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Asap to Sapporo

keep cool!

As promised in my last post I`m delivering some photos of Sapporo‘s Yuki Matsuri (Snow Festival). As the 1.9 million inhabited city of Sapporo is comparatively young, constructions of Sapporo village only began in 1866 – whereas settlements in Kyoto or Nara date back to the 6th and 7th century – it can’t attract tourist with none existing historic temples or shrines. In winter 1950 a group of Students crafted sculptures of snow at Ōdōri-Park. This became an annual event and in 1955 Japan Self-Defense Forces joined and since then it evolved to a steadily growing event which was also discovered by the city to attracted tourists. Today Yuki Matsuri is one of the biggest international festivals of it’s kind and attracts 2 million tourists every year.
When getting to Sapporo from Tokyo (this time not via bicycle but by plane) someone at Sapporo Central Station shouts at me: “Simon, Simon!! Is it really you?” Gaku, my host from the 200 km away City Hakodate is also here. I seem to provoke such situations as a similar situation also happened to me twice in Tokyo when I visited the city for just one day both times. Gaku and I agree to meet the next day to explore the festival together.

Sapporo’s TV tower

We went out of bricks let’s use ice

There are two big boulevards. One exhibiting ice sculptures (Susukino) the other one coming up with huge snow- and ice buildings (Ōdōri-Park) re-sampling crystal clear castles, historic houses and statues or sculptures made out of snow. Round up by a vast alignment of merchandise-, food-, and souvenir booths.

Jump scene! Keep your skies crossed for me!

bottom ice

Yuki Matsuri is both during day time and at night well worth exploring. To get a good overview of all the attractions I recommend exploring the fair grounds during day time. But Sapporo’s night life and especially the colour changing lit snow- and ice buildings are breathtaking. During the whole day there are events going on everywhere in town. A giant ramp with jumps covered with snow is set up on the city’s biggest boulevard where ski- and snowboard artists perform neck breaking jumps. At night the ramp is also used as a projection surface. Bands play in front of a lit ice castle, the front wall of a snow house is being used as a giant screen to project an animated film on it, music students of the Sapporo University take part in a music contest and perform their very own compositions to the light play of an ice castle …
Sapporo is sister city with Munich among others. Despite a huge Maibaum (maypole) which was financed by Sapporo’s sister city, I discovered promotion posters of the Olympic summer games of 1972 which were held in Munich and Sapporo hosted the Olympic winter games the same year. Back then the summer and winter games still took place in the same year. The Olympic committee changed this rule in 1992. Since 1994 the Olympic Summer- and Winter games take turns in a two year term. Sapporo and Munich also have another thing in common: Beer. As Munich is famous for their local brands like Paulaner, Hacker-Pschorr, Augustiener, Hofbräu, Löwenbräu or Spaten, Sappo has Sapporo. Found in 1876 by Seibei Nakagawa, a master brewer trained at Tivoli-Brauerei in Berlin.

Wow! What a cool car! lazy eyes

Fish eyes

All the sites of Yuki Matsuri don’t charge an entrance fee. Even the huge slides made of snow are free. However attractions like snow rafting or photo shoots charge a fee of course.

The best place to warm up after such cold days is either to go to an Onsen (hot spring spa which can be found nearly everywhere around Japan) or to have a tasty yaki niku (Korean barbecue). For those who can’t imagine how it works I posted some pics too.

Yaki Niku restaurant

I head to Furano – Hokkaido’s largest winter sports area where you won’t find a single snow canon! The snow is amazing! The area offers a huge variety of slopes. Decent powder-, perfectly prepared-, tricky bumpy-slopes, narrow picturesque forest tracks, and also wide and easy slopes – epic! Still compared to French, Swiss, Austrian or Italian standards the size of the whole skiing area is tiny. However I’d say it’s one skiing area with the best snow I’ve ever had in my life so far. (Probably) due to demographic development in Japan there are no long queues/lines at the lifts. Only on Sundays you might have to wait for five to maximum ten minutes at certain lifts. This situation is transferable to almost every skiing area in Japan. No matter if it’s the ski resorts around Nagano or in Niseko or Furano.

Fantastic Furano

Even in the warmer time of the year Furano is well worth a visit. There is a thriving flower- and plant growing economy in this region. Furano is especially know for it’s vast lavender fields hence the souvenir shops offer a large range of lavender products. Starting with pure dried lavender herbs over lavender soaps, shampoos, lotions, etc. Another famous Hokkaido brand is Royce’ chocolate. Even Furano offers a shop with chocolate of the luxury brand. Expensive but tasty. Give it a try.

