Early Summer at Hokkaido - Furano and Asahikawa

I'm back again!! have been really busy... So here I'm to write about my Hokkaido trip.

When we visit Japan, we need to know which season we going so that we can plan on where to visit. I'm going to note down my itinerary for my early summer to Hokkaido which we went last May.

Early summer is around late Mid May to Mid June, where Hokkaido experience change of season from Spring to Summer. Temperature at day is around 25 deg. Celsius and 15 deg. Celsius at night when we visited. The bad thing of going during this season will be either too late for Sakura or too early for Lavender..

We are lucky to be able to see Sakura, Shibasakura, and tulips where my colleagues missed all of them when he visited 1 week after my trip.. (yes, just 1 week can be very big difference).
I would advice all my friend to check the website for all those season changing date which is quite accurate.

After collected our rental car, we drive up north to Furano to have our lunch. We choose this popular eating place called
Kumagera
Telp: 0167-39-2345
Map Code: 349 032 101*74
Website: http://www.furano.ne.jp/kumagera/en/top.html
Here are the food that we ordered:

Their food is really yummy!! Worth to try if you are in Furano...

After lunch, we drove to Farm Tomita and Shikisai No Oka. The flowers are not in full bloomed and my younger son was asleep, so we didn't go in to take picture.. For those who interested to go, here are their map code:

Farm Tomita - Map Code:349 276 804*00

Shikisai No Oka - Map Code: 349 701 155*36

After the night flight and long drive, everyone was tired, so we drove to our airbnb to rest. 

This house is kind of big and nice if you have big family and wish to stay together. Here are some of the photos that I took.

(If you are renting an airbnb, it's really good to take the picture of the front so that it's easier to find)

2 beds at the front room

A small kitchen for cooking. 

laundry area which we loves coz we can start to wash our clothes..hahaha..

Another 2 beds at the back room.

Hokkaido Early Summer Holiday

We are going to Hokkaido again!! This time round is early summer as we can only go during school holiday. Thai airways was having promotion for Japan and Korea last year, so here we go again for Hokkaido. (I wanted to avoid the summer heat, so only Hokkaido is still cooling during summer).

We bought our ticket at promotional price of $395 for a 2-way ticket to Sapporo. Isn't it cheap?? Now you  know why I go again even thought I just went in December. hahaha... This trip is special because, we brought our little boy with us. It's his first flight trip. (Alot of things to bring...) We are worried that he's cranky in plane. But thank god, he was quite cooperative... *phew*

Look at him enjoying his in-flight entertainment!! lol

Our flight is Thai, so we transit at Bangkok. I like their timing and the best is we do not need to transit again at Tokyo. Our departure from Singapore is 8:50pm and we reached Sapporo in the morning around 8:20am. As for service of Thai Airways, I do not think they service is bad nor fantastic. They seems impatient to me especially when u asked them to repeat on what's on the menu.

After about 12 hours of flight + transit, we are finally at Sapporo!!! Weather is cooling which is what we like...

Once we collected our luggage, we "line" our car rental as usual for them to pick us up.

Our first stop is Furano for our lunch which is about 2 hours drive.

Hotel and Food in Sapporo

Sapporo will be our last stop for our trip. We based at hotel here and do some side trips to Otaru, Asahikawa and Takino Park..

We stayed at La'gent Sapporo Hotel:
This hotel seems new to us and the location is great too.. it's in between Odori and Susukino.
We always walk to Sapporo station (it takes about 15 mins). They have onsen for guest. I rate this hotel 4.5/5.

 Rooms are clean and spacious

 They have bathtub too..

 I like they use DHC products..haha

How about a cup of coffee??

The room rate is bout SGD150 per night.

