My vacation is over.  I had a great time in Japan.  I’d been to Tokyo for about 10 times in the last 6 years and this was my first time to Hokkaido.  I think I like Hokkaido better than Tokyo.  It’s not because this was my first visit but the people in Hokkaido is more relaxed v.s. people in Tokyo seems like they are in hurry.

Communicate with Japanese

Basically, 70% of the people in Japan do not speak English (or they are afraid to speak English it seems).  I can only speak a few words in Japanese but can hardly understand what they response so we used the most basic language in the world - Body Language.  Most restuarants in Tokyo have English menu or Picture menu if they don’t so ordering food would not be a problem as we only need to point what we would like to order on the menu.  However, in Hokkaido, almost every shops and restuarants would have at least one person who can speak English.  Their culture, “Prolite”, remain the same even when they are speaking English.

How would I rate my trip

I would rate this trip at 9 with a scale of 0 - 10.  We had fun and the food was delicious, especially Ramen, we couldn’t find any restuarants that serve bad ramen.  Hakkaido supplies most of the milk in Japan and their milk is so rich comparing to North America, they their dairy products are very good as well.  Those are “must try” if you are visiting Japan.

I will soon write down some tips, and how/where we went in Japan for anyone who is planning to go to Japan and explore the cities on your own.

Yes, we are going to another city in Hakkaido again.  We are going to a city named Hakodate, one of the famous cities for Onsens (hot spring spa) in Japan.  You can take Japan Rail (JR) train from Otaru to Hakodate, which takes about 4 hours and 45 mins and cost 8,920 YEN per direction.  Since we are a group of six so we decided to rent a mini-van in Otaru to Hakodate, which cost us 23,000 including taxes and insurance for 2 days 1 night, and 10,300 YEN toll for the free way round trip and another 10,000 YEN for gas, and it’s about 5 hours driving.  In this case, we saved about 8,000 YEN per person.

Rent a car in Japan

In order to drive in Japan, you will need a to apply for a International Driving Permit before you leave your home country, and a credit card.  Simular to rent a car in anywhere in North America, you can make a reservation of a vehicle online before head.  You will pay the fee by credit card when you pick up.  Make sure you cancel the booking if you change your mind not picking up the car as of the agreement of the reservation, otherwise, penalties will be charged.

Enjoying Onsen right in our rooms

The hotel that we were staying was in front of the the ocean and we booked the rooms with private onsens in our rooms so we can enjoy the onsen with privacy.  I’ve mentioned before, in Japanese culture, you are required to take a shower before going into the spa and you have to be naked.  Although, it is separate for Men and Women spa, we still not get use to this “naked” culture.  With a private onsen in our rooms, we can enjoy the onsen convertibility

The hotel was great and we enjoyed our stay.  The hotel accommodation rate covered a Japanese Style dinner with 9 dishes (including desert) and a buffie breakfast, and free parking if you are driving.

Whats famous in Hakodate other than Onsen?

At night, we went to the down town of Hakodate, and we drove up to the top of the hill for the night view of Hakodate. (Cable car is availble if you are not driving)  The the night view of Hakodate is one of the best 3 in the world.

We will be going to the fish market located at the downtown of Hakodate (near JR station) next morning for fresh Sashimi!!

The hotel room

The private Onsen in our rooms with full ocean view

The night view of Hakodate from the hill

On the 8th morning, we took JR train to a harbour city, Otaru.  The train from Sapporo Station to Otaru station was 620 Yen per person and the ride (rapid express) is 36 mins.

When we checked out at Keio Plaza Sapporo, we left our luggage at the front desk for storage since we will be coming back to Keio Plaza Sapporo on the 10th, and we can travel to Otaru with the stuff that we need for next 2 nights.  When we arrived JR Otaru Station, we walked to our hotel Sonia II which is in front of the canal.  The hotel is about 8 minutes walking from the train station.

After we checked in our hotel, we went to a restaurant for lunch.  We had prawn, uni, samon, tuna (TORO) sashimi, Hokkaido king crab (KANI) miso soup, and BBQ scallop.  The restaurant  is just around the corner from the hotel, and it is on the way on our right when we walk from the train station to our hotel.

Regular Sightseeing Bus

There is a Sightseeing Bus in Otaru city and Shakotan that goes around most of the attractions, and you can always get the information from the front desk of the hotel that you are staying.  We choosed to take the train to Minami Otaru Station to the far end and visit all the shops and attractions along the Ironai 1-chome.  We visited Music Box Musiem, their shop has hundreds of different music box for sale and on the third floor, you can make your own unique music box with 250 different musics you can choose from.  In Otaru, you can find a lot of shops that sell product of glass, they are very famous.

The following picture of the canal is taken by our hotel at night.

