Japan Trip 2010 - Part 1

[This post is a first part of the three-part blog post on my trip to Japan.]

Hi everyone. I have been busy the past 3 months and haven't got a chance to update my blog. Sorry, folks. Now that my schedule is getting a bit better, I am going to share with you some of my trips in the past few months. To start off, I am going to talk about my Japan trip.

Why did I go to Japan? Well, whenever I visit Hong Kong, I would go visit some places with my family trip. Since my mum really likes Japan, we decided to join a 5-day tour with Worldwide Package Travel Service (縱橫遊) to go to Hokkaido, Japan this time. I definitely would have preferred visiting there without joining a tour but I guess next time. If anyone wants to visit there, let me know :).

A street in Sapporo (you can still see some snow).

Let's talk about the trip. On the first day, we flew from Hong Kong to Chitose (千歳). After some crazy snow delays, we landed in Chitose and went straight to Sapporo (札幌). On a side note, Hokkaido is really cold in January (well, compared to Seattle) and it was all covered in snow. It really reminded me of those Boston snow days. I don't miss them :).

Anyway, Sapporo is just like any other city - nothing special :). The dinner was pretty good though - we had Shabu-Shabu. As most folks know, I am not a big fan of Shabu-Shabu but we got to try out those A5 wagyu (和牛), and man, they were AWESOME! I highly recommended them. I was told that Japan doesn't export A5 wagyu so you can really only have them in Japan. They are expensive but I think for a once in a lifetime experience, you have to try it. For the vegetarians, I am sorry :).

We went back to our hotel (Sapporo Excel Hotel Tokyo) after dinner and then the highlight of the day began - late-night food hopping in the city. Japan has lots of awesome food and you can find some even in convenience stores. So what did we have? We had some Ramen, Takoyaki, dumplings, some buns, and some dessert. It was amazing! Too bad I was already somewhat full from the dinner or I would have eaten more! We called it the day at 1am...

For part 2, please go here.