Hokkaido Trip Day 3 ( Failed Trip to Sounkyo Onsen 層雲峡, Ended up at Asahikawa 旭川）

From the title, you could see that there's more misadventures during our trip. Sigh! It was supposed to be a very straightforward day, which we'll take a free resort shuttle bus from Sapporo Station and stay at Sounkyo for the night. But things happened (as always)...

I did not sleep as well the second night, waking at weird hours like 2.30am, 5am and so on... Finally, at 8am, I woke up to go to the onsen and get my laundry done at the same time. I saw that there's a few washing machine and dryer that we can use for free inside the onsen, so decided to take the chance to clear off some laundry. The onsen was less crowded at this hour compared to the previous night, and I enjoyed my morning bath tremendously. It was past 9am and the clothes were still spinning in the washing machine, so I stopped it and put all the clothes in the dryer since the onsen will close at 10am. Some of the clothes were still a little damp when I went down again at 10am, so I hang them around the hotel room while waiting to check out.

I did not plan to stay at Sounkyo initally, but after some advise from the folks at Tripadvisor and redoing my itinerary, I decided to spend one night there since I'm heading to Asahikawa for the zoo. I chose Choyo Resort Hotel as its a long way to Sounkyo and they have free shuttle service from Sapporo. As the shuttle service is a important part of our journey, I emailed the hotel once in Oct when I booked the hotel and once just days before the trip (I did some rebooking of the hotel and did not want to lose the booking of shuttle service). The staff replied me to confirm the booking of the free shuttle service and told me that the bus will depart at 2.30pm. I checked the website and saw the timing, printed out the email as I got ready for the trip.

Took pictures of the 'fake food' outside while waiting

Our western lunch at Sapporo

My seafood baked rice

We asked for late checkout (extended till 12 noon) since we only need to be at Sapporo Station at 2.30pm. It was a Sunday afternoon, so Daimaru was crowded when we headed there for our brunch, we went to the basement where there's many many food counters and good reviews on Tripadvisor, it was pretty similar to our Takashimaya basement but the scale of this was much bigger and better. But with our luggage and nowhere to sit, we decided to head up to 8th floor of Daimaru again and look for a restaurant for lunch. We saw a western restaurant with long queue outside, but decided that it looked quite appealing and we should have sufficient time to queue. We waited in queue for awhile and got ourselves a table. They allowed us to park our luggages near the door and at each table there were hooks for patrons to hang up the coats and jackets. I flipped through the menu, undecided of what to eat,  then finally decided on baked rice. P had his beef steak, after the pretty average burger steak meal the previous night. The food tasted quite mediocre and I did not find the baked rice really delicious, just filling up my stomach with food before the long journey.

Love the packaging! They provided ice packs too!

Yummy cheese tarts (can keep for two days in fridge)

After we were done, we traveled to basement to get to JR station. I saw Kinotoya Cafe just next to Daimaru and I remembered there were good reviews about their cakes and tarts, so I joined the queue to get some cheese tarts to try. As it was just 1.45pm, I went to Twinkle Plaza at Sapporo JR station next to get all my reserved seats booked for the rides ahead, in this way I'll be comfortable on those long journeys and my rail pass will be even more cost-saving than ever.

All the reserved seats tickets done

At 2pm, we headed to north exit of the JR station according to the instructions from the hotel website, trying to find the exact spot where we were supposed to wait for the shuttle bus. It was quite windy out there and getting cold, we stood for awhile right outside the exit but it did not look like a place where shuttle bus will pick up people so we move to another spot and checked with the traffic warden there. I showed him a small map provided by the hotel and he pointed us back to the spot where we were waiting previously. It was getting tiring and cold to push our luggage to and fro, we waiting outside the JR exit again, feeling that something was not right. P checked with another lady who spoke some English and once again we moved back to the second spot where we saw shuttle bus pick up people. I thought it looked more likely to be the spot where passengers can board. I was talking to another uncle holding a card for another hotel and he asked me for the time the bus should pick us up. I told him 2.30pm and was vaguely aware that it was already 2.40pm after all the waiting and running around. Japanese trains and buses are always very punctual so something was very wrong. Realisation suddenly hit me and I looked at the timing on the website again, the bus had left at 12noon, when we had took our own sweet time checking out from Keihan. I was feeling very upset with myself for the grave mistake, I had checked the timing several time but did not realise that the staff had given me the wrong time.