Chocolate Museum Sapporo

Beer Museum Sapporo

Furano forest

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Special thanks to: Heide Engelstädter, Kyle Steward (text revision), Hubertus Neidhart from Webspace Provider Network for excellent web page hosting services; Lilith Pendzich

Continue reading »]]> “Welcome to Hokkaido” greets me Gaku my host a 21 year young environmental science student. He waited extra for my arrival in the cold to pick me up. It’s a pity I have no time to explore Hakodate as it is a special town regarding history. I don’t even find time to take some photos of the historic church because already for early afternoon strong rain showers are forecast. My early departure was the right decision. Only one hour later this photos from the Onuma National Park would only have been half as beautiful and spoiled by rain.

Onuma Quasi National Park

Furthermore I’m having my second puncture on this trip. And I manage the change tire/tyre change just before it starts to rain. Now the last tube for my trailer tires is gone. If I should buy a spare one so short before reaching my final destination? My trailer tires/tyres already over a trip from Hamburg to Rome, South Korea and three quarters of Japan after all. But I chance it and don’t buy another tube.

From Mori to Toyoura I’m cycling alongside alongside the bay of the Oshima peninsula. The bay’s diameter is a bit more than 50 km but the leg I have to do is about 100 km. It’s kind of funny as you can see your destination on the other side of the bay and almost for the whole time while making your way to the other side.

Alongside the coast to the north

As my host in Oshamanbe obviously has forgotten about me Michitaka, my host in Toyoura offers me to host me a day earlier. Even though he’s already hosting two guys from France!

There is a good trick to reach people who agreed to host someone but then seem to forget about it and haven’t logged in for four weeks until the requested day and not yet sent me their address or phone number. In that case check if they are friends with other on the Couchsurfing platform or check their references. Write to those contacts who logged in recently, asking them if they have also other contact details of your host and if they could remind your host to check his mail. Most of the time hosts and guests also stay friends via other social networks or other media they use more frequently. However in this case my host is a complete newbie without any friends or references which is why this trick does not work this time.

Maiko (l.) ich und Michitaka

Michitaka and Maiko my hosts are a Japanese couple and work for the Waldorf school. Every day they cook for me. The first day I am being offered deer: “At the moment we have too many deers here on Hokkaido so the hunters are pretty busy now. One of my friends is a hunter and I received the meat for free!” When talking about my trip I mention that I timed almost everything pretty well on my trip, I saw the lantern festival in Seoul, was at the right time in Kyoto to see the Gion Matsuri festival, saw Matsumoto bon bon, now I’m here when the foliage of Hokkaido’s forests are changing their colours, I only missed the firework season this year. I only missed the firework season this year.

“You don’t know it?”, Michitaka wonders.

“Don’t know what?”, I’d like to know.

“Lake Toya is well known for its fireworks which take place every day from the end of April until end of October from 8:45 pm until 9:05.” explains Michitaka.

“Come on it’s 8:20 pm now and October the 31^st if we hurry we can make it in 20 minutes to Toyako!”

And indeed we make it. Well, obviously once again timed pretty well thanks to my marvellous organizing skills ;)

Firework at Lake Toya

The journey from Toyoura via Toyako to Kutchan shall be my last one on my trip with clear skies. The autumn/fall atmosphere here in Hokkaido is even more amazing compared to what I’ve seen in Aomori. Gold brown rice fields steppe tree-lined by red, green, yellow and orange dappled autumn/fall woods and lush field landscape. The scent of chestnuts, foliage and farmer fires fills the air. Even though it’s mainly flat after making it over the edge of the Toyako caldera it takes me about five more hours to cycle from there around Mt. Yotei, a 1,898 meter (6,227 ft) high strato volcano. For two hours I cycle below night skies and it’s awesome! As it is already comparably cold here in Hokkaido the air is pretty dry and a crystal clear starlit sky completed by a full moon makes my trip a very special experience. The black contrasts of volcanic mountains at the horizon against this bright night sky are amazing! It’s that bright that you can even see the whole landscape.

Mt. Yotei

Seiko, a 30 year young Urologist doctor lives in Kutchan and hosts me for two days. I’m calling her to let her know I might arrive two hours later. “I thought you were coming yesterday!”, she confuses me. Did I really confuse the arrival day? I did and she waited for two hours for my arrival. (Japanese mobile networks don’t sell SIMcards without phones and not having a gaijin card (Japanese green card) makes it even more complicated buying a cell phone.) In short: she could not call me. “Simon, I’m working at the hospital now doing a night shift so you have to come here to pick up the key!” Wow, after all this she still hosts me…

Seiko und ihr Freund im Yaki Niku grill restaurant

The next day she treats me for dinner at a yaki niku bbq restaurant, and takes me to another dinner with her friends. One of them even speaks a bit of German. Another one is a potato farmer. Even though rice is the big thing here in Japan this region called Niseko is known well for two things: potatoes and a winter sports. Niseko features the best powder snow in all Japan. Talking about snow… Once again there have been reports about snow on the Nakayama (Toge) pass. And when looking toward Mt. Yotei the next morning the mountain peak is covered in snow too. It reminds me of my first big bicycle trip when I passed the Brenner pass. That was also in November and they also already had snow there. Nakayama Toge is only 800 m high but Seiko warns me that there is a lot of traffic. Seiko and Nozomi (who I met on my ride from Fukushima to Sendai) recommend me to change my route. And I think it’s good advice. So instead of taking the Nakayama (Toge) pass I take route 5 which mainly runs in valleys, and from Yoichi, alongside the sea to Sapporo.

