|
Tuesday, August 30, 2005
hokkaido part 4 - biei, otaru and back to hakodate... 7/29-31
we left furano for biei next... a small town in hokkaido famous for err... what again? i dunno... supposed to be some nice trees (but in the end look kinda normal to me)... anyway see the pictures and see how lah...
there were some famous trees, as i have mentioned, going by names like "ken & mary tree", "tree of the 7 stars", "parent-child tree" etc. well, first, we went for the ken & mary... and this was what it looked like...
nice? extraordinary? you decide...
by the omiyage shop, i saw a vintage skyline, and promptly took a picture with it ;p
vintage skyline... dunno whether it still runs or not, but sure looks cool!
on our drive to other trees, we ran into sunflower fields... absolutely had to be the highlight of biei for me!!
literally ran into sunflower fields... haha (from left: james, yuhui, tshush, ivan, me)
nice hor?? so nice being surrounded by all the sunflowers!!
anyway, everyone were like walking among the crops and taking pictures... so excited over it.. hehe... not that i wasnt lah.. ;p
afterwhich, we headed for the parent-child tree, which looked like this...
nono... me not in jurong... these are famous trees ok?? though they look like any one of those in jurong, or anywhere for that matter... ;p
how come they are famous? beats me man... anyway went to 1 or 2 other trees, but shant put it up, since they were equally boring.. heh... to think we spent 1 whole day doing this...
and ya, we were quite suay, cos it was like drizzling for the whole day... so our planned hike somewhere also went up in smoke... what to do? nothing much, we went to an ofuro, had dinner, and just stayed in our cabin playing cards and all... hehe..
how our 4-men cabin looked like...
the interior of the cabin... nothing like those singapore chalet-type cabins... haha... (top: siownan, damien, me, and the earphoneless fangyi)
so anything interesting in biei? less the sunflowers, i dun think so... but u decide lah... i have to disclaim though, i appreciate the efforts of individuals put in to plan the trip... not blaming them or anything, cos if i were to plan, i would probably do the same and come here... so not their fault, but well just japan lah...
we woke up early to drive to otaru, a small town famous for its glass factory and errr.. small port... it was pretty nice lah... (anything is compared to biei), but strangely, i didnt upload any of the photos taken there... here's the photos that i've uploaded.. ;p
cant remember what this is called, but it is a famous local product... something like muahchee on sticks...
we ate at a sushi place a fren's japanese fren recommended...
my jap teacher also said should eat sushi over at hokkaido because they are fresh... but to tell u the truth, i think there are lots of better ones in tokyo, and less expensive... anyway... maybe off-day for the sushis?
me, damien, jasmine, fiona, siownan, james...
we only spent like 2 hours in otaru, cos we had to rush back to hakodate to return the cars by 7pm... and the drive down was scheduled to take about 6 hours... and upon reaching the hakodate airport, to our horror of horrors, we found out that the airport was closed at nights... so we cant stay over at the airport to catch our plane early next morning... and the best (worst) part was that the security forbade us staying over outside the airport as well!!!
we didnt have planned accommodation, and neither did we want one at that time... thank goodness 2 guys from the mazda car rental came and help us out, and offered to find accommodation for us and drive us there... but we decided to just stay over near a 24-hour combini nearby, so they sent us there instead... how nice of them... they hung ard for awhile making sure that we were settled before they left... so paiseh, owe them a bunch... dun think they will ever read this, but thanks a bunch! especially paiseh cos one guy when he left us, he bumped the rental car into a fire hydrant... oops... hope he did not have to pay much for the damage...
rather than staying out in the rain at the carpark unauthorised, i decided to ask the combini staff if its alrite for us to stay just outside... they didnt think it would be nice, but they suggested a nearby park with shades and toilets, where we could do so... one of them, a 15 year-old-lad, even brought me there to take a look (the walk there was like 15 mins) so nice, the hokkaidoians (less the airport security)...
sunrise viewed from the park...
this was how we looked like after a tiring night of half-sleep...
i didnt sleep more than 20 mins for the whole nite, as i was battling the mosquitoes hard..
siownan still sleeping under the stars at daylight...
we were thankful when it was finally time for us to depart for the airport... it was a 30 minute walk to the airport from the park...
damien, james, august, me, earphoneless fangyi, tshush... at the hakodate airport finally...
tshush and me at the boarding gate...
our flight back...
finally the trip was coming to an end... a bit relieved that the night was over, and of course going back to our dorms for nice comfy sleep as well...
hokkaido was nice at some parts, but some parts can give a miss... i wouldnt mind going there again, maybe sapporo and other places... i like the fact that there werent as much ppl, and it wasnt as congested as in tokyo... so thats pretty nice...
that's all for hokkaido folks...
next trip i am probably going to cover will be izu/nagoya/expo bah... stay tuned...
;)
posted by winz at 2:39 PM
~|=|~
|
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home