My winter trip to HOKKAIDO

The spring break of Japanese university is incredibly long! If your course ends early, you can even have more than two months of vacation spanning winter and spring. As a graduate student, my research never stops no matter semester or break. But I still arrange a week in the period of Emergency declaration off to go North…

Hokkaido is a place full of romance and mystery. There are legends of the original Ainu tribe, Otaru where the love letter was filmed, five great national parks. Oh yeah, it is also the production site of the famous Sapporo beer. My trip starts from the capital city of Hokkaido, Sapporo and go around the central area by Niseko, Toya Lake, Noboribetsu and finally back to Sapporo. You can see from map that I only visit extremely small area even in a week-long trip. Maybe next time you can arrange one month to tour the whole of Hokkaido.

When I set off from Narita airport, Sapporo had the last heavy snowfall of the snow season which made me spend four leisure hours in airport. But once I stand on the land of Sapporo, I know that every hour of waiting is worthy. Even though it snows every winter in my hometown, the snow that was more than one person high on the side of the road in Sapporo gives me a great shock. The whole city was full of white decoration and heavy snow that make visibility within 3 meters falls time to time. I bet people born in South area will leave unforgettable memories here. The following picture was taken from Hokkaido Shrine which is the Northmost shrine of Japan.

After one day causal visit in Sapporo city, made our way to Otaru, a city famous with ports, canals and movie Love Letter. But when I was talking to residents, I was shocked to find that most people had not watched this movie and this movie may only phenomenal popular among China. Then I traveled to Shikotsu-Toya National Park, one of 30 national parks of Japan. My first stop in the national park is Toya Lake, a near circular lake which is10 kilometers in diameter from east–west and 9 kilometers from north–south. And it’s also feature that an island (Nakajima Island) formed by volcanic ash is set in the central of lake. There is a Lake Museum located in the Nakajima Island, but it is closed due to lack of visitors during pandemic. By the way, during my trip, I encountered many facilities that were closed due to the epidemic. And I deeply hope we can soon see the Hokkaido which full of visitors as norm as soon as possible.

After visiting the last place of our plan, famous spring town Noboribetsu, I returned to Sapporo to take a flight and ended this week of travel. Before leaving, I chatted with an old man at the airport. He told me about the snow season in Hokkaido sometimes more than four months. And plants accumulate energy in the land during the long snow season. So in summer Hokkaido will be full of beautiful flowers and fully covered with vegetation. I hope I could make another trip in mid-summer and see another charming style of Hokkaido.