yummyyyy! Though food, it’s ranked third among the three dishes.
Needless to say, the snowcrab INDEED ranked and top the whole trip’s meal. All that was done to the crab was boiling and no other sauce or spices, etc was added to it. And it was hell good! The crab meat fresh, soft, JUICY (yupps, it kinda creates a mess when u eat coz it’s just too juicy), tender and the meat comes out in whole! And it was so sweet. It just feels really awesome to be slurping and sucking the juices from the snowcrab. Simply unforgetable. I miss it too much now!
Didnt I tell you Sapporo people are just too warm? The shopkeeper outside spoke to us in language that i can’t understand. At first i thought that he was telling me that photography was not allowed. But who knows the next thing he’s doing was to head towards a box and retrieve this huge snowcrab for us to take photo with! How kind is that. Kinda funny too. hehs.
They Love Green.
The clock tower which has earned itself a bad reputation as a place of attraction. Somewhat agree. But the outside was realllly nice! It’s a mini museum inside; mostly on the clower tower’s history. Some of which comes with English while some doesnt – that means..we wouldnt understand anything. =x
Ice-cream in winter.
We thought it was a crazy idea to have ice-cream when it’s so cold out there! BUt who cares when u’re in hokkaido when there’s so many ice-creams around; and people still eat them anyway. What’s more, this ice-cream parlour is a really sweet romantic place. With lavender purple, it really felt like one of the sweetest lil place! Hokkaido milk & caramel were what we had! They were not really fantastic but the whole experience of sitting inside a romantic lil parlour and looking through the glass at snow, people and cars is really awesome.
Sapporo Beer.
I’m not a beer fan usually. But we still paid famous Sapporo Garden & Museum a visit. The structures were pretty westernised i thought.. with the brown bricks and a chimney. It’s a nice place that I would encourage anyone to drop-by. Unfortunately the Museum was closed. But the garden was pretty as the illuminations light the way again. We almost, well almost, couldn’t find it. This lady advised us to take a bus over since it’s about a 15minutes walk away from the station. Nevetheless we walked. And it’s actually nearer than what we were told.
While we were trying to find out how we could at least have a sip of the Sapporo Beer, this warm enthusiatic staff and brought us all the way to a restaurant(about 5 -7minutes walk away).
Garden Grill, a nice warm place. The place was filled the the tempting smell of grilled meat! And you know, this kinda smell is almost irresistable for the winter stomachs! And we decided to give the recommended Genghis Khan Platter whereby it contains the various parts of lamb cuts. The serving was quite a big one. And we discovered that couple with the sauce and spices, it’s yummy yummy. For once, vampy can’t fault me for adding additional ingredients to my food! ;p
The beer, i got to say that it’s really amazing. I had the Classic beer which is only in Sapporo while Vampy had the Limited edition 5-star. It’s not too bitter and it just continuously bubbled within. amazing bubbles & beer!
But the man just loves Dark beer and he simply can’t resist that!
- cool pic for Vampy!
Odori Illuminations.
We headed back to Odori Park for the iluminations. Somehow every city has their own distinctive &&& beautiful illuminations. Presenting the 2 best shots that I think I have! And Japan being an energy conserving country just switch off their light illuminations after a certain time. And we didnt manage to capture All of the illuminations. There are just too many.
Good shot!
Hotel Resol.
Our best value-for-money hotel! We booked it when we were at Odaiba since we figured that we wouldnt wanna land ourselves in the same situation as the first night. And we booked it without even a single picture of the hotel. It’s a new hotel. And we’re quite satisfied with the room! The rates are also the lowest for the whole trip!!
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