P and I decided that we had to find our way there since we had booked the hotel for the night. I checked the directions on the hotel website and searched Hyperdia, then went to the ticketing machine to get a reserved seat to Asahikawa first. We were shocked that 2 tickets of the train at 3+ would set us back by 164 SGD, about 14000Y. We had to choose a later timing at 4pm, more than an hour of waiting at the station and that will still cost us about 100SGD. There was sufficient time to walk around the malls but we did not have the mood to do so. While P sat at the station, I went to a nearby international atm to withdraw an additional 30000Y (approximately 350SGD) as I was only left with half the cash I brought and there were still many more days to go.

Next, I saw the Tourist Information Counters at the JR station and decided to drop by since I had time on hand. Earlier on, i asked the lady at Twinkle Plaza to help me find the shortest route from Niseko to Lake Toya (I had actually researched on Hyperdia earlier and have all the timing with me), she said i have to go through Otaru and the whole journey will take about 4hrs+. Having done my 'homework' on Hyperdia, I know there's a shorter route but even though I asked her again, she told me that that is the fastest way. She was using this hard copy train schedule book to show me all the train timing, I was contemplating if I should tell her what I found out from Hyperdia but decided to go and ask at other JR stations later on.  As I happened to see this counter there helping tourists with JR trains related stuff, i realised I can get my second opinion there. The lady there spoke much better English and she used a tablet to find the shortest way, she told me that there's indeed a shorter way and helped me get new reserved seats tickets, saving me 1-2h of traveling time. Imagine setting off at 9+am and 1+pm will get me to the same place at the same time? Phew! Finally a piece of good news to make me feel slightly better.

At near 4pm, when we went up to the platform to find the train, we realised that it could be quite confusing to look for the correct platform to go to, and the only way is to look at the boards for the destination and corresponding time on the tickets. We finally left Sapporo at 4pm and the sky was already getting dark then, the reserved seats were quite comfortable and we fell asleep on the 85min journey to Asahikawa. Asahikawa is actually our next destination after Sounkyo Onsen and we will be back the following day, I actually contemplated to just stay over there for a night since we felt a bit traumatized by the turn of events, but we decided to press on. We had to travel to Kamikawa for the next part of the journey but when we tried to book reserved seats, we could not really find a train going there till 6pm+. We tried the ordinary ticketing machine and found the local train ticket to Kamikawa, it's the first time we're going to take local train and its quite unplanned, so we're not really sure if that's the right one. Anyway, it cost 1070Y for each of us on the local train. P spoke to the staff and she directed us to platform 1 where the train was waiting, we were a bit confused as the door was not opened, then I read the words and saw that everyone was boarding at the first door as they will collect a small piece of ticket as they board. It pretty interesting to take the local train for the first time, although it felt slower since the train will stop at every station. We managed to get seats and I was trying to listen to the train announcement as some parts were in English, the only info that I've gotten was the train was bound for Furano. I felt unsettled as there wasnt any board on the train showing all the stations that we have to go through unlike the other trains we've taken, I was even more curious when I heard the announcement that we've passed Biei. Our pocket wifi device came to the rescue as I finally managed to find a copy of all the train stations on Google and to my horror I realised we're heading to another direction instead of Kamikawa. I quickly told P about this as we had already traveled for 40min on that train and we showed the train driver our local train ticket, he appeared confused as he could not really understand what we were saying. Luckily some young chaps boarded the train at this moment and with some limited English, he asked us for our destination and concluded that we have to take the oncoming train at the station opposite. We were grateful as the whole train stopped just to let us sort out this mess.

We literally grabbed our luggages and jumped off the train as the train was already at the opposite station. Somehow, I think the driver could see us struggling and waited for us there as well. It was really an adventure as the track was covered with ice (this part of Hokkaido was more snowy and icy than Sapporo, but we did not notice on the way as it was already dark outside) and we had to cross it in the darkness, the station was one station after Biei and its a lone unmanned station, I cant imagine how scary it could be if we were all alone there. We boarded the other train quickly and headed back to Asahikawa again! Sigh! 

By the time we were back at Asahikawa, it was 7pm and the staff confirmed what I had found out from Hyperdia, the next train was at 8.47pm and a quick calculation showed that we will reach Kamikawa around 10pm and another cab ride to the hotel will take us 30min. I was looking forward to the nice buffet dinner at the hotel but we will definitely miss it if we reach at 10.30pm, we'll be tired, hungry and less than 24hours coming back to Asahikawa again. It seemed that we had no other choice but to give up on going over to Sounkyo after all these journey. I remembered JR Inn Asahikawa is the cheapest hotel I had booked for this trip (90+ SGD), therefore I suggested we try asking if they have a room that night and if they really have no room, we'll decide if we still proceed to Kamikawa. 