We left Tokyo at 8 a.m. from the Hotel and take the flight from Hanada Airport to Sapporo Chitose Airport.  Then we took the airport shuttle from the airport to our hotel, Keio Plaza Hotel Sapporo.  The ride was about 80 minutes and during the trip, the shuttle had multiple stops within Sapporo Central Area and it was kind of a city tour

We arrived at the hotel at about 4 p.m this afternoon.  After we checked in the hotel, we started to explore the city.  The hotel is about 5 minutes walking from the Sapporo JR station and about 3 minutes walking to Subway stations.  By the JR station, there are 2 malls and four or five department stores.  We started our stopping in one of the mall by the JR station.  On the 10th floor, there is a Ramen Kingdom, which has more than 6 different Ramen restuarants.

We were shopping until 7 p.m. and we took the subway Namboku Line to Susukino station (2 stops) to a Japanese Style Beef BBQ restuarant for our dinner.  We had a good time, and the following is a picture of the night view from my hotel room.

My friends and I went to the Tokyo Car Show 2007 today.  We left our hotel at 9am, we took the Japan Rail (JR) from Tokyo Station with “Keiyo Line” to the Kaihimmakuhari Station.  The Exhibition Center is about 5 minutes walking from the station.  The ticket was 1,100 Yen when purchased online or 1,300 Yen at gate.

The car show includes modern technologies, Commercial Vehicles, Bikes, and most importantly, Cars.  In the car show, you will see a lot of cars that you’ve never seen in N. America, as they are available in Japan only.  Besides the cars, the show girls are also attractive.  Whenever there is a show girl describing the cars, there must be a crowd surrounding and taking pictures.

How many air bags in your car? 

You will never have enough air bags in your car comparing to this model.

Environment Friendly Race Car

Usually, race cars are lots of horse power and consume a lot of fuel during races, how about a hybrid race car?

Funny Concepts.

During the car show, car manufacturers are showing off their concept cars.  There are lots of cool concepts as well as funny looking concepts.  The following is one of the funny concept cars made by Nissan.

Pretty Race Queens

Porsche is always my favorite, and most excitingly, the have a GT2 for display and I’m lucky enough to sneak to the front and took some picture of the car and the pretty show girls.

Super Cars

Besides Porsche there are a few Japanese super cars that I like, for example Skyline GT-R (Grey) and Subaru Impreza STI rally edition (blue).

We stayed until 4:00 pm and I enjoyed the show

Almost every airlines have their travel reward programs; for instance, Air Canada offers Aeroplan, AAvantage from American Airlines, Asiamiles and Marcopolo Club from Cathay Pacific, etc.

Which travel reward program is the best of all?

In order to answer this question, you will need to answer the following questions: how frequent are you traveling in 2 or 3 years; which cities are you traveling the most; which airline will you travel the most; are you traveling alone or with friends and family.

Most travel reward programs are basically accumulate points by flying with its own airlines or their partnered carriers. There is no single reward program is the best, but there should be a program that is most suitable for you.

In General, most airlines are separated into 2 groups: One World, Star Alliance. If you are a member of a airline’s reward program, you will most likely will eligible to accumulate points by traveling with any carriers within the same group.

Howerver, each program has different rules in regards of points required to redeem tickets, expiry date on points accummulated, points allow to be transfered to another account or not, etc. You should join the reward program offered by the airline that you will travel the most, it is because you should be able to accummulate the most points from the travel; next if you are traveling with family or friends, all travelers should consider joinning the same reward programs that would allow points to be transferred to your friend’s or family’s at no or minimum cost, in this case, you will be able to redeem reward by grouping the points together, JAL Mileage Bank is a great example of this case, they offer Family Club which will allow you to pay USD30/Year to group all the points in the accounts of your direct family members. Last but not the least, if you are not traveling frequently and you predict that you would not be able to accummulate enough points to redeem air tickets; then you should look join the reward programs that would allow you to redeem gifts as well as tickets. There are different factors that you should consider before you decide which reward program you should join.

My buddies and I have been planning for our November trip to Sapporo, Japan for months; and it’s time to finalize it, so I went to my travel agency to issue our air tickets.

We are taking Japan Airline from vancouver to Sapporo; however, we’ll have a transit at Tokyo, Japan as JAL only operate direct flights between Vancouver and Tokyo. We decided to stopover at Tokyo for 3 nights before we head to Sapporo.

We are going to stay at Sapporo for 5 days in 3 different hotels and one of them is the Japanese Spa resort.

Japan is well-known for its many volcanoes, and consequently there are a lot of hot springs (onsen) all over Japan. It is very relaxing to take a bath in hot springs, and Japanese people like to spend holidays in hot springs. There are many different kinds of hot springs depending on the amount and kinds of minerals in the water. The way of bathing in a hot spring is same as that of public bath. The baths are usually separated for women and men. You are supposed to take all your clothes off. Usually people do not wear bathing suit in hot springs in Japan. I’ve been Japan a few times and I love bathing in Hot springs.

I’m so excited cause it’ll be my first time visiting Saporro.