[10D9N] Winter Holiday at Hokkaido

It's Day 2 at Tommau The Tower!
 

Our room stay was inclusive of breakfast, and we headed down to the cafe to enjoy the buffet spread! There was a wide variety of western and traditional Japanese food selections. I liked the Tonkatsu Ramen and Mentaiko on White Japanese rice the best! 

We checked out around 11am, and we left our luggage with the concierge. We began various snow activities as the bus to Sapporo was only in the evening. The resort provides a complimentary shuttle bus to the Gondola station, in order to visit the top of a snow covered area called the UNAKI TERRACE.

We took the Unkai Gondola to the Terrace of the Frost Tree, and the ride took about 15mins. WOW! I was totally blown away by the unbelievable all-white scenery. The pure white trees covered in glistening snow against the backdrop of the mountains were SO picturesque! I couldn't believe my eyes!

The Unkai Terrace offers popular attractions like the ‘Cloud Walk’, which gives one a feeling as if they were literally walking on clouds! There were various other similar overlooking decks and walking trails as well. When we were at the Cloud Walk, the wind was so strong! We had a hard time staying upright and keeping our balance against the wind and slippery paths!

We were feeling adventurous, so we decided to take up the snowmobile activity! If you are ever here, please try it out as it is relatively safe. You do not need to worry, even if you are a first timer as there will be a guide to accompany you and give you a full lesson/tutorial on how to operate the snow mobile. The guide will then lead you as well on a snow mobile tour to explore the very beautiful snow fields near the resort. It's a great way for the whole family to discover the natural beauty of Tomamu!

At first, I was riding pretty slowly by taking a slow speed, but once i got used to the operation of the snowmobile, I gradually increased my speed to savor the sensation of zooming across the vast fields of soft powder snow!

 

Hoshino Resorts TOMAMU is truly an outstanding place for the most memorable winter vacation. It’s definitely one of those places I’ll re-visit again and again. The facilities are well-maintained, the rooms are spacious and there are a lot of activities to keep you occupied (even if you don’t ski). The resort is suitable for first-timers and beginners to learn skiing too! 

I picked up a Tomamu souvenir from Gashapon Machine, and was lucky to get the Ice Village Figurine!

 

We had scheduled our Shinkansen back to Sapporo at 4.30pm, so we went back to the hotel lobby to have some refreshments before taking the shuttle bus back to Tomamu JR Station. The journey back to Sapporo was around 2hours-ish. We checked in to the same hotel - ‘Mitsui Garden Hotel, Sapporo' for a night. 

We had a simple dinner at the food court at Sapporo JR Tower.

Before ending my night in Sapporo, we went to try our luck with the claw machines again. Yay! We did it again. We won 2 medium-Sized toys - Dumbo and Mrs Potato Head. Thanks for coming home with me!

The next morning, after a simple breakfast, we proceeded to do last minute shopping in Downtown Sapporo. Our flight heading to Tokyo, Japan was being scheduled at night, which means we had a whole day in Sapporo. We went shopping at Tanukikoji Shopping Arcade, and it is an approximate 1km-long arcade with around 200 shops that runs from the east to the west in Sapporo city.

We visited Suage+ for a late lunch. At Suage+, they serve Food deep fried without batter, and the vegetables are chopped in big portions and had their unique style of having some items skewered. 

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The soup curry tasted magnificent, and we loved it very much! The damage was pretty reasonable too! 

It was time to leave Hokkaido for our connecting flight back to Singapore from Tokyo. We took the JR Train to the New Chitose Airport. We had our dinner at the airport before heading to Tokyo for a 2-hr lay-over.

 

At last, I have come to my final post of my 10-day Hokkaido holiday. Thanks so much for reading up on my experiences during my trip. Time really flies, as it has now been 3 months+ since I came back from Hokkaido. Till we meet again, JAPAN!