Kutchan
Day 11 of Japan 2017 trip
Snowy Streets of Hakodate
The day after Christmas and we were due for our road trip across the island to the ski town of Kutchan.
Leaving Hakodate
I must say, if yesterday was bad. Today was absolutely shocking. Weather was terrible. It was bucketing snow.
Adrian was to be the driver as I didn't have an IDP and he had just got his Japanese driver's licence. We ended up leaving Hakodate at around 10am as the weather started to calm down.
In hindsight it probably wasn't wise to drive under these conditions. We went on the expressway but it was only 40km/h which even then felt quite fast. Then later we opted to just take the regular road as it would save costs and we weren't really going very fast either. I was not really anticipating it taking this long to travel a mere 185kms. But yeah blizzard conditions.
Uchiura Bay and Oshamanbe
Snowy drive along the coast of Uchiura Bay
Really snowy conditions on the road
Around about 11am the weather started to actually clear up. That wasn't without problems as the deadly combination of black ice and wind literally blew us to the opposite side of the road twice. After 2 hours we had managed to travel 100km to the town of Oshamanbe where we stopped for lunch. It was a very homely restaurant named, Kodawari, and looked to be your typical family run restaurant. The older lady who served us was very hospitable and led us to our private eating area with screen door and tatami mats.
Kodawari in the town of Oshamanbe
Me and Adrian ordered the Special ramen, a Shoyu based ramen dish.
Hirosaki Castle
After some time we quickly set off on the road again.
Kutchan
For the next 5 nights we were to stay in the Boken Kazoku Ryokan just outside the town of Kutchan. The accommodation was an old school converted into a hostel and run by a Mr Anan and his wife. Mr Anan, his wife and their staff of foreign working holiday makers made us feel very much welcome into their Ryokan. Things I did note about this place is that the whole place isn't heated, only the rooms. The corridors and such were like -2 degrees that we had to walk through.
Later in the evening we hopped in the car to Niseko resort to hire our gear from Niseko Base snowsports. This is my first time skiing in Japan and I was surprised that at NBS, basically all the staff were foreigners. In fact they were mostly Australian. But then again Niseko and Rusutsu is basically apparently overrun with Australians. Due to my experiences earlier at Kakunodate and the fact that Hokkaido is basically littered with snow, I opted to hire some snow boots too along with my ski hire.
Interior of ごまそば処 うさぎ家
Tonkatsu with Soba
For dinner we ate at a soba restaurant (ごまそば処 うさぎ家) where I ordered tonkatsu (pork) with soba.
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