Hokkaido: Day 5 - 2009/01/11

Today is a day of mixed feelings. We got to see one of the best scenery of our 6 day trip, yet, it was also one of our most unproductive trip as well.

After an early breakfast, we left our hotel at around 10am and were taken to a frozen waterfall. The view at the waterfall was absolutely amazing.

Here's my manager, Alan and I outside the Hotel Taisetsu while waiting for our bus. The snow was rather heavy that morning.

The signboard at the waterfall:

And this was probably my best taken photo in Hokkaido.
And who could miss another group photo, right?
After that, it was approximately another 2 hours journey to the city of Otaru, where will first had lunch in a restaurant beside the Otaru Canal (Otaru Unga). I forgot the name of the restaurant. It was just a plain simple seafood grills.

Then, we were on our own, walking around the city. It's a chance to go around buying the seafood delicacies and other stuff if you're willing to spend. But basically, the city's main attraction is their music box and glass factories.

I'm not sure how I can describe the city but it's nothing like in KL. The stores are very westernly-influenced in its designs and concepts (like how you see in the movies). We were only given an hour to tour the city but without proper English signboards, we got a little lost and a lot of time was wasted.

We ended up touring for almost 3 hours and had to cancel our next destination, which is the chocolate factory.

We headed straight to our hotel in Sapporo and it took us another 2 hours travelling. That's how the day went by.

Our next hotel, Sapporo Grand Hotel is located inside the busy city of Sapporo, our first and only city hotel during our stay in Japan, where we reached at about 4-5pm (and the sky was as dark as night).

The details:
Sapporo Grand Hotel
N-1, W-4, Chuo-ku, Sapporo, Hokkaido 060-0001
http://www.grand1934.com/

(I figured it was established in 1934.. haha)

While all these while we were visiting places outside the cities of Sapporo and Otaru, tonight was actually my first Japanese city experience

After checking-in, we were again on our own. So hit the nearby shopping malls. The place is so packed with items and people, we got a little 'suffocated' and adjourned to the streets where it's much cooler.

This is the Sapporo Tower at the background with a digital clock on it.Then, we returned to the hotel to meet up with the rest of the group for Shabu-shabu dinner in a restaurant about 200m away.

In this trip we've getting a lot of crabs... and so, we were again served crab.After performing a form of Japanese traditional meal-closing ceremony, we went back to our hotel. On the way back, someone wanted to visit the subway station and from there we found out that all their subway stations were all integrated underground.

You could actually walk from one station to another and along the way are all occupied with stores and shops. It's a whole new world down here!!

That night I initially planned to stay up because we had to get up at 4am the next morning, check-out by 5am and head to the airport for our 7am plane. But I got too tired... and slept right after my bath.