There are many many nice food in sapporo, here are some of them:

BBQ Pork Rice: Butadon Meijin – Grilled Pork Bowl
Address: Level 6 JR Tower Stellar Place
This is my favorite food in Sapporo i guess.. I will go there everytime I go Sapporo..lol

A bowl of normal portion of rice and meat cost around 872 Yen which i think is reasonable. You can add meat or rice or miso soup to make it to a set. We can choose how we want the meat to be cut, small, medium or small. Even the sauce also can request for more.. this is really yummy!!! 

GOTSUBO - Oyster

Its about 5 mins walk from susukino area. They serves very fresh and cheap oyster:

https://www.google.com.sg/maps/place/Gotsubo/@43.0529835,141.3507122,17z/data=!3m1!4b1!4m5!3m4!1s0x5f0b29866c7e21bb:0xe7b492693507541!8m2!3d43.0529835!4d141.3529009

 GOTSUBO

Having raw oyster at the side of the road.. haha..

Kinotoya Bake - Cheese Tart

This cheese tart is so popular in Sapporo, so it can be seen at alot of location in airport or Sapporo.

It cost about 180 Yen per piece.. 

Beef Impact for beef lovers!!

We had the Japanese wagyu (most expensive in the menu) and it cost around $42 (200g) which is really worth it.. This is located here

Ramen Alley: Susukino
There are alot of ramen restaurant there, so we just walk-in to 1 of them which is quite nice:

Hanamaru Sushi
We went to this sushi restaurant this summer and the queue is crazy!!! You need to get the queue no and wait at least 45 mins to get a seat during peak period.

Sushizanmai - Susukino area

The sushi here are quite affordable. We were too tired to walk to sapporo station, so we found this sushi near our hotel which is quite good as well..

Niseko during Winter

After 2 night stays at Lake Toya, We drove to Niseko.. It;s about 1 hour drive and we stopped over at some location for food and ice cream..

This is the popular Lake Hill Farm where u can make your own ice cream (reservation is required)

Lake Hill Farm
Website: http://www.lake-hill.com/
Telp: +81 142-83-3376

We just drove passed to have some ice cream and some snow ball time.. lol

 We also stopped over at some observatory area for some break.. (We saw alot of tourist buses there)

Then we drove to Prativo for our lunch and break.. This restaurant provide free flow of appetizer and dessert when u order the main dish.

Prativo

Website: http://www.milk-kobo.com/prativo/

Telp: +81 136-55-8852

 We had hard time spotting this restaurant as it snows heavily..lol

 The buffet area

Must try Hokkaido Milk

Portion are small i think.. food are not bad :) Overall still worth it as it has very nice view for diners..

We also walked over to Milk Kobo for some dessert.. hee..

Milk Kobo

Telp: +81 136-44-3734

Map Code: 398 353 045*7

Some snow time for us... We basically enjoying our snow time everywhere we went.. That's winter holiday right?? lol

Our dinner and breakfast are included in our hotel price and this is the most expensive hotel among our Hokkaido trip... Zzzzzz Peak Season!!

We went for our ski equipment rental for our ski lesson the next day, so we rented our equipment the day before from this shop..

We chose this because, they allowed us to collect the day before which is good as it will not be too rush the next morning.. 

Our ski lesson is at grand Niseko, alot of people learn ski there.. Have kids and adults group. Ski is really tiring and I still doesn't know how to ski well.. lol 

Our ski lessons was booked before our trip from Gosnow.. Our glasses are bought from qoo10 sg.. It's quite affordable, so we bought 3 for each of us. 

 Getting ready for our lesson.. V was with kids group..

 Spotted him while we had our lesson...

We skied till around 7pm.. My husband is more adventure so he went up the gondola to the upper level, But he was in wrong level (he went to advance level) lol... so he basically walked down... We were worried sick coz he was late for half an hour... thank god that he return safely... 

So we went for our dinner at hotel and return the equipment before they closed shop.

Another nice dessert location at Niseko is this small shop:
Cafe IF

A coffee to start our drive to Sapporo..

This is the famous cheese cake in cream form..

Time to say bye bye to Niseko.. We will miss u!!!