Asahikawa Station 

As what I had expected, Asahikawa is colder as it is east of Sapporo, we could see a lot of snow and ice just outside the station. The JR Inn is actually connected to the JR station but we were unfamiliar and walked out of the station to look for the entrance to the hotel. P simply loved the icy sidewalks and was walking towards all the snow while we dragged our luggages around. The JR Inn is on the 5th floor of the AOEN mall, a shopping mall connected to the JR station too. The lady at the reception spoke very good English and they do have a rooms for the night, starting from 6000Y onwards. We chose a more expensive room as we wanted to stay in the same room for the two nights instead of shifting over the following day, we did not regret our decision as our room was really nice (hotel review in the next post).

Very snowy landscape just outside the station

P was so excited with the snow

After past hours of stress and disappointment, we finally settled down and rested for awhile in the hotel room. We went out at 8.30pm as P was really excited about the snow outside and wanted to explore and take some pictures of the place. We walked some distance down from the JR station along Heiwa-dori Shopping street and found a drug store etc, took some pictures with the decorated X'mas tree there and then headed back to AOEN mall to look for dinner when it was 9pm. Unfortunately, the mall have early closing time and most of the restaurants were closing by then. We went back to the hotel room to rest for awhile before going out to look for dinner again, I was so tired that I fell asleep on the cosy bed and P did the same, we took a short nap and woke up again at 10pm as we were feeling really hungry after the long day.

Xmas tree along Heiwa-dori street

Icy walkways with xmas feel

Enjoyed my dinner a lot

Other Izakaya food

Other than the Kinatoya cheese tarts that we had, we did not have much to eat since lunch, we went out to look for dinner and ended up at a Izakaya 猿の山, 居酒屋 seems to be a good choice for both of us since we tend to have late dinner and I can fulfil my Japanese food craving while accommodating to P fussy tastebuds. I have Japanese chazuke and shashimi, P was so hungry so he ordered assorted yakitori, french fries, some yummy pork stuff and so on. We had a good meal and it was past 11+ when we walked back, it was freezing cold and we needed our gloves, beanies, thick layers of jacket etc. We went for onsen (glad that it's opened till 1am) and it felt really good after the hours on the train and the very cold night. My eyes felt so heavy after the nice onsen and I fell asleep soon.  

Off to the onsen! 

Hokkaido Trip Day 2 (Sapporo 札幌 & Otaru 小樽)

I had a very good sleep and I felt so happy when I woke up realising I'm at Hokkaido. I woke up at 8+, updated my blog again (the previous entry was really long), fell asleep, woke up again feeling hungry but P was still sleepin
g. This is nothing unusual, it is always so hard to get him out of bed when we are having holidays.

The reception called us asking if we wanted makeup service when it was already 1pm, I was looking at the wrong time (Singapore time 12pm) and told them we will be out at 1pm. P finally woke up and we got ready to go. I had planned to visit Shiroi Kobito Park but I decided we probably do not have time for that, so we just headed to Kani-Honke (famous crab restaurant for tourists) to get our stomach filled. We walked to the Sapporo Station, walked through Daimaru and the building with a crab in front was quite prominent across the street from Tokyu Department Store. There were tourists from Hong Kong and Korean also looking for a table we were inside. They lady told us that it is a 30min wait, so we went out to look at the menu and walk around the area.

Us looking good and happy in our winter wear

When we got back, the other two groups waiting for the table were already gone, so I figured it did not take that long to get a table, even on a Saturday afternoon. We removed our shoes at the ground floor and took the elevator up to the 6th floor to get seated. The floor was covered with mat and carpet so it was not cold without our shoes. I did not take note of the highest floor in that building, but I think it is a really huge restaurant since we were already going up to the 6th floor. It was very quiet when we got to the 6th floor, we did not see other customers around so I reckoned it should not be that difficult to get a table, especially for lunch. The servers were all wearing kimono, one of them led us to this private room and slid open the door for us to go in, it was really quite cool as it was the first time we get to sit on the tatami in a Japanese style private room. The few rooms next to us were occupied so I guess most of the guests will have their own private rooms like ours. Just like Hotel Keihan Sapporo and 丸海堂, the first thing they did was to pass us warm towels to freshen up, it is really a good gesture during winter. P looked at the menu and decided that he would like to try those steam Hairy Crab (different from the seasonal ones from China) as it looked really good. We decided to get a set meal for two, and the dishes started to arrive soon.

