Sabbactical 2023/24

After arriving in Yogyakarta (or „Yogya“ for short), I went for a 2-hour walk 🚶‍♂️through the city centre and Maliboro Street and aligned with some other travellers on renting a car 🚙 with a driver for a day to go to some waterfalls 💦 and caves.

On the next day, we met at 8 am for breakfast 🍳 at a café that was located right in the middle between our hostels. Our driver had some issues with his car battery 🪫 and was therefore late to pick us up but we weren’t in a rush. Approximately 9 am we started our tour. The waterfalls are in the Javanese mountains 🏔️ and the car had its fair share of difficulties getting up the steep serpentines - we barely made it without getting out of the car and pushing it 😅
But the trouble was definitely worthwhile: the waterfalls were really amazing and we were basically alone there! We spent almost an hour in that tiny paradise 🌴
For lunch 🍵, we went to a nice restaurant „in the middle of the jungle“ that our driver has recommended. This place was so nice and quiet - quite the opposite to the noisy and bustling Yogya 😌
In the afternoon, we visited one of the nearby and impressive caves before we drove back to the city. I was really surprised by its size. When advertised, the cave did not play a big role but it was definitely worth the visit. Back in Yogya, I stayed at the hostel of my fellow travellers until dinner, since they were in a much nicer neighbourhood than me. A chicken teriyaki and a couple of beers 🍻 later (it was already past midnight), I headed back to my hostel and fell into my bed after a long and eventful day 😴😊Meer informatie

My first day in Sapporo was a rainy and cold day. So, it was time for another museum 😌
I took my time that morning and left the Hostel only at noon. First, I visited the Sapporo Beer museum 🍺 and learned that Sapporo was the first location in Japan to brew beer. In the 19th century a Japanese man named Seibei Nakagawa with a passion for beer brewing went to Germany 🇩🇪, learned the craft and obtained a brewing diploma. He would become the first brewing master of Japan 🇯🇵 and would lay the basis for what is known as Sapporo beer today. The history of the Sapporo brand is extensive and for obvious reasons I cannot recite the contents presented by the museum here. If you are interested, you can Google it yourself 🤓 There are plenty of good resources on the internet, like this one: https://www.sapporobeer.jp/english/company/hist…
After learning about Sapporo Breweries history, it was time for a tasting sample - it was a bit weird that I had to pay for it (only 6-7 EUR though) but then again - there was no admission fee to the museum. So, I guess this balances that out 😝
Then I turned to the „Beer garden“ which was actually just a bunch of indoor restaurants - not comparable with a proper German beer garden. But that day I was completely fine with indoor restaurants 😅 and had one more Black Label Sapporo beer as well as one of their dark beers - accompanied by an all-you-can-eat Yakiniku (grilled lamb). It was really good. I ate 5 plates of meat 🥩 with rice and char-grilled vegetables. I was so full afterwards, I didn’t need anything else until the next day at lunchtime 😱😂
After that culinary feast, there was nothing more to do that day than going back to the hostel and planning what I would do the next day. The weather was still sh** 🤨 It literally was raining the whole day. In the hostel I met my roommate again and we had some more beers 🍻 and also some Sake 🍶Nevertheless, I went to bed early that day since I wanted to visit the Blue Pond in remote Shirogane (3 hours with public transport) on the next morning.

I got up at 6 am the next morning. The weather in Sapporo was nice - blue skies and sunshine ☀️ - but the closer I came to my destination for the day, the more cloudy, gray and snowy it became. 😒
I took the limited express from Sapporo to Asahikawa and then the connecting local train 🚂 to Biei. I had only 3 min. to change between the trains and I had to run 🏃 to stilI catch it. Later, Manuel (a German guy from the Frankenthal region that I met at the Blue Pond) would tell me that the train was actually already a couple minutes late ⏰ The next train to Biei would only have run about 2 hours later! So, I was lucky 🍀😅
From Biei it was another 25 min. bus ride to the Blue Pond. Meanwhile, it was heavily snowing ❄️ while I waited for the bus. At the Blue Pond however the weather calmed down and I got the opportunity to take some really nice photos - even though it was still cloudy ⛅️
After talking to Manuel for a bit and taking some photos for each other in front of the Blue Pond we headed back to the Bus station 🚏In total we were only maybe 20 min. there but besides the Blue Pond there is really not much at this place. We could have walked to 3 km far away „Shirugane Onsen“ (which implies there is a hot spring) but the bus 🚌 was coming soon and it runs only every three hours. So, we went back to Asahikawa for lunch 🍜 Since Manuel spent already a few days in Asahikawa and knew the place quite well, I let him pick the Ramen restaurant we would go to and with some luck we ended up in probably the one of the most famous Ramen restaurant in town (here is the link: http://www.goramen.com/2009/05/ramen-house-aoba…) 😝Even the Japanese president was eating there once; which has been captured on one of the many photos in the wall. Well done, Manuel 👍
Manuel is a cool guy and I would say we were from the start on the same wave length. He is also traveling to the south during the next weeks but already leaves Japan 🇯🇵 towards the end of November. Therefore his schedule is pretty fixed while I still try to stay flexible. However, there is a possibility to meet again in Osaka in a few days. Thats why we exchanged our contact details 📬
In the afternoon, I went to Starbucks in Asahikawa and while I drank a large hot coffee ☕️ I planned/organized transportation and accommodation for the next few days. Only then, I made the decision to visit nearby Fukushima next. It is supposed to be a good spot for exploration of the Samurai culture 🗡️ and for hiking in a colorful autumn landscapes 🍁 There was no cheap option for accommodation though - at least not for men. The one hostel in the region had only dorms for women 😢 So, I booked a Japanese-style private room (for approximately 70 EURs a night) that looks really nice on the internet. I am already excited to spend two nights there. 😊
Before sunset, I went back to Sapporo and briefly visited the Hokkaido University 🎓 during the blue hour (for those who don’t know: that is the time when the sun has already set but the sky is still light to medium blue. It is the best time to shoot some nice looking photos 📸 in the evening because the contrast between the sky and the light from street lamps etc. is not yet too high).
In the evening I also met my roommate in the hostel again. Among many other topics, we were arguing about which system is better: the imperial system (inches, feet, yards etc.) vs the metric system (centimeters, meters, kilometers etc.) 📐 Of course, both of us were convinced that „our“ system was better than the other one but I believe it is mostly due to being accustomed to one or the other. Anyways, my takeaway from that conversation 🗣️ is the following: while the imperial system might be better for practical everyday life tasks, the metric system seems to be a better fit for scientific purposes. DON'T challenge me on that! I had enough discussions of the topic for the next couple of weeks 😅

Today I left Sapporo - but not before visiting Nakajima Park in its south. Its trees were not covered in snow yet and were still carrying colorful leaves 🍁 The park has even a small pond in its center in the north which contributed a great deal to the photos I took. After a coffee ☕️ and some sweets 🥯 from a bakery in Sapporo Station, I boarded a limited express to Shin-Hakodate-Hokuto. This finalizes my excursion to Hokkaido already. The cold and wet weather forces me down south again. That’s why I am on my way to Fukushima (on Honshu) now.Meer informatie