Chiangmai is so fun!
So many things to do and see and to buy too! Simply unforgettable. I love this city so much that I am determined to return to buy some of the most unique stuff that I have never seen anywhere else before. I am glad that I bought them here at Chiangmai!
Day 1
We were in Chiangmai (CM) to celebrate my 57th birthday. We touched down at the airport safely after a bumpy ride on the plane.
Realizing that we had only brought about RM1.5k worth of baht with us we had to save money. We rejected the offer of the airport van (300 bt) for a drive to our hotel in town. Finally we found a tuk-tuk who will take us to Holiday Inn for only 150 bt.
Lesson 1 - take the tuk-tuk if you do not have too many bags. We only took one suitcase and 2 backpacks with us. There are also taxis that do not charge a bomb.
We took a walk to the market near the hotel for lunch. We bought some delicious packed salads for only 150 bt at the market and also ate delicious white tomyam. I have not eaten white tomyam for a long long time. Usually the tomyam back home is the red tomyam with the coconut spiciness. For the first time after more than 20 years, I tasted white tomyam. The taste was sourish but just how I like it. Thai food has lots of vegetables, basil leaves and sprouts. Very healthy.
We resolved to come back to the market for lunch again as the tomyam was yummy!
At the hotel, I rested my knees as it was not check in time yet while T walked to the Waroro market to buy black garlic. He came back with more than black garlic, he also brought some dried longan. Dried longan tasted horrid. Like something stale and kept in the store for a long time.
I prefer to soak them in water till they looked like normal longan!
I slept at the lobby from 12 - 2 pm.
The hotel staff was kind to let us check in early. After sleeping till about 4 pm, we took the hotel van (to save costs) to the Wua Lai market. This walking night market is about 1.4 km long. To walk from end to end (slow walk) is about 2 hours or more. You need to rest in between if you have knee problems like me. However by God's grace I was not in pain as much as before. I did not even wear my braces. I enjoyed every stall. Unique and inventive stuff were being sold at this night market.
Wua Lai is only a weekend market thus you need to be in CM on a Sat to experience it.
At WL we ate tungfun, fruit juices (very cheap at 50 bt) and healthy. I decided to stop halfway through as the market was just too long. While I ate spring roll, T continued his adventure.
Many unique things are sold here. A lot of them was handmade stuff and reflected the cottage industry of CM.
I saw a really nice wallet for 170 bt but hesitated to buy as I wanted to bargain to 150 bt. The young lady said she made them herself and refused to reduce further. Regretted not buying it as I could not find a similar wallet. It was beautiful with lots of flowery designs and many pockets for cards (which is important for me as I have over 10 cards that I carry everywhere with me!).
However I prayed for God to help me find it at Ratchadamnoen. God is great and He heard my prayer. Will share later on this.
Halfway walking at the market, the Thai national anthem started playing. Everyone froze. We stood up and listen to the anthem. It was so respectful of the Thais. I was so touched by this.
I waited at a market place where a young man with his set of amplifiers played English and Thai songs all night long. Many foreigners gave him money as they passed by. Save that the sound was too loud for my ear drums, it was a good place for me to rest.
Almost 2 hours passed and I was getting worried. The hotel van will come back at 9 pm. If T was late, we would have to take a tuk-tuk back as we could ill afford it as our funds were limited.
Lesson 2 - when travelling to CM make sure you carry at least 30k bt if you love to shop, shop like me!
T came back in time. He bought a wooden handphone stand cum amplifier. It was handmade but really awesome. I loved it so much so I asked T to go back and buy me another one. That was the mistake. The crowd had swelled so much by then that people jam prevented him from coming back fast enough.
I prayed really hard for T to make it in time with my handphone amplifier! Finally I saw his head bobbing among the crowds. We walked really fast from the middle of the market to the pick-up place. We just made it!
But what a priceless find! I was so fascinated by this wooden amplifier for my handphone. I have tried many times to download a sound booster from playstore but none worked. The sound from my phone was still not up the volume I wanted. This was especially important when I wanted to listen to youtube messages.
Finally when T brought me this amplifier and I put my phone on it I could hear a distinct loudness! It was just simple invention. A handmade amplifier with small holes like netting at the one side of the wooden box that if you insert your handphone the right side up, sounds coming from the phone will be louder than normal. Now I needed this particularly as sometimes (due to some hearing loss) I find it hard to hear my 5 am alarm.
