The flight crew heard about our planned cycling trip where we’ll be riding the length of Japan, and made us this cute card.
We landed in Narita, Japan and shipped our bike up to Wakkanai (to the starting point of our cycling trip), then spent the night in a capsule hotel. This is a view of the rows of sleeping pods.
And here's a look inside a pod. We were surprised by how comfortable it was for sleeping.
We spent a few days in Sapporo. Walking around helped us to get over our jet lag and also gave us a chance to check out the city. This is Odori Park.
There was a festival going on, and we enjoyed watching people dance while dressed in traditional kimonos.
There are so many bikes here!
Sapporo feels very modern, and there’s some western architecture. The clock tower building is a Sapporo icon, and many tourists take photographs on the platform in front.
This is Sapporo's original city hall nick-named Aka Renga (red brick). This is the back of the building
We went back at night, and enjoyed seeing it lit up.
We rented a car in Sapporo, and Pete did great driving on the left side of the road for the first time.
We picked up our friends Paul and Julie, and started our five day road trip together, heading south to Hakodate. We were so excited to see them, and Kristina wanted to pinch herself to make sure she wasn't dreaming.
When the four of us had first talked about making a trip to Japan together, we picked Hokkaido in part because it was the one island of Japan that none of us had visited before. But in truth the main reason was we all love to sea urchin. Called uni in Japanese, it is an exquisite delicacy from Hokkaido that is served raw and fresh.
We read reviews of the best uni restaurants in Hakodate, and wanted to try Uniya Murakami. We couldn't get a reservation the first night, but we went by and got lucky that they had an open table for four. The uni was delicate and incredible, some the best we had ever tasted. After eating, we made a reservation for the next evening!
During the daytime we walked around Hakodate's fish market. There were selling uni in the shell, so we tasted it.
It was fresh, but we could taste the processing agent, so it wasn't our favorite.
For our second uni feast at Uniya Murakami, we learned that they served two types of uni: white and red. This time we tried red uni. It was amazing too! We were surprised how quickly 160 grams of uni disappeared from our bowls.
During the daytime we walked all over Hakodate, checking out the sights.
Paul is next to a statue of Sakamoto Ryoma, a samurai master.
Kristina found a cat sculpture that had a shiny head from lots of petting.
Some of Hakodate had typical tourist Japanese sights like lucky cat.
Who can resist a photo with Doraemon, the robotic cat from the future? Not Paul.
And here's Julie and Kristina striking tourist poses too.
This temple was rebuilt using concrete instead of wood, the first concrete temple in Japan.
This is a rain barrel to catch rain from the roof gutters.
And there were plenty of traditional wooden buildings in Hakodate, too.
Hakodate is the third largest port in Japan. Down by the water were these attractive brick warehouses called Kanemori.
These are squid fishing boats.
By early afternoon they had left the dock and headed out to sea.
We visited the local fish markets where we saw colorful displays.
Pete and Paul had to try on the squid hats as we sampled barbecued squid.
Paul even used the tentacle props for a full squid costume.
The Hakodate painted manhole covers feature colorful squid.
It was time for lunch, so we went to a small restaurant with crab tanks out front. There were only five seats.
Pete loved the crab, which was so fresh and delicious. He even enjoyed the crab guts, with their taste of the sea.
We also had scallop sashimi while we waited for them to cook the crab.
One of Julie's favorite parts of our trip was exploring Hakodate and discovering cool places like this hipster coffee shop. Even through it was closed, the building was still very cool.
Paul liked the name of this place, Motomachi Coffee+Parking. We enjoyed coffee and parking there.
Every cup was different.
This street was designated as one of the "Hundred Representative Roads of Japan." It was charming.
We loved the traditional exterior of this restaurant.
Back at the hotel we got dressed for dinner.
And decided to walk back to the restaurant and check it out at night.
Julie was amazed when we tasted their exquisite soba noodles with kakeiage and tempura. She said Soba Cuisine Kuruha restaurant was the real deal.
Pete ordered his soba with a Kagoshima pork dipping sauce that was super flavorful. This was his reaction when we first asked him to give us his dipping sauce. Luckily for the rest of us, he did share.
In 2013 we had a blast traveling in Thailand with Paul and Julie. We love them because they are kindred spirits who are super adventurous. On this trip we went next to Onuma Quasi-National Park.
Paul is a great photographer who always has interesting ways to shoot, such as his virtual reality camera that takes photos-in-the-round.
He "stitched together" a bunch of photos to create these panoramas of Lake Onuma.