Seiko’s friends

In Otaru, 20 km before my final destination Sapporo, my rear break refuses to work. Does it really have to go on strike on my last travelling day? Well, regarding my none existing spare tire I didn’t worry and so far I was lucky and had no puncture. But when it comes to breaks it would be irresponsible to go on with only one break. So I get it fixed. Still I’m content with my breaks. On my first trip from Hamburg to Rome I had a skid break. Especially after mountain passes I had to change the skids constantly which I found pretty annoying. But it’s obvious that they fret pretty quickly especially when they have to break not only for my body weight but also a bicycle trailer packet with 40 kg. My disk brake however practically lasted for the whole trip, more than 3,000 km. Pretty cool hm?

The shore on the way to Sapporo

This is how I reach Sapporo my final destination. “As it is quite a young city – at least from a historical point of view – there is not a lot to explore”, tells me my host Bob, 60, from the U.S.A. who teaches English here and has lived in Sapporo for over 20 years already. One should try soup curry, a local speciality. Sapporo is mainly known best for food and the annual snow festival Yuki Matsuri which takes place here in February. They build whole temples or other buildings from snow then. No worries, it’s quite likely that I will return to Sapporo in February to present you pictures from the city and this festival. But now I’m busy with getting my flights and bicycle transport organised.

My bicycle and me on my host’s roof and Sapporo’s ski-jump in the background

And this is how my bicycle trip ends. But still I will go on with fund-raising for my projects. More info about that on this web page or my social network profiles. I’ll go on further trips which will be shown here and on my facebook page.

I’d like to thank all who helped me making this trip such a wonderful experience! So a big thank you to all my hosts – especially to to those who also helped me with the text revision for this blog! Thanks to all who donated for the aid projects. Thanks to all who commented on my blog for the nice notes or thoughtful questions! I’d like to thank SwissEye and Weber products for the support. Also a big thank you to my little sister Lilith who assisted me with my web page in Germany. Hubertus Neidhart my web page hoster, Daniel Göhr my programmer, Christoph Flosssman for minor graphic design and advice for the graphics programme, Gimp. Also Sumire Harayama and Fumi Ono who helped me with administrative work and PR for Japan and of course to you, the reader!

My next big travels in 2013/14 will take place in two countries south from here. If you’d like to know more you simply have to stay tuned :)

Thank you for accompanying me.

Until the next trip!

Yours truly Simon

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Continue reading »]]> My dear old school friend Andreas Off, who has lived and worked in Japan for the past six years, recently moved to the city of Nagaokakyo, which is located between Osaka and Kyoto. Andreas hosted me for one weekend, and of course he already had a full program planned for us. First off, he informed me that Nagaokakyo was once the capital of Japan, but only for 10 years. After that Andreas took me to the city castle, followed by the town of Hibiki to show me Yamazaki distillery, which is owned by the Japanese beverage company Suntory.

Andreas and I were shocked with the great tour that Yamazaki offers for only 1000 yen! (12.10 AUD, 12.70 CAD, 8.20 GBP, 15.70 NZD, 12.80 USD) We started with a guided tour of the whole distillery, lead in Japanese with an audio guide in English. Afterwards we were seated in a restaurant and taught how to mix a high ball.  And if that wasn’t enough we got free refills for further high balls. And…. for anyone still able to taste the difference after that, they let us drink a glass of 12 years aged whiskey. But there was even more: on top of that we got t-shirts at the end!
Wow, Andreas and I had some orientation problems after leaving the distillery. Whatever… we behaved like true Germans

Enjoy the photos of this trip.

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Special thanks to: Andreas Off, Cypher Zero, U.S.A. (text revision), Hubertus Neidhart from Webspace Provider Network for excellent web page hosting services; Lilith Pendzich

Continue reading »]]> Once again I’m lucky to have a sunny day in Kurashiki and therefore can present you fantastic photos of the Bikan Historic Area. Kurashiki is one of those cities which escaped World War II mostly unharmed and thus, plenty of original, homes, storehouses (倉 Kura), shops and mills are preserved today alongside the beautiful historic canal.