Big Japanese snow crab and hairy crab in the pool

We started with appetizer and sashimi, the quality of the food was good and fresh, it was the first time I tried snow crab sashimi and I got to say I prefer the cooked version even though the ones I tried was really fresh too. It just feel odd eating crab meat that feels slimy in my mouth. The main Hairy Crab dish arrived and that was the highlight of the whole meal, each of the legs and shells were filled with thick succulent meat and we could taste the freshness. We felt really relaxed and took our time to devour the food slowly. There was also this sticky rice with thick gravy thingy with some crab meat inside and a crab meat soup, lastly the sushi came and then the dessert. I tried my best to try everything that had arrived but stopped at the soup and left with a piece of sushi that I could not finish. P ordered two bowls of rice and a extra baked crab dish so he did not really try the remaining dishes. We ate so slowly in the private and quiet room that it probably took us two hours.  It was quite amusing when we walked out after brunch and it was already dark outside.

Outside the restaurant, fascinating 'fake food' typical of Japan

Nice private room, they close up the sliding door when we were eating

Outside the building with the signature big crab

The main thing of our meal, steamed hairy crab

Total crab indulgence 

We bought some reserved seats train tickets to Otaru (quite exciting to buy reserved seats tickets for the first time) and we set off. Even though the journey was only 30 min, it felt good to have seats at the reserved car 4 and the seat were big and comfortable. When it was reached Otaru, we managed to walk to the canal area with some directions I had taken off from online blogs, it was quite cold as the temp was 4 degree. For most people, the main highlight of going to Otaru was visiting the canal area, supposedly very romantic to walk there. The whole stretch was just 100m-200m long, unfortunately there were not much snow at the moment so the it did not feel that special walking there, but we could see that the surrounding buildings look very nice with European feel. In fact, we were quite surprised as the whole area was already like a ghost town even though it was not even 7pm yet. Except for a tour group from Taiwan at the canal area, there were not many people around. We tried to find Sakaimachi street where it was said to have some nice snacks like LeTao, Rokkatei and so on, but we ended walking around in circles, taking pictures of some extraordinary design of the buildings. We finally reached Sakaimachi but the entire stretch was already closed at 7pm, I reckon there is no point keeping the shops open as we only see some tourists wandering around like us every now and then. Luckily I did not book a night at Otaru as the town rest early and it was a little disappointing that we did not get to see much of the well known little town as even the Music Box Museum was closed at 6pm. I get tourists who are used to nightlife like us and are basically nocturnal find it hard to get used to the winter touring timing. Nevertheless, we still had some fun taking some instragram worthy pictures around the place, somehow the buildings looked very Christmassy in the cold winter. If we could come slightly earlier before the sun set, it would be even better to get to see the place in daylight.

Common feature on the streets, sand for people to use (anti slip)

Our first ride on comfortable reserved seats

Nice santa claus costume for Colonel Sanders

Older style Japanese buildings along the canal (used to be warehouses)

The canal at night, pity there were no snow

Tourists were taking pictures here

We specially bought a GoPro for this trip

And we took many selfies

Only 4.3 degree that night

Nice building across the street from canal

Xmas tree at Otaru

With Otra 'Bun-chan' the firefighter's dog

The clock was giving up steam and playing some melody every hourly

Otaru train station (every station has a clock as timing is impt to catch a train)

We tried to get reserved seats on the way back but the reserved cars was already full. We were glad that there were seats available in the ordinary car when we boarded at Otaru. The car was mainly filled with tourists from Taiwan, Thailand etc instead of locals. Japanese are very quiet when in the train, so it was totally peaceful when we were in the reserved seats but the Thais were laughing and talking loudly on the way back.

Corn chocolate which I think is a yummy and good souvenir

When we reached Sapporo, I did not feel hungry due to the very full meal earlier, I just wanted to look for desserts since my craving was not fulfilled at Otaru earlier. P was ready for dinner so we ventured to the 8th floor of Daimaru to look for food. The restaurants there were still opened and buzzing with activity, clearly they cater to tourists as there were a variety of western food, pasta and so on. We were looking at the list of restaurants earlier and P was attracted to this picture with burger steak (he was having his steak craving since we reached). The whole restaurant was named Hamburg and there was a variety of steaks and burger steaks which suited P tastebuds. The place even had a English menu for us, but there were mostly locals dining when we were there. The taste of the burger steak with cheese filling was quite mediocre as steak dishes are clearly not a specialty in Japan, and a restaurant in a mall like this serving western food is also quite far off from the very nice steakhouse we found in the streets of Shinjuku.