Here's a "regular" photo of Julie and Kristina.
And here's Paul's stereo version of the same photo. If you cross your eyes and look at it just right, it turns into a 3D image.
What's a hike without ice cream? We had to try their matcha softos, yum!
Oh no, Pete's about to be attacked by a cute little fox and bear!
The Onuma area is known for their snow beef, which they claim is the best beef in the world, supposedly even better than Wagyu beef. We decided to take the Beef Challenge and went for lunch at Kurobeko Yakiniku.
Paul and Julie are ready for the challenge!
Yakiniku is the Japanese version of Korean barbecue. It's a grill-your-own meal experience.
The beef was incredible! And we smelled like barbecue for the rest of the day.
We were stuffed after lunch, but we took a drive on Milk Road. We stopped at one of the farms that featured dairy products.
We decided to try some of their ice cream.
Kristina looks pleased with her kombu (seaweed) ice cream, which was rich and creamy. She is also holding some Camembert cheese.
Then we got in the car and drove to Noboribetsu Onsen. Towards the end of the drive it got foggy and dark, making it really hard to see. It was a big relief when we spotted this brightly-lit demon sculpture, because we knew we were finally near our hotel.
Noboribetsu Onsen uses the hot springs water from nearby Hell Valley. There were plenty of demons, and we all took turns posing with them.
Pete and Paul look like angry demons with umbrella "clubs".
We walked around Hell Valley, checking out the geothermal features and posing for the occasional selfie.
The area reminded us of Yellowstone and Lassen Volcanic National Parks.
Noboribetsu Onsen felt a bit like a cruise ship: enormous and full of Asian tourists. But we did enjoy soaking in their huge baths and eating some tasty food.
This was our Japanese breakfast.
My goodness, what's happened to Julie's tongue?!
Oh, it's just cod roe, nothing to worry about.
The four of us decided to include a visit to Daisetsuzan National Park as part of our trip. Located in the center of Hokkaido, it's the biggest national park on the island. The road trip continued, and we were fueled by Hakodate artisan bread topped with Onuma butter and Camembert cheese. Julie, Paul and Kristina read aloud the script from The Big Lebowski while Pete drove, which was a fun way to pass the time in the car.
When we arrived, we dropped off our bags in the traditional, tatami mat hotel rooms.
We had time to stretch our legs and see the beautiful forest near sunset.
We think this was an insect's egg sack.
Pete kept trying to get the sunlight to flare in his photos, and he captured it in these shots.
It had rained in the afternoon and it was still wet as we walked.
The area was lush with foliage and dotted with charming alpine lodges.
Mount Asahidake, the highest peak on Hokkaido, was covered in clouds.
We stayed in Asahidake Onsen, which was located 30 kilometers away from the nearest town, so we ate all our meals at the hotel. The Zuwai crab legs were delicious.
It was fun to have shabu shabu, hot pot. Each person received a plate of Shiretoko pork belly and pork shoulder, along with veggies to dip into the boiling broth and eat - what's not to like?
We celebrated Paul and Julie's 24th anniversary on Monday August 22nd. We watched their fabulous wedding video. Can you believe how young they looked when they got married?
Here's a shot of Julie performing. She’s an incredible opera singer.
What an awesome couple! We wanted to kidnap them and bring them on our upcoming Japan cycling trip.
We learned first-hand that Hokkaido gets typhoons in the summer, and that August is a peak month. It rained all day and night of their anniversary, but in the afternoon we ventured out with umbrellas. We happened upon a botanical garden.
Then we explored a few trails until they got too muddy. We were surprised when one trail led us back to the botanical garden, which had felt like the opposite direction; Paul said it felt like an Alice-in-Wonderland moment because it was so unexpected.
In the lobby of our hotel we had another bear attack, this time Julie and Kristina were the dramatic victims.
Then, after a night of pouring rain, we drove back to Sapporo. There was some suspense after Typhoon Mindulle knocked out the left side of this bridge.
We were on an intact bridge looking at the swollen river rushing by.
We arrived in time to do a quick walking tour of downtown Sapporo. Julie and Pete are in front of the Aka Renga building.
And here's a closer look with Paul.
Inside the Sapporo Factory Mall we took a selfie to show the interesting roof while Julie did some shopping.
Our final meal together was at a highly-rated, conveyor belt sushi restaurant.
The sushi was really good, especially the scallops, and we ate a lot.
And then we had to take Julie and Paul to the airport. What a fantastic, five-day adventure we had together!
Our next post will kick off our Japan cycling trip.
