Hokkaido

Sep 13
I arrived in Sapporo at 9.30 in the evening after an exhausting 10 hours on three trains to reach Hokkaido. The shinkansen is amazing – I travelled over 1,000kms today, about 650kms in 3 hours on the shinkansen, and the rest at normal train speeds on the 2 other trains – one to cross the sub-sea section between Honshu & Hokkaido, and the other between Hakodate & Sapporo. I found my hostel easily from the directions on the website and was delighted with it when I got there. Time Peace Apartment is a regular Japanese house converted into a hostel – which is to say it’s tiny! The guys who run it are very friendly, speak good English and couldn’t wait to tell me all about Sapporo and what to do there. Except that I was too tired to listen – I begged to hear about it in the morning, got into my bunk and fell asleep immediately.

Sep 14
Next morning I talked with one of the guys about what to see/do in Sapporo, got the usual tourist map from him and then asked him which he would recommend me to do in Hokkaido: go to a National Park or to Niseko? He got very excited when I mentioned Niseko – he works there as a ski instructor during the winter and loves to hike there as well. With such a recommendation I had to go. I found where I wanted to stay and he very helpfully called them for me, made the reservation and asked them to collect me from the train station. With all the basics taken care of, I checked out, left my baggage and went to see the sights of Sapporo. The sights of Sapporo that I saw – well, I wouldn’t recommend stopping off specifically to see them if you have heard of somewhere else amazing to go. It’s a pleasant enough city, easily navigated, with plenty of little restaurants, bars, coffee shops & places to hang out. I imagine it’s quite a nice place to live. But the Clock Tower & TV Tower as tourist attractions held little interest for me. I visited the Fish market, got some pics there and then headed to Ramen Alley for lunch. I’m not overly enamoured with ramen – I wasn’t expecting it to be so greasy. After lunch I went back to the hostel, collected my rucksack and went to the train station to go to Niseko.

When I arrived in Niseko at 6.20pm it was already dark outside. I stepped out of the station to the sight of hundreds of pumpkins sitting on the footpath! And the delicious smell of brown bread in the air! It was surreal. There was no sign of my lift, so after waiting 10mins I called the hostel and they said they would be down in 10mins. It turned out to be a very good thing that I had asked them to collect me – Niseko Annupuri Youth Hostel – while close to Mt Annupuri & the gondola station – is 8kms from the train station. Its built & outfitted like a ski lodge, lots of open plan spaces & wood. The guy who runs the hostel looks like Mr. Miiagi from The Karate Kid, has limited English but is very kind and helpful. I checked in & paid in full in advance (the norm here). Again, I went to bed early feeling very tired.

Sep 15
I woke up this morning to a delicious breakfast of fresh fruit, poached eggs, 2 types of salad, bread, butter & jam. It was heaven. I had decided to hike the local mountain today Mt Annupuri which is a stone’s throw from the hostel. My host recommended that I have a hat as protection against the sun because it was so hot and that I wear a light coloured, long sleeved top against the many bees he told me were on the mountain. He also gave me a hand-drawn map of the trail. I had also googled the hike online which had warned of several unmarked side trails. I found the trailhead easily enough – the trail through the forest on the lower part of the mountain was easy to follow despite being very overgrown & clearly was not as used as often as online literature claims. The path was quite steep and when I came out on the ridge of the mountain, there was a fork in the gravelled road in front of me. I kept left and wound up at a gondola station – dead end. I retraced my steps and took the path to the right which turned out to be an access road that lead to the Annupuri ski resort. Truly puzzled I retraced my steps again to head back down the mountain and home because it was already well into the afternoon at this point. On my way back I spotted an overgrown side trail leading into the forest and it would appear up the mountain. I followed it for a short while & it did indeed look to be the correct path – so the side trail is the real trail! Too late in the day & tired from shuffling around lost on the side of a mountain I decided to head back down the trail. Even though I didn’t get to the summit, I saw some really beautiful flowers & insects (if beautiful insects can exist – yuck) today.

Back at the hostel, there were 3 new guests – Japanese men who were touring Hokkaido & the nearby onsens. The four of us had dinner together and it was again delicious – and so much food! I had a great evening chatting with the 3 of them until almost 11 – they taught me some Japanese and practised their English on me – it was really fun.

Sep 16
After another gorgeous breakfast this morning, the hostel owner drove me to the train station where I took the train to Hakodate. This way I will have “only” 6 hours travel to get back to Tokyo tomorrow. Hakodate is a pretty little tourist town & port – the most southern in Hokkaido & as all the tourist signs remind me , the first to be opened as an international port in Japan. As a result the town has lots of historic buildings, monuments & a plethora of churches from the different nationalities & religions that settled here as traders back in the day. The Catholic church reminded me a lot of the churches at home in Laois - it was really strange to see stations of the cross that look like the ones in St. Paul’s in Emo!

I stayed at the Niceday Inn, where the hostess has very limited English and who, once she has ascertained that you want to stay & you have picked your bunk, waves a sign in English at you that says she will make up the bed for you later – its really, really cute. The Inn itself is a bit run down, there’s not room to swing a cat in there and there is not a whole lot of privacy – but its the cheapest in Hakodate for sure at only 3,000 yen a night. There was a Korean guy checking in at the same time I arrived, so we made our introductions and went for lunch & to do some sightseeing together. I even stopped for a visit into the Old British Consulate for afternoon tea (yes, I am a total lush): the tea was gorgeous but the “scone” was a disappointment & the cream was from a can, not fresh as described on the menu.