Finally Onsen time

Ladies and Guys card access to the onsen 

We stopped at 7-11 on our way back and since it was early, we rested for awhile before heading to the onsen downstairs (finally!). The female onsen was crowded when I reached, I think there should be 15-20 ladies bathing and changing when I was there at 11pm. It was crowded at the locker area with mostly locals as they were chatting in Japanese. They were also polite enough to wait for one another to dry off or keep their clothes before reaching for their own lockers. There was only one pool in the female onsen, it is slightly disappointing but still better than nothing as this is part of the amenities of the hotel, cant compare to the one we paid a lot to bathe in Tokyo. Clearly, it is very popular among the locals although I didnt see much difference from filling up the bathtub with hot water and then jumping in. I realised that they basically dont stay too long in the pool, most of them only soaked for 10-15min before going to the bathing area to wash. Basically, the onsen was really bathing facilities and they much preferred it to the private ones in the hotel rooms. Personally, I also find it refreshing, even washing myself while sitting on the small stool with the toiletries was fun, and I told myself to try it again the next morning.

Hotel Review: Hotel Keihan Sapporo (Sapporo)

We chose this hotel as its near the station and we wanted the convenience instead of dragging our luggage for a long way in the cold and snow and dark.

The hotel is near the station but the street is quiet

Toilet is small but clean and neat

We managed to find our hotel after a walk in the cold after reaching the Sapporo JR station, the directions I had researched were useful so I was glad I've done my homework. As we were traveling on the train, we saw piles of ice along the road and it was really quite cold when the wind blow, I supposed there were some snow earlier but it was not snowing when we reached. We could see the hotel building from afar once we crossed the small road after exiting from JR station at the West Paseo area. There were a Singaporean family also dragging their luggages along the small dark alley towards the hotel when we were finding our way. The hotel staff were nice enough to give us hot towels to warm our hands and there were also complimentary stuff on the counter for the ladies. On top of that, female guests could also pick a welcome gift (body lotion, soap or bath salt). 

My fave Japanese toilet system

The room is small but cosy (size acceptable to us)

It was midnight when we were finally in the room, our stomach were growling as we did not have a proper meal for more than a day, I was hoping to go to the onsen as it will be refreshing after our long long journey. We decided not to rush to the onsen and just get a good dinner instead. We saw many izakaya still operating when we were walking to the hotel and the food on the menu looked really appetising. We are glad we stay near the JR station so there are some choices at this hour. Sapporo is really unlike Tokyo Shinjuku area where we stayed previously, there arent as many tall and bright buildings and other areas further from the station looked very quiet and peaceful at night. 

Yearning to go to onsen

When we went out to look for dinner, we realised that we could have walked in the Paseo building or bridge walk so that we did not have to drag our luggage along the narrow path in the cold.

It was midnight when we were finally in the room, our stomach were growling as we did not have a proper meal for more than a day, I was hoping to go to the onsen as it will be refreshing after our long long journey. We decided not to rush to the onsen and just get a good dinner instead. We saw many izakaya still operating when we were walking to the hotel and the food on the menu looked really appetising. We are glad we stay near the JR station so there are some choices at this hour. Sapporo is really unlike Tokyo Shinjuku area where we stayed previously, there arent as many tall and bright buildings and other areas further from the station looked very quiet and peaceful at night. 

Yearning to go to onsen

When we went out to look for dinner, we realised that we could have walked in the Paseo building or bridge walk so that we did not have to drag our luggage along the narrow path in the cold. When we were back from the convenience store, we realised that the hotel does not provide bottled water as the tap water is negative ion water and potable. However, I did not feel comfortable drinking tap watar in foreign land, so I bought some bottled water from the vending machine at the lift lobby on our floor. There is also a ice machine provided. 

Hokkaido Trip Day 1 (A Disastrous Start) 10th & 11th December

It's the time of the year again! It's my favourite period of the year as we have one month completely off from work and can make the longest trip out of town. Many months ago, P and I decided to dedicate our precious December holidays this year to our favourite destination... Japan! The best place in Japan to explore during winter is of course Hokkaido, so I've spent many weeks poring over Tripadvisor, Agoda etc, asking questions and crafting the best route around Hokkaido, which is pretty big and very different compared to Tokyo. After our trip to Tokyo last year, I really felt that I didnt have enough of Japan and I'll surely make my way back soon, I put all the leftover yen in my wallet, reminding myself to plan another trip there. Finally, the date for our long winter holiday drew nearer and we are about to set off.

The December holidays had already started for almost two weeks and many of my friends had flew off for their holidays, I'm eagerly waiting for mine to start as well. As I'm doing research for Hokkaido, I got more and more excited when the plans started to firm up and I cant wait to set off.

