After exiting the Alpine route, travelled to Unazuki onsen for overnight stay. On the next day, took the cool Torroko train to explore the Kurobe gorge.
Travelled to Okuhida and stayed in Fukuchi onsen for second time.
About 10min walk from Kumagaya station (in Saitama Prefecture), there is a 2km river dyke planted with about 500 Somei Yoshino sakura trees.
This spot has been famous since Edo-era and has been selected into top 100 Sakura spots.
Inside this huge garden, Sakura, Tsubaki (Camelia) and Tsutsuji (Azalea) were blooming.
Returned to Hakodate after visiting Onuma National Park. Bumped into sakura blossom. What a surprising bonus 🙂
First visit to Awaji for Tulips after Hanami in Kyoto. Drove across the 4km Akashi Kaikyo bridge to Awaji.
While tulip was the main theme, sakura and other Spring flowers were nicely planted and arranged in the park. We spent around 5 hours, including a brief lunch.
drove to the southern tip of Awaji where the Onaruto bridge connects Awaji to Tokushima in Shikoku.
Skied in Hakuba for 5th time. We were lucky that prior to our arrival in mid-Jan heavy snow has been falling for few days, such that all slopes were opened.
as usual, took Shinkansen to arrive at Nagano and change to express bus to Hakuba Happo.
Heavy snow was falling while the gondola was operating on and off intermittently. Fresh pow was everywhere !! The top lifts for both were closed due to strong wind and poor visibility, thus we were confined to ski in Goryu.
Skied in Happo-One for the rest of our trip. We had a rare sunny day on D3 with all clouds and mists dispersed in the morning. Went to the mt top @1850m to take great shots of the 3 summits of Shirouma-dake – the featured image. 1st time in deep blue sky !!
as usual, we met up with local friends in Tokyo for reunion. Enjoyed in cosy izakayas in Happo. Returned to Tokyo and visited museum in Ueno Park.
Upon returning to Sapporo we visited the Hokkaido University campus where peak Koyo had arrived. Besides, we re-visited the Former Hokkaido Government Office again. The lily pond – featured in the cover photo looked fairly similar to Monet’s garden in Giverny, though on a smaller scale and offered a different ambience.
2nd visit since 2004. Dropped by Onuma National Park while en route. Koyo was about 10%. Took an easy walking path of 1 hour. Nice view of Mount Komagatake in the distance.
While we took a day time onsen in Yunokawa in 2004, we stayed in an onsen ryokan with seaview and rotenburo in-room. On the next morning, visited the Trappist Monastery before returning to Hakodate city.
Back in Hakodate city, we first visited Kosetsu-en, a famous garden for Koyo. Though Koyo was about 10%, it was a nice walk. We then headed to the morning market for lunch and checked in to new onsen hotel with view of Mt Hakodate and bay. Went up to Mt Hakodate for famous nightview. The narrow road up to the peak was so congested that there were long lines of cars and buses on either way. On the next morning, we strolled around in the bay area before heading back to Sapporo.
at the north-western tip of Hokkaido. Took about 2 hours from Niseko to skirt around the coastline to get there.
Took about 1 hour drive from Shakotan to Otaru. Stayed in a hotel overlooking the Shukutsu coastline in Otaru. as we have visited Otaru twice before, did not stop by the city centre this time.
our first visit – Koyo was a bit late in both, which are in the outskirts of Sapporo. Stayed overnight in an onsen ryokan in Jozankei.
In this Koyo trip, we visited Hokkaido from mid to late Oct starting from Shikotsu-ko, Toya-ko, Niseko, Cape Kamui, Hoheikyo, Otaru, Sapporo and Hakodate.
First stay right after landing in nearby New Chitose airport, about 30min by car. Deep-blue lake in peak Koyo.
Koyo was a bit after peak. Nevertheless, it was a sunny day and it was my first shots on fireworks.
visited Shinsen-numa for the 1st time. Koyo was clearly beyond peak in mid-Oct due to higher elevation. Refer to our trip in Oct 2013 when we visited 1 week earlier to catch peak Koyo.
At the foothill of Mt Yotei, about 15-20min walk from car park through a forest of White Birch (Shirakaba in Japanese).
