Hokkaido Summer Trip 2017 Day 3 (3/6/17)

I rested well and only woke up at 8am this morning. I headed down on the onsen and was pleasantly surprised that there were only a few ladies there. Probably people here all have an early start so it's more crowded going to the onsen too early. Mum slept very well and I only woke her up when it's almost time for us to check out at 1030am. Basically this is a very nua day as we only took the train to Asahikawa and walked around Aeon Mall, we did not even go to a restaurant for our meals.

Our breakfast of cup noodles buffet! 

We packed up really quickly although I felt like we bought a lot of snacks here and there. Mum prepared cup noodles for breakfast and as a noodles fan, I didnt really mind that. The checkout time was 11am and we went down shortly after that. I guess I'll still be back to Hotel Keihan Sapporo if I'm back in this city again.

Tickets for our reserved seats

Train to Asahikawa

I went to the JR information counter at Sapporo station to get all our reserved seats tickets before we leave the city. I really love the feeling of traveling in a reserved seat car and having designated seats. The Hokkaido 7 days Rail Pass is really worth our bucks as reserved seats can be utilised free of charge with the pass (or maybe the price is already included). Probably I had really sufficient sleep the previous night, the 1.5 hour ride felt very long and I couldnt get any shut eye at all, the train also felt shaky. I had taken trains of more than 4 hours so this should be tolerable to me, but it still felt quite long. Finally, we arrived at Asahikawa and it was as cold as I remember the place to be, even during summer.

Finally reached! 

But I still liked the place in a way, as we had lots of adventures here previously and the whole JR station is linked to the mall and our hotel, so its quite convenient. I had lots of praises for JR Inn Asahikawa the previous time so without hesitation, this is the first hotel I had in mind when I was booking the trip. We had a bigger room the previous time but this time round is also not too bad, in fact it is slightly bigger than our hotel room in Sapporo and its also the cheapest for the whole trip. I wrote a detailed review the previous time but I still could not resist taking a few more pictures as I really adore this place. We were more than an hour early for the 3pm check in time, so we left our luggages with the front desk and went to explore the area. I showed Mum the lounge with free flow coffee and she loved it so much that she had two cups of coffee immediately. 

Very comfortable rest area

Coffee machine and free flow tea

Not snowy this time but still cold

Large collection of comics for people to read

Mum loved the Aeon supermarket as there's a lot of foodstuff to buy. Once again, we decided to just get stuff we'll love to try for lunch from the supermarket. She was not hungry enough for Kani Honke and it felt too late for us to go and visit the zoo after check in, so we'll just slack in the hotel room for the rest of the day. I saw the whole range of sushi selling for a very cheap price and could not resist getting some of those, its Japan and Hokkaido after all! We also get some sweet snacks and some onigiri from the stalls next to the supermarket. 

It's interesting the fruits were rated according to sweetness here

After we grabbed all the food we wanted, it was past 3pm and we decided to go up to check into the room and enjoy our lunch. I had booked a smoking room as it was the only one available when I visited Agoda, I had requested for a non-smoking room before our trip and earlier at the front desk but they do not have any available. To our relief, the room turned out okay and we were not affected by the smell in the room at all. Just like many Japanese hotels, they have this multi purpose spray in the closet so I just helped myself with it. 

Quite a big study area and side table

We chose more pillows from the pillow library and I loved that

Place for us to leave our bags and the mounted TV saves space

Basic toilet amenities were all there and very clean

Our lunch spread

I took a nap after lunch since we decided not to go to the zoo and I got myself recharged after a few hours. After my nap, we decided to go out and and explore the Heiwa-dori, the shopping street just in front of the Aeon Mall. I'm so glad that I checked the weather before the trip and brought my down jacket as it was really just 7-8 degrees outside and I need to bundle up like it's early spring at Nagoya. It's unbelievable that it is still so cold here in summer. We went into some of the pharmacies and convenience stores to look around and these were really well stocked like all Japanese ones but we did not see anything we liked, so we turned back and headed back to the supermarket to stock up more food for dinner. By this point of time, I had gotten sick of cup noodles, sushi and onigiri, so I looked for instant porridge instead. We also decided to come back tomorrow and get some fresh bread for breakfast instead. Mum liked the peach beer (only 108Y) and thus we bought a few more of the fruit beer.

Cheap fruity beer (prefer the 3% ones)

Jill Stuart stock up

I also found Jill Stuart products in a tax free store here at Aeon Mall, although its not a counter on its own but I found that shampoo and conditioner refill I was looking for. I had waited for more than a month to come to Japan to get this after missing the chance at Nagoya in March. After moving into my new place in March, I was looking for new brands of shampoo and conditioner with refill packs as these are more environmentally friendly. Surprisingly, its hard to find those in the supermarkets whereas in Japan common brands like Pantene and Lux have refill packs. I searched online in Carousell and found Jill Stuart, the bottles with the bling on top look so good in my bathroom so I got them at quite steep price ( 300ml bottles at about $50 each), they smell so good that I decided to get the refill packs during my frequent trips to Japan. The refill packs are only selling at $30 sgd in the tax free store so its quite good deal. I also get the hair mask to try out while I'm here.