Somehow, P and I are seems to be quite unlucky and our trips are always jinxed in someway. It started with Taipei trip in June 2013 when we missed our flight, got so stressed and had to go home to rest for a few hours before going back to the airport to take another Jetstar flight. In Dec 2013, our Boracay trip did not materialised and we wasted quite a bit of money due the last minute changes. In June 2014, we made a trip to Tokyo and almost missed our flight again as we overslept. Dec 2014 was the Boracay trip when it was pretty rainy and we experienced 9h of delay on the return flight. June 2015, we went for the El Nido trip and missed our connecting flight, got stuck in Manila for a night and had to fly in the following day. Even a shorter trip to Malacca earlier was jinxed as the bus broke down and P almost lost his passport (but he was super lucky to have gotten it back). After the KL trip this year, I fell sick and was stressed due to the roaming charges slapped onto my bill (fortunately the whole issue was resolved) As for BKK trip in August, things were quite okay except that P had a bad fall in the bathroom. Gosh! Are we the only couple who are so unlucky to get all these issues during EVERY SINGLE TRIP? Its a wonder in itself that we were not deterred from making travel plans and still enjoyed every bit of our trip after the issues were resolved.

This time round, it was really the ultimatum and I really felt upset and disappointment some hours ago. We had booked our flight as early as September after comparing and monitoring the air tix prices on Skyscanner. P suggested booking the tix from his friend as they were offering a few hundred dollars off from the price I obtained from Skyscanner. Other than the fact that they do not accept credit card and we had to fork out the money on the spot, I was quite happy with the booking. By end of October, I realised the hotels were being snapped up fast so I quickly get the itinerary done and started to book all the hotels after some research. As for the past few weeks, I followed up with my research and got the details ironed out, booked our ski lessons etc. I was so excited this morning as it was finally 10th Dec, the day we're supposed to make the trip on JAL! I woke up at 6am in the morning, feeling excited that our trip is finally arriving and couldnt get back to sleep after that. I felt so proud of myself as I spent hours cleaning and tidying up the house, and then got my luggage packed with some hours left to rest. After the previous bad experiences, we knew better and always made it a point to get to the airport as early as we can (but things still cropped up, sigh...)

P came home in the very rainy evening and we decided to go to the airport early as we could not confirmed our seats. A few days before this, I suddenly remembered our Tokyo experience when we sat separately on Delta. That was the few rare times we were not taking budget airlines and I forgot to log in early to do check in and secure seats. I asked P to check with his friend as we could not log in using the reservation number provided, but they did not give us a satisfying reply. It was a good thing we decided to leave our place earlier, the roads were quite jammed up with traffic due to the rain. Terminal 1 departure hall also had very terrible traffic before the dropoff point due to their expansion/ renovation.

We reached the JAL checkin at 7.30pm, still quite early for the 10pm flight. We were feeling happy and relaxed at that moment, totally not prepared for what happened next. Basically, the ground staff at the checkin counter looked at the papers and our passports for awhile, then got us to wait while she went to another counter to check something. 

She came back with another JAL staff and they explained that they found our names in their system but next to our booking it was remarked “refund completed". They advised us to check with the agency and to get back to them when we are ready. P face looked grim at that moment and went off to make the call, the JAL staff helped me move our luggages aside while he did so. Unfortunately, P’s friend was just working for someone else in the Philippines to get business for this agency ’One Travel’, my heart sank when I heard that it went through so many people as it really spell disaster to me. What will happen to this trip we’ve been looking forward to for so long?

P’s friend appeared not to know what had happened, but offered to book us on another flight on SQ, a direct flight leaving at 11.30pm on the same night. For a moment, our worries lifted as we thought that it will be an upgrade from a JAL non direct flight to a SQ direct flight. We sat around at the arrival hall waiting for the confirmation email to come in, the helpful JAL ground staff who helped me earlier was also nice enough to come over and follow up, asking if he could help with anything. We explained that we will likely be booked on another flight, thanked him for his help and continued waiting. As we waited, I went through skyscanner on my handphone and true enough, the cheapest flight at that moment was a SQ flight later that evening. I kept reminding myself to never ever go through an agency just to take advantage of a cheaper flight again, unless its a reputable one. 

We were anxiously waiting to end the nightmare, my stomach was growling as the initial plan was to get to the airport earlier so that we can have dinner after checkin. I was feeling excited the whole day and did not get much to eat. I asked P to get ourselves moving to Starbucks so that I can grab a hot drink and also go and collect the wifi router booked once our flight is confirmed.

