Hokkaidoo~

Hello people. My Hokkaido trip continues.

Day 3

Woke up early again to make way for our long journey down to Sounkyo. On the way at Oketo, we had tempura don and hot soba noodles at Inadaya Soba Restaurant.

This is it. On your left, that's the tempura don. And on the right is hot soba noodles topped with fried bits.

I saw this in the restaurant. Supersized teapot!

After lunch, we were kindly invited to this wood handicraft shop. And i bought my first japanese bento box. Haha. Look below, cute but completely unnecessary.

Fine handicraft.

We got back on the coach and travelled to this winnery which produces sour wine. Eew.

Wine production. This person looks like he's sleeping. And i don't blame him. His job is to sit in front of the light and make sure every bottle passes through is pink.

This is what they did back when electricity wasn't available.

Wine storage. Optimum temperature is around 18 to 19 degrees celsius.

The Sour Wines. A purely made for tourist production.

How cool is this. The entire waterfall is frozen. We're at Mount Daisetsu.

Yeah. Snow rocks. Snow gives botak trees.

Looks like marshmallow on rocks. This is really cool because these rocks are capped with at least three inch worth of snow. And it doesn't melt. And it's beautiful.

After a huge snow fight, I look like I've got dandruff. Haha. And it's frigging cold cause my brother bloody dumped snow into my back. Arghh!

At Sounkaku Grand Hotel. This yellow yukata is the best hotel provided yukata I've ever worn. It's thick enough and looks quite good too. The sash is good too.

Japanese style room. At night, a kind ojiji came to push the table aside and lay out the futons for us. Futons make the best sleeping material. I speak from experience.

This is dinner. A very salmon themed dinner. We had grilled salmon, steamed salmon, miso salmon and salmon potato gratin. I get it. Hokkaido have such an excess of salmon that they have to come up with different ways to cook it, even if the salmon taste weird after that.

Dinner on the floor. Haha. It was abit embarrassing cause the seat was a little bit too small for me. I need to loose some weight.

After dinner, we braved the sub-zero temperature (-10 that night) to see the snow festival. The Japanese call it bing ba. That is Mr. Onigiri smiling at you.

This is the cheeko oji-chan we met at the snow festival. He insisted to shake everybody's bare hands and wouldn't let go unless you tug politely. Haha. And his wife was watching. He's cute, isn't he.

End