Asahikawa

We woke up the next day to head to Asahikawa, we had to brave the snow so early in the morning. It was both magical and brutal as the walk towards the train station was quite a way. We had to make a quick pitstop at one of the supermarkets to get some breakfast. Eventually, we made it to the main bus terminal back in Sapporo station where we got our tickets and got ready for the long bus ride to Asahikawa.

Jesse played Pokemon Mystery Dungeons on her 3DS while I enjoyed watching the scenery unfolding before me as our bus headed into the city outskirts where you could see nothing but white all the way, trees were covered almost all the way in snow and at times blizzards would come in obstructing absolutely everything.

After a long bus ride, we finally made it to Asahikawa. We took a bus going towards the river where Asahikawa's own Snow Festival was being held. They had their own snow sculptures, the largest one being quite reminiscent of a giant snow fortress. There were a lot more activities in this snow festival, we slid down an ice slide, rode on a banana boat that drifted on the slippery icey snow and enjoyed going in and out of the various snow houses that were used by ethnic people.

We went back to the station afterwards and had some buttercorn ramen, one of Hokkaido's specialty foods. I wanted to go to another Snow Festival but it didn't seem like we had the time therefore we opted to go to the famous Asahikawa Zoo instead. Which proved to be a wise choice, as I absolutely adore animals, and we were able to see a lot of animals that were native to this part of Japan including wolves, tanuki, penguins and bears. As the sunset, the cold became increasingly sharp, my hands and cheeks was becoming quite unbearably uncomfortable. We finally got on our bus to Asahikawa and switched to another one going back to Sapporo where we were able to rest.

Yuji was waiting for us back in Sapporo and he took us to a curry soup restaurant, another of Sapporo's interesting delicacies. We treated him as thanks for hosting us as we shared some lively and fun conversations. He took us back to his place where we were able to get another awesome night routine with his wonderful bath and comfy futons.Read more