Minutes went by, P was still trying to settle the issue with his friend but I got increasingly angry as hours had passed and it was already 9.30am but still no confirmation yet. I just felt that whole thing was a scam and they were not going to get us booked on SQ flight after all this pointless waiting. I did not want to give up on this trip so easily, it was meaningless sitting around waiting for them to rebook a flight for us as it had shown to be just a waste of our time. I was only hoping to get us booked on a flight as soon as possible, but I was looking at skyscanner and there were not many options left flying to Hokkaido, either it takes 20+ hours for a cheaper flight or flying at exorbitant price. I tried to book SQ on my own but apparently they only had one seat left or something, so we were not going to get on that flight. It looked like it was impossible to fly off till the next day and we might even need to go home. I was feeling tired, hungry and my head was throbbing. Despite all the obstacles met during our previous trip, it was the first time I had this feeling that we might not get to travel at all.

I made a trip to the washroom to clear my head. I told myself not to get upset at P as the whole point of the trip was to enjoy ourselves and it was not really his fault although I did feel angry with him for trusting this friend. i continued to search for flights at Starbucks and finally found one that was just slightly above 3k for 2 people, we were willing to lose some money to get our trip going and only hoping to get back a full refund of what we had paid earlier. I completed the booking of flight at 11.30pm, and this change affected our next trip as well as we had to fly back one day later so that we can get a cheaper airfare flying on weekday. We decided that we will not travel home and come back again as we will need to be back in a few hours to checkin for the UA flight. 

Give us a flight to Sapporo plsssss :(

It was a really long night but finally our spirits lifted a bit. By the time we left Starbucks, it was already past midnight and the airport was already getting deserted. We had a lot of time till our flight so we traveled to T3 to look for food, finally time to fill our stomach! I looked at our e-Ticket on my iPhone and realised that our flight was actually at T3 too. I regretted not picking up my wifi router at T1 before heading to T3, but then again, we had a lot of time to go back T1 again. We decided to go to the food court at the basement of T3 for food, as there were not many 24h dining options. Fortunately, we were spending a few hours at Changi airport, which I am proud to say that it is comfortable and quiet enough to make the wait less daunting and miserable. If we were stuck at Manila like the previous time, I would go to the motel again to escape for the 24h crowd. We traveled back to T1 by skytrain again to pick up the wifi router, get my currency changed etc. It was already 2am and I could see that P was looking very drained, after whole day of work and then solving all the issues earlier. I suggested that we rest at this “Shawarma cafe” (forgot the name) at T3 as I saw people lying on the comfortable sofa there and there were also a charging station where we can charge our drained laptop and phones.

Very empty skytrain after midnight

P was excited to get some juice into his draining phone so he sat at the charging station chatting with his friend about the refund, I was also glad that my laptop is revived so that i can check our flight online and search for hotel for the additional night we had booked. Thankfully we had such facilities at T3! I decided to go check out the UA counter at 3am to see what time we can check in, our flight was actually at 7.15am so I thought the earliest should be 4.15pm since it was an onward flight to US. Surprisingly, I saw a short queue already forming even though the UA counter was not opened yet. We got our stuff and joined the queue, we wanted to get checked in as soon as we can and get some rest in the departure area. After the previous scare, I don’t feel at ease till we get the boarding passes.

Very tiring passengers waiting for flight

With our precious boarding passes on hard, we arrived at the departure area at 4am and there were people lying down on some of the chairs, deep in sleep. We found a good area equipped with charging sockets/USB outlets, rows of chairs away from main human traffic so it was more secluded. P slept well for the next 2 hours while I started blogging, I felt tired but only get a few minutes of shut eye as the last thing I wanted was to miss our flight. At times, I got up to walk around to keep myself awake. Finally, at 6.15am, I woke P up as it was almost time for boarding. 

So glad that we finally get a boarding pass

Previously, I heard negative reviews about UA and had avoided booking it at all costs till tonight.  Moreover, the onward journey from Tokyo was booked on Jetstar, a budget airline and surely not our top choice even though it was just a two hour flight from Tokyo to Sapporo. However, since we were really desperate, we could not afford to be choosy and on the contrary, we were really thankful there were two precious seats left for us at a reasonable enough price. Honestly, as I’m typing this now after a good sleep on board, I find the flight quite okay, negative points: the seats is a tad too squeezy, food is quite bad even for someone who loves on board meal (me!) and the touch screen in flight entertainment system has limited choices. Well anyway, I was so tired that I fell asleep even before the plane took off and only really woke up 4h later to continue this blog.

