The Backpacking Ballerina

December 22, 2013 It is really a dream of mine to eventually live in the country and only come back to the Philippines for vacations. We stayed here for 2 weeks this time and this time around I went together with my brother. It’s my grandmothers lifelong dream to ride the famous カシオペア (Cassiopeia) train going to Hokkaido and so we rode it on the day before Christmas going to 札幌市 (Sapporo City).

The Cassiopeia train was definitely a very expensive but worth it train. Whats nice about it for me was the fact that each room had its own TV and Bathroom. Although It could use a lot of room for   improvement such as their services and the movies that they show. It was a very pleasant ride going to Sapporo. We arrived Sapporo exactly on time and on Christmas morning. The food on the train was also very expensive actually, however it was good so I will not complain about the price.

We arrived Sapporo and we were toured by our friend from there who drove us around. Sapporo is a very big city therefore I would suggest that you stay here for a long time if you also enjoy skiing I heard that it is an hour bus ride away to the ski resorts from Sapporo. We didn’t stay long because we were only to stay here for one night.

On the next day we headed to 函館市 (Hakodate shi) Hakodate which was a 2 hour train ride away from Sapporo. Hakodate is the southernmost part of Hokkaido. I would suggest going to the Brick houses here and the ropeway view. Hakodate has a rich history with the British therefore if you enjoy History you would enjoy hearing about it here. There are English tours as well for people who cannot speak Japanese. I would think that Hakodate is more beautiful during the spring since during the time we went Hokkaido was snowing like crazy.

Before going to Hokkaido I would suggest to search for the things you would like to do here as Hokkaido is a very big place and you would want to do many things here. We had limited time since our grandmother is already 79 and we could only take the small tours. Hopefully the next time we go here we could go back to ski. Hokkaido is really a cold place so be prepared for sudden snow and change of weather. Otherwise it is a very beautiful place.