Castle of Himeji

It is 105 km from Kurashiki to Himeji but I make it in one day. Unfortunately the sight I’m looking most forward to see there is covered in a scaffolding for refurbishment. And it has already been this for way for several years! It’s Himeji’s UNESCO world cultural heritage castle.

Frustrated, I set forth for Kobe. It seems to be the peak of the rainy season as it rains for the whole day. I’m cycling for several hours now and I think I just passed Akashi. As I’m letting my bicycle with my trailer roll downhill on a street with regular traffic volume, I suddenly hear something crashing behind me followed by a constantly scratching noise. Suddenly, I see my trailer overtake me to my right. An approaching car is on the verge of hitting my trailer but is just breaking in the nick of time. Finally, the hill ends and my trailer stops almost in the middle of the road. Luckily, no one was injured nor did my trailer cause any damage. What happened? A nut which attaches my trailer to my bicycle became loose. The driver in the car is looking at me to see if I need help. I apologize for all this and gesture to her that it’s okay if she goes on. The traffic starts to flow again and I search for the lost nut when suddenly – not even five minutes later – a pick-up stops near me.

A middle aged man gets out of the car asking if I need help. It’s slowly getting dark and going on with my search wouldn’t make any sense. He comes towards me, examines my bicycle with a quick glimpse, instantly detects the missing nut and as a conclusion he says: “Ah I see what you need. Just a moment”. He goes to his pick-up, grabs one toolbox with pliers and another one with several screws and nuts, tries several and finally says: “Hmm, I don’t have one with me that fits. But just a moment. Wait here!” He quickly hops into his pick-up and comes back after less than ten minutes with the right nut. The all inclusive service comes, of course, with free mounting and, of course, he refuses to take any tip after all is said and done. He leaves so quickly that I almost don’t have a chance to thank him. Well, almost :)

My nut is nuts

With a big delay, I reach my host’s home in Kobe: Jessy and Brandon, both from the States, who teach English here. The next three days the weather changes dramatically. On one hand, it’s good that I planned a three days stay for Kobe so I won’t be cycling. On the other hand, it’s raining so heavily that it’s absolutely impossible for me to do any outdoor filming or to take any photos.  :(  Later on, Brandon checks if it was a raining record. Close. They had a few days since the beginning of the weather records in which they had more rain. Still, in Kyushu, it leads to flooding. But, indoor filming is possible of course. And so, I’d like to present you a short film about a pretty awesome Kobe beef restaurant. Kobe beef is the most expensive beef in the world. To make the meat soft and juicy the cows are massaged! And you can only purchase Kobe beef here in Kobe. It is not exported! Enjoy!

Kobe beef

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Special thanks to: Aki Sato (Japan), Kunihito Furuichi (Japan), Jessica Dovey, Brandon Daiker (both U.S.A.),

Continue reading »]]> Japan’s capital of Sake is situated in Higashi Hiroshima and called Saijo. Even if the brewery- and tourism season here is during winter time I was given a guided tour and recieved a filming permit. Furthermore some pictures from Takehara. Enjoy!

I found a very good multilingual web page about all breweries in Saijo.

Furthermore I found a documentary about the sake brewing tradition.

Special thanks to: Leanne Hill (Canada), Christoph Hill (Austria), Yumi Shintani (Japan), the whole team of the Kamotsuru brewery, Hubertus Neidhart from Webspace Provider Network for excellent web page hosting services; Christoph Flossmann, Lilith Pendzich

Continue reading »]]> Japanese Sweets/Candy test

I have to apologise. In week six I wrote Japanese Candies were horrible. Back then I just had bad luck with picking the right things. Meanwhile I found some good sweets/candy. However gumdrops don’t seem to be very popular in Japan. You’ll find more candy than gumdrops in every grocery store. When one finally found gumdrops the packages are so small that one will ask her or himself, why the packages are reclosable at all. Those packs have a three times smaller capacity compared to regular German gumdrop packs with the difference that the price is three times as high compared to German Gumdrop packs. None the less. Most of those gumdrops are tasty. Enjoy the video.

Japanese candy test – Japanischer Süßigkeitentest von Daaaaaaaaaaaax

Here a selection of different candy package designs. For the first time you can vote in this blog which package design you like best! Three packs will be raffled off amongst all voters and will be sent to them. Winners can choose which candy they would like to receive. So you don’t have to take the one you voted for. Any recourse to courts of law is excluded. (Sorry, still have to set up the vote. Will post it here once everything is set up)

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(This text has not been revised. Should you spot a horrible mistake you simply can’t live with :) or a typical “German English” phrase please let me know by dropping me a message or a comment. I will correct it and credit your name should you wish that. I’m happy to receive any feedback and really appreciate your help.)

Special thanks to: Hyunjung Kim, 유현화, both South Korea; Fumi Ono, Japan; Hubertus Neidhart from Webspace Provider Network for excellent web page hosting services; Lilith Pendzich;