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- Feb 11, 2009
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Thanks for earlier advice when we wondered whether a holiday in Japan in July would be too hot. We decided to have three nights in Tokyo, which was muggy but no worse than anywhere else that gets hot and muggy. Visited Bill Grainger's cafe in Ginza and generally had a lovely few days, staying in Ginza, a perfect location.
Flew to Hokkaido on Jetstar, about an hour and a half, and picked up a rental car booked through TooCoo! That all worked out very well and driving in Hokkaido was very easy. Low speeds, good roads, calm drivers. Not a problem at all and we would recommend it.
First night, in small town of Biei, in order to visit the stunning flower farms in the Furano area.
Second and third nights, drove into Asahikawa and stayed across from the new railway station and Aeon Mall. It was a good sized city, pleasant, and from there we had a great day at Sounkyo Onsen, going up to the snow line in a cable car and chair lift. Beautiful mountainous scenery, waterfalls, rivers and roads with several tunnels. It was early in the season so pretty quiet. People like to hike in the mountains after the snow melts so late July and August would be a lot busier.
Fourth and fifth nights were in Sapporo. Loved this city, lots to see and do. I used an itinerary I found and that was a good start to fill in two days.
Sixth night was spent at Lake Toya. That was a good day's drive from Sapporo via Otaru Canal. We spent a couple of hours wandering around that town, good restaurants, old warehouses converted to shops, boats up the canal and extremely fit rickshaw drivers! We continued on to the lake where we had a big room, half Japanese but with western beds. Perfect view of the lake and evening fireworks from our room. The Onsen was quite nice too and dinner was included.
Seventh night .... before we left, we went on the crater lake ferry to an island in the middle of the lake and did a forest walk for about an hour. Beautiful area. Our next hotel was a fantastic find, only about 30 minutes away, an Onsen resort hotel. We swapped our lake view room for a forest view. It felt as though it was in the middle of nowhere and basically we just used the onsens several times, ate the dinner and breakfast that were included, did our laundry and generally relaxed. Perfect resort hotel, green outfits provided and how nice to be so relaxed that you wore them to the restaurant as well as to the baths!
Eigth and ninth nights, we returned to Sapporo. There was still more to do, plus some shopping time. Mercure Hotel there was really good, great location so we returned to it. We liked the car parking too, very efficient lifts that took care of the car.
We returned the car, flew Jetstar back to Tokyo where we spent a few hours in the Sakura Lounge before flying Qantas back to Brisbane overnight.
A few general observations about Hokkaido. It was cooler than Honshu, very relaxed, green, lush, volcanoes, lakes, mountains, rivers, onsens. Towns had good shopping and we enjoyed our meals. Prices all seemed not a lot different to Australia. Renting a car made it easy. We probably beat the main tourist season by a week or two. Most times, there were few if any other Caucasians around, with tourists mainly from China, Korea, Singapore...
Highly recommend a visit to Hokkaido in summer. Can only imagine how different it is in winter!
I'm very happy to provide hotel names etc if anyone wants more detail.
Flew to Hokkaido on Jetstar, about an hour and a half, and picked up a rental car booked through TooCoo! That all worked out very well and driving in Hokkaido was very easy. Low speeds, good roads, calm drivers. Not a problem at all and we would recommend it.
First night, in small town of Biei, in order to visit the stunning flower farms in the Furano area.
Second and third nights, drove into Asahikawa and stayed across from the new railway station and Aeon Mall. It was a good sized city, pleasant, and from there we had a great day at Sounkyo Onsen, going up to the snow line in a cable car and chair lift. Beautiful mountainous scenery, waterfalls, rivers and roads with several tunnels. It was early in the season so pretty quiet. People like to hike in the mountains after the snow melts so late July and August would be a lot busier.
Fourth and fifth nights were in Sapporo. Loved this city, lots to see and do. I used an itinerary I found and that was a good start to fill in two days.
Sixth night was spent at Lake Toya. That was a good day's drive from Sapporo via Otaru Canal. We spent a couple of hours wandering around that town, good restaurants, old warehouses converted to shops, boats up the canal and extremely fit rickshaw drivers! We continued on to the lake where we had a big room, half Japanese but with western beds. Perfect view of the lake and evening fireworks from our room. The Onsen was quite nice too and dinner was included.
Seventh night .... before we left, we went on the crater lake ferry to an island in the middle of the lake and did a forest walk for about an hour. Beautiful area. Our next hotel was a fantastic find, only about 30 minutes away, an Onsen resort hotel. We swapped our lake view room for a forest view. It felt as though it was in the middle of nowhere and basically we just used the onsens several times, ate the dinner and breakfast that were included, did our laundry and generally relaxed. Perfect resort hotel, green outfits provided and how nice to be so relaxed that you wore them to the restaurant as well as to the baths!
Eigth and ninth nights, we returned to Sapporo. There was still more to do, plus some shopping time. Mercure Hotel there was really good, great location so we returned to it. We liked the car parking too, very efficient lifts that took care of the car.
We returned the car, flew Jetstar back to Tokyo where we spent a few hours in the Sakura Lounge before flying Qantas back to Brisbane overnight.
A few general observations about Hokkaido. It was cooler than Honshu, very relaxed, green, lush, volcanoes, lakes, mountains, rivers, onsens. Towns had good shopping and we enjoyed our meals. Prices all seemed not a lot different to Australia. Renting a car made it easy. We probably beat the main tourist season by a week or two. Most times, there were few if any other Caucasians around, with tourists mainly from China, Korea, Singapore...
Highly recommend a visit to Hokkaido in summer. Can only imagine how different it is in winter!
I'm very happy to provide hotel names etc if anyone wants more detail.