What a wonderful first day!
This is our last day in Hokkaido and we made our way to Furano a town famous for lavenders. As it was not the season for lavenders, the famous Farm Tomita was quiet and there were no visitors.
During Autumn rows and rows of colored lavenders ideal for photo taking were planted and the place would be packed with holiday makers. We only found shop selling lavender soaps, fragrance, eye mask and all things made of lavender!
We decided to visit a few places in Furano:
1. Furano Marche or Market where we had our lunch
2. Furano Cheese Factory - we sampled all kinds of cheeses at this factory
3. Furano Winery - we sampled all kinds of wine and visited the wine cellar
We also visited Noboribetsu, a place that's akin to hell valley. It became famous for the namesake because of the desolate landscape - eerie and haunting the landscape loomed up before our face. We saw brown and barren mountain sides with fissures scattered here and there from which arise steam from the ground.
It's called hell valley because it looked the hell. I wonder how people know what hell looked like for them to be able to name this place after it.
The town of Noboribetsu had a huge statute of the devil looming at its entrance. I was not comfortable entering into the town. Other than the hell valley attractions, we visited Ninja Village, a Ninja themed park.
We also waited till nightfall to view the beautiful Ningle Terrace, traditional small wooden shops linked by wooden pathways selling art and craft stuff. At night, lamps lighted up the shops and the whole Terrace become a photographers paradise!
We ended the night at Makiko's place the only Airbnb that was like a home. Makiko set aside a room to rent out to tourists. The outstanding thing about this place was that M was a Christian! Her house was just opposite her church, the Green Chapel!
She also kept 3 big fat cats that have the run of her house!
M served us a wonderful breakfast of bread, eggs, tomatoes, sausages, coffee and tea. It was the best breakfast that we had so far.
What a great way to end our holiday! Farewell Hokkaido, you will always be in our hearts!
We awoke bright and early. It was really cold but we made our way to Hokkaido University. However we were not allowed to go in for pictures and sightseeing. What were we looking for? Cherry blossoms, of course!
We spoke a foreign student from India (on bicycle) who advised us to visit Maruyama. He said that we will find a lot more cherry blossoms there. On his advice, we made our way there again. This time, I rented a wheelchair as I had knee pains and Tim gently pushed me to see the cherry blossoms. It was beautiful. One particular tree really stood out. It was simply blooming white and pink flowers among all the other trees.
There is something biblical about cherry blossoms. The Bible talks about the flowers that bloom for a while and the next day is thrown into the fire. Yet despite the flowers being temporarily growing in the field, God still clothe them with many colors and make them beautiful. In Hokkaido, they bloom only a week in May and for one day in that week, the flowers reach its full bloom. After that the flowers begin to shed the petals and fall to the ground.
God spoke to me that my life is like the cherry blossoms, it is only temporary. However I will surely peak in this life and bloom in full color and splendor. God says that yet in this short life when I bloom, I must really bloom for the Lord in whatever seasons or age. I must really shine for His glory that others may see the beauty in me like the cherry blossoms.
After Maruyama, we decided to visit Shiroi Kobita, chocolate factory. Here we encountered Japanese discipline like no other. The Japanese are simply discipline and they expect others to do the same. From separating their trash to combustible, non combustible and plastics, they lined up patiently to go into car parks. The morning we were at Shiroi we tried to jump the queue. In Malaysia, our habit is to cut into the parking lots from the other side of the road without regard to the cars that had already lined up to go into the parking.
Tim tried to drive the car to the other side of the road and got the coldest glare from the extremely well dressed parking attendant. Not only that he put out his hands like a X indicating a big NO!
We had to dutifully follow the snaking line of cars and follow instructions. Tim dropped us at the entrance and we waited for him while he parked a distance away.
The chocolate factory is interesting. We took a tour of the floors and watched how deliciously thin cookies were made sandwiched with Hokkaido milk. They were delicious. Japanese cookies at Shiroi Kobito tasted light with a melt in the mouth goodness. Here I bought many gifts for friends and family.
This place reminded us of the movie Charlie & the Chocolate factory. Shiroi has some amazing and beautiful landscapes for photo taking. At 5 pm when the clock tower sounds, figurines of chefs and animals will show on the clock tower and play the closing music for us!
