Our first stop was Sapporo, followed by Furano, both in Japan’s northernmost island, Hokkaido. It was winter, and we were there for snow. A month earlier, a record snowfall brought thirty feet of the “Ja-Pow”.
Unfortunately, in the weeks between then and our arrival, the weather had warmed and cooled enough that the ski conditions were not much better than the Northeast US. I also came down with a rough cold and spent a couple of days holed up in our Furano hotel. All the same, we managed to make the best of it.
Sapporo
In Sapporo, we stayed at a nice hotel, the Hotel Sosei Sapporo. This was a fifteen minute walk from Odori Park, which is essentially the city center. The service was great, and one night we ended at the hotel bar, with me sampling Japanese whisky proffered by Hiro, their resident whisky expert.
Sapporo is Hokkaido’s largest city, and is home to the beer of the same name. In terms of sights, there’s the Sapporo TV tower with its observation deck, Odori Park, an underground shopping center, and the former government office, which is now a museum. We used Sapporo as a base for an excursion to Yoichi, home of the Nikka whisky distillery.
The TV tower offered an excellent view; prior to that we dined at a restaurant in a shopping center across the street, ten stories up. The park, we saw little of; since our one full day was spent in Yoichi, we only saw it at night. The shopping center is really multiple stores and food courts connected by underground tunnels, like a terminal with no trains or planes; fascinating to walk through and imagine life underground.
The museum offered an interesting history of Hokkaido, which was essentially Japan’s frontier in the late 19th century. There was mention of the Ainu people, and we had a good conversation with a volunteer docent who was quite open about their mistreatment. The treatment of the Ainu parallels the American government’s treatment of Native Americans in the same period.
The Nikka distillery was at the top of my list for Sapporo, even though it was a bit out of the way: about two hours each way by train. The whisky is good, and I brought some back, along with souvenirs like fridge magnets and shot glasses.
Unlike other distilleries I’ve visited, it is centered on the story of its founder, Masataka Taketsuru. After university, he traveled to Scotland and apprenticed at distilleries there, returning home to open the first whisky distillery in Japan under the company that would later become Suntory. He also returned with Rita Cowan, his Scottish wife, and ten years later he opened his own distillery in Nikka. The distillery’s restaurant is called “Rita’s”, and their story is a recurring one in Japanese media.
We were hoping to visit the fisheries museum, but it was closed for the season. We also hoped for the Space Dome, a small space museum centered on Japan’s first astronaut, Mamoru Mohri, but it was also closed, possibly for funding reasons; we weren’t sure.
Leaving Sapporo was a bit messy. By that point I was feeling the onset of my cold, and we took a cab to a bus stop – but the cab dropped us off on the wrong side of the street, so we missed our bus. We went to the train station and figured out the next best route, which was essentially a local train to Takikawa, transferring to a much smaller train to Furano. Four hours later, we pulled into Furano station and walked ten minutes to our hotel, the La Vista Furano.
Furano
By the time we arrived in Furano, we were on a one-car train pulling into the station just ten minutes away from our hotel. We walked over, checked in, and I more-or-less collapsed for the next couple of days. I had a bad cold.
Anjin-san hit the resort slopes the next day while I recuperated. I mustered the energy to quest for lunch and found a place focused on gyoza – it was so good, I took Anjin-san there for dinner that night. Otherwise I slept and ate instant noodles.
A day later I started to feel better and together we looked at our mutual plans. Based on the weather, that second full day was going to be the best day to visit Asahidake, the tallest mountain in Hokkaido at 2291m, and also an active volcano. This meant driving, so I rented an AWD Toyota Yaris I dubbed Yari-chan, and we drove to the ropeway station, located about 1100m altitude; the ropeway would take us another 500m.
Or so we thought. They were running the ropeway at less than full capacity, and the line was backed up enough that by the time we were ready to get tickets, they had closed service up for the day; down service continued.
So we hiked.
Anjin-san brought his skis; we both had packs, and layers. I was still suffering the tail end of my illness but I was determined that “fresh mountain air” would be good for me.
The ascent was not arduous but it was long; it took over an hour and a half to walk up. When we arrived, however, the view was worth it.
After we’d had our fill, we returned. He skied, I took the ropeway, and we arrived at the base station around the same time. We drove back to Furano and had dinner.
The next couple of days, the skiing tapered off and we had a couple of side adventures. One was particularly exciting.
We visited Biei to see an unusual ice formation – the Shirahige waterfalls. Essentially hot springs pour from the cliff over a valley and are frozen. We also drove to Ashibetsu to see a giant Kannon statute. This latter turned out to be a bit of an embarrassing mistake, and after having a lovely broken Japanese conversation with a woman who carried her baby in what seemed like her coat hood, we realized it was a religious compound and we were intruding.
We also managed to find Canadian World Park, an outdoor park and pavilion modeled on Anne of Green Gables. It’s closed in the winter but we met an older man in a massive snowplow maintaining the roads, who seemed to be either the owner or related to the owner.
Our other driving adventure involved going up the mountains to a proper onsen. Onsen are traditional Japanese baths in hot springs. With some exceptions, everyone is nude and bathing areas are segregated by gender (co-ed bathing options require swimsuits, and private onsen are available). There were indoor and outdoor baths: warm water atop a snowbound peak is pretty phenomenal.
The drive up was daunting. The drive down we took slow and steady, but not steady enough. After coming down some switchbacks, I pulled into a straightaway and suddenly our little car vaulted off the road onto a snowbank. We were OK, but Yari-chan had one wheel on pavement and the other in the air; the front two were buried in snow. Anjin-san got out his avalanche shovel and started digging; the car shifted and then two wheels were on pavement, one in the air, one in the snow.
Around this time two other vehicles came down the mountain and some men got out. A tall Brit wearing a vest branded Jeffries asked if I needed help. “No,” I said, “we’re perfectly alright.” His perplexed face showed my sarcasm wasn’t landing. “Of course we do, we’d greatly appreciate it.” In short order, half a dozen men got Yari-chan fully back on the road. On later inspection, the only damage was a crack in the plastic fender, and I simply had to help the staff complete some paperwork when I returned the car.
Sapporo Redux
We left Furano via express bus to the Sapporo airport. Our plan was to stay at the hotel located at the airport and catch an early flight to Hiroshima. The bus ride was about four hours, with some scenic views, but it was mostly long stretches of farmland with mountains in the distance.
Once at the hotel, we popped into Sapporo for one last look around, spending most of our time in the underground tunnels.
The hotel had what I describe as Kruschev-era clock radio controls. We set alarms on our phones and woke up early the next morning to catch our ANA (All Nippon Airways) flight. There was some questionable weather, but it didn’t delay our takeoff by much.
The one odd thing, worry-making at the time, was that we were unable to check the night before either online or at the kiosk; we had to wait until the counter opened half an hour before departure. Staff assured us this would not be a problem, and they were right, as it’s a small airport, but it was a bit concerning.
With one week down, we were on our way to the rest of our vacation, starting with Miyajima.