We are approaching Tokyo in another hour or so, finally going to land on our dream venue, nippon land! 

Got busy with some activities at the departure terminal to keep awake

After reaching Tokyo, we landed in Terminal 1, we found our way to the JR East Travel Service Centre to get our Hokkaido Rail Pass done. Prior to the trip, I’ve already printed the forms needed, so we only d to pass them the forms with our passport. One rail pass cost a whooping 24,000Y and it seems quite expensive, but after calculating our cost of train trips for the last 7 days using Hyperdia (we bought the 7 days pass), there was still cost saving of 30,000Y. On top of that, we can also get reserved seats for the longer journeys at zero additional cost.

Yeah! We're in Japan!

The transit time before our next Jetstar flight was 3h, but we were only left with 2h after the rail pass was done. We took some time clearing immigration and collected our luggage. Next, we took a free shuttle service to Terminal 3 and apparently that was the budget terminal for Narita Airport. The check-in was quite smooth and we went to a convenience store just in front to get some food stuff, it was already 4pm+ and I was feeling quite hungry. There were also cheap winter stuff (beanie and gloves) that I bought for P. As it was a budget terminal, there were not much shopping to be done. Soon, it was near boarding time (5.30pm), we went into the departure area, scanned our belongings and headed to the gate to wait. Surprisingly, we soon heard them announcing our names over the system and was informed that there was something in our luggage that had to be removed as the scanning failed. I immediately thought of the Eneloop battery that I had in my luggage. When we checked in our luggage, I already told P that the battery is inside when the lady briefed us, but we thought it will be a hassle to open the luggage to remove it since we did not have issues when flying UA earlier. We had no choice but walked back to the checkin counter to look for our luggage. We reached the area when people were scanning their belongings earlier and saw the lady who helped us check in. She was blabbering something to us but communication was quite difficult, as always in Japan. We were trying to tell her of the situation but she told us after awhile that they've already 'finished' with the luggage, we were skeptical but we scanned our belongings and went back to the gate area with her.

The place in Terminal 1 where we got our Hokkaido Rail Pass

The whole area is fully of people waiting for their Jetstar flight to different areas of Japan, our flight is delayed by half an hour and I could see other flights always delayed so it was quite crowded. Finally, we found seats when people boarding another flight left. I was enjoying my cream dorayaki when they called for our names again, it was the same lady who apologetically told us that we have to go back to security area to remove the battery from the luggage. It's a few hundred metres walk up and down some stairways and I was feeling tired from carrying my laptop and stuff around, but we had no choice but to walk the same way for the 4th and 5th time to retrieve that battery. Sigh...

Air port shuttle service between terminals

Our nightmare did not end there, we finally boarded the plane and I fell asleep while waiting for it to take off. However, I woke up after awhile and realised that it was already 8pm and the plane was still at the berth. It was raining earlier when we boarded the plane and the announcement went on to tell us that there's a long queue to takeoff so the flight is delayed. I just wanted to get to Hokkaido and end this torturous day, already 24h since we first met with issues at Changi airport, sob sob...

My Hokkaido Rail Pass

The plane finally took off and the actual flight was only 1h 10min after so much delay. Everyone on the plane put on their down jackets and stuff and started running once they got their luggages. The weather was quite okay at Tokyo (air con temp) but I supposed Hokkaido is much colder so I put on my down jacket on top of my Juicy suit and another long sleeve tee. We got our ticket at the JR station for the rapid train to Sapporo and found the platform with the train waiting. Finally! We're one step closer to the destination!

As this post is getting too long, I'll post the review of the hotels in a separate post for this trip. After checking in, we decided to try out this 丸海屋 (Maruumi-ya) as the menu looked good from outside. P is craving for steak again and they looked like they have some bbq pork stuff even if there were no steak. I enjoyed dining at izayaka as there's a variety of food and I get to try the yummy Japanese stuff while not compromising P preferences. I ordered a donburi with fish roe and salmon sashimi, it was really the best I had ever tasted. Even the rice tasted so good and heavenly, and the seafood was really fresh. P had a grilled pork dish, seafood 'fried rice' and a buttery corn dish. I wondered if we were too hungry or the food was really that good, I guess its a mixture of both. We left after the satisfying meal, bought some stuff from 7-11 and headed back to the hotel. I tried to update the blog about my adventures after a very good hot shower but my eyelids became heavy as it was already 3am.

Satisfying meal at Maruumi-ya

Very yummy donburi

Vending and ice machine at our floor lift lobby

Anti slip soles for walking in winter (bought in 7-11)