After Shiroi (we had lunch at the cafe), we then made our way to Esta for dinner. We heard from P and G that in Esta there were shops after shops of ramen. Indeed we saw a group of shops selling ramen and soba. We were spoilt for choice!
End of day 6.
In the morning, we made the move to Curb Market to shop and have our brunch. We were sad to leave Hayashi's beautiful house which looked like a perpetual Christmas house with its Christmas tree and snowman outside.
A suggested that we go to Curb Market for lunch. I bought sotong and small crabs for friends back home. I love to browse for stuff at the market as you would have ample opportunities to try all the unique gooey Japanese knick knacks some of which I do not really know what they are made of!
In fact you could sample and sample and be quite full as a result of the sampling!
The sotong is really genuine, smelly and fishy, the were really good tasty stuff. I love sotong especially with all kinds of flavoring!
For brunch we had crab soup, steamed fish, sashimi, rice and fish roe, seaweed soup. By far our most expensive meal.
After Curb Market, we went to the Hokkaido Beer Museum. As I am not to keen on beers, I opted to go for tea latte at a nearby supermarket, Ario. Is at down and Starbucks and drank green tea latte. Delicious. I discovered google translate and used it to ask for directions to a pharmacy. T and A joined me later for another round of tea latte!
We later went to Sapporo Art Park. I opted not to move around as the terrain was really unfriendly to my osteo knees. I managed only to see some sculptures. It is an open air Art Park with many interesting and unique sculptures. At about 5 pm (closing time) we had to leave without finishing looking at all the sculptures!
We then drove to Moiwayama another beautiful mountain in Japan. We had to take 2 trains to go to the top. The first train was a bigger train and the second train a smaller train. The trains were packed. Our plans to take dinner and enjoy the view did not materialize as the restaurant at the peak was booked for a private function.
But Moiwayama (voted one of Japan's top 3 mountain views) was stunning and did not disappoint at all. Although it was extremely cold, many people braved the cold to wait for the sun to set. When the sky was dark all of Sapporo lighted up before us. Just so so beautiful sight! For sure no such sight in Malaysia!
Rushing to go home, we thought we could beat the queue by taking a lift down to the ground floor. To our amazement the human queue snaked down from the place where we had a fantastic view, the 3rd floor. Sheepishly we had to make our way up again and lined up obediently for the next one hour. This is self-discipline in Japan! No cutting queue!
We finally made it to Miwa's house. We were to stay 2 nights there to visit the scenes and sights of Sapporo. A very small apartment with a very small toilet with practically nowhere to put up our clothes, we were gripping that the radiator was hot, the clothes rack was insufficient and the bed was flat!
End of day 5.
Day 3 and we woke up bright and early at Hayashi's place. We had entered Sapporo in the night and had a good night rest.
We drove to Siecomart (a lot of these convenience stores in Japan) to buy warm prepacked food for our breakfast. I love the Japanese fish and noodles. The others had sandwiches and milk.
First stop was the Mitsui Shopping Outlet. Tim managed to by a nice bag from one of the outlets while A and myself bought trench coats for 2k yen. I realized that my clothes were insufficient for the cold weather and after getting the trench coat I certainly felt better. However I misplaced the white scarf I bought at Lake Toya at one of the Airbnb which we had checked in after Hayashi's.
The food court was spotless and we had cold soba (not my favorite) but A and T simply love eating them. I could not finish the soba and gave it to Tim to finish.
We had to clear the table, wipe it with a cloth and return our plates and cutleries to the hawker stalls. No wonder the food court was spotless and almost no workers were in attendance. The Japanese were really a disciplined people. Treat public property like your own property.
We then went to the Jinggu park and Maruyama park to look at the cherry blossoms. It was terribly cold. I stayed in a tea-shop and sipped warm tea while they went photo-taking.
We then went to Hokkaido TV Tower in Sapporo and had dinner at New Sanko at the 3rd floor before we took the trip up the TV Tower for some photo taking. View of Sapporo was breath-taking. We bought some souvenirs, fridge magnets for keep sake. I bought a pouch called a poochi to put my coins as T says we need to use them all in Japan (no value to money changers back home).
We met G and P again after the trip up the Tower and chit chat a bit. After that we did not see them again.
End of Day 3.
Day 3 and we are off to Otaru.
Before leaving, Rhys asked us to make our own breakfast at the lodge. We made our own breakfasts with the stuff that Rhys bought for us in the communal fridge. Eggs (white and smooth) were aplenty and bread was toasted to go with them. The Kutchan lodge owner was generous with his groceries. We met also an Indonesian couple on holiday.
After checking out, we reached Otaru about lunch time and went about looking for the sushi street. Famed for a stretch of road where sushi is sold, we salivated over the plastic replicas of sushi and ramen meals on display.
Before taking lunch, we took some beautiful photos of the Otaru canal. It was really cold in Otaru.
We selected a sushi restaurant. Tim and I tried the snow crab soup. Though only a few pieces of the legs were given in the soup, we relished it. The sashimi was really fresh. I called a big unagi to share. Unagi tend to be small and skimpy in Malaysia but the Unagi we had was fleshy and oily.
The list of things must-do and must-try in Otaru:
1. 7 rainbow ice-cream. Layer upon layer of colors piled on the cone thus making the top longer than the bottom yet the amazing ice-cream did not topple. We used small spoons to share.
2. We visited the music box museum another must see in Otaru.
We then decided to drive up Mount Tengu (Tengu-yama) to look at the much touted night lights. We parked ourselves in the restaurant sitting near the window till the sun set. We took photos of the sun setting. Our patience was rewarded. The photos of Tengu-yama was just awesome!
We then had a most delicious dinner at the restaurant. That's when I fell in love with Japanese fish!
We then drove on to Sapporo and found our next host at Minami without any problem. Hayashi greeted us outside a beautiful massive bungalow. We were shown the most beautiful room ever. 3 beds for each of us and our own bathroom which we did not have to share. The house itself was a dream with spacious living room and dining room.
End of day 3.
G and P from Singapore were guests with us at the Airbnb in Hakodate but we found out that their plans were turned upside down as G forgot to apply his driving licence. He could not rent a car in Hakkoido and had to rely on public transport.
We offered to fetch them around with us to visit places at Hakodate. Our first stop - Hakodate morning market.
On the way there we saw an elderly man picking up rubbish from the road! Talk about civic consciousness. The Japanese people have such great respect for their property and facilities.
Morning market at Hakodate
Parking was inexpensive and we found a parking near the market. We browsed around the stalls and took photos with the gigantic snow crabs. The meat appear to be in legs.
Spoiled for choice we decided on the food court at the morning market. I was so intrigued by the green tea latte and decided to try it. It turned out to be best I have ever drank. P told us that any drinks or ice-cream made with Hakkoido fresh milk is simply delicious. I had to test it out. It was delicious.
There were also lots of samplings at the market although some of stuff appear to be raw and gooey and definitely not something I will buy to bring home.
G and P were so grateful to us for taking them around that they paid our drinks and also treated us to lunch at Lucky Pierrot, a popular fast food franchise in Japan (at the Red Bricks Warehouse area) - a shopping area at downtown Hakodate.
Goryokaku cherry blossoms park
Next stop we decided to visit the famous Michimoto Roman Catholic Church and the Greek Orthodox Church. Known for their beauty, it was a photo-stop worth the visit. On top the garden of the Greek Orthodox Church, we could see the amazing view of Hakodate and also the Pacific ocean coastline.
Next the beautiful cherry blossoms park near the Goryokaku Tower was so beautiful that we could only look at them and sigh in wonder. Truly one of God's beautiful creation. The cherry blossoms were delicately beautiful just like our life.
We are as fragile as the cherry blossoms yet we should bloom like them in our time and season. They top almost everything we had ever seen. The cherry blossoms trees grow for only a week in Hakodate and then die off the next week. In Hakodate, they bloom in the first week of May. In different parts of Japan they bloom at different times. This was what I had come to see - the sakuras!
The whole park was a canopy of cherry blossoms trees. They seem to go on forever and ever. There was a also a lovely canal for people to go boating. Photo opportunities posing with the trees were irresistible. The flowers were in full bloom. Many Japanese picnicked under the trees with rented stove and food.
It was simply beautiful. The park was to be the best cherry blossom park we have ever seen (although I have not seen such a sight until now). We were later to see more cherry blossoms in Sapporo but not on the scale that we saw at Goryakako. We even saw a couple taking their wedding photos at the park.
Red Brick Warehouse
A told us that the Warehouse was a must see in Hakodate. We decided to make it the next stop. We chose to have lunch at a burger joint called Lucky Pierrot.
We were later to see many such joints in Hakodate some very near one another. The burger, curry rice and drinks were scