A Few Hokkaido Highlights and Getting Back on the Gaijin Trail

A Few Hokkaido Highlights and Getting Back on the Gaijin Trail

Hokkaido was incredible and I want to call out a few highlights that weren’t really mentioned:

  • We ate something called Jingisukan (named after Ghengis Khan), which is lamb meat that you cook on this grill on your table. It was delicious. And yes, we are eating mammal on this trip. It’s too hard to avoid in Asia.

  • The fall colors. They were just starting to appear, but what we did get to see was worth it.

img_20161007_122020

img_20161007_145944
Selfie at the flower farm (OMG)
Seriously! Look at this beautiful tree!
Seriously! Look at this beautiful tree!
  • Visiting an onsen. Even though it was a little weird, it also wasn’t that bad, and it was definitely a life experience. We were so cold driving around in the snowy mountains and it warmed our souls a bit.
Post-onsen selfie
Post-onsen selfie
  • Every kind of ramen. Sapporo is known for miso ramen, so we had that in Sapporo. Asahikawa is known for shoyu (soy sauce) ramen, so we had that in Asahikawa. Hakodate is known for shio (salt) ramen, so we had that in Asahikawa. Plus, Shawn ate the cheese ramen in Furano. And we had Hokkaido soup curry. We did ramen right in Hokkaido.
Miso ramen in Sapporo
Miso ramen in Sapporo
At the Asahikawa ramen village
At the Asahikawa ramen village

Hokkaido was spectacular, but we had to get back on the Gaijin Trail, so to break up the long journey to Kyoto, we stopped over in Hakodate (southwestern Hokkaido) for the night. We explored a little bit, but it was mostly a stopover. We had beer and ramen. We took a trip up the ropeway, which was a bit of a zoo, with a 45 minute wait to get on the ropeway back down.

Don't let my reaction fool you. The beer wasn't actually that great.
Don’t let my reaction fool you. The beer wasn’t actually that great.
View at the top of the ropeway
View at the top of the ropeway
Crazy long line that spanned outside the building. We had a beer while waiting.
Crazy long return line that spanned outside the building. We had a beer while waiting.
img_20161010_075302
Final morning at the Hakodate fish market
Our final shinkansen to Kyoto
Our final shinkansen to Kyoto

More on Kyoto soon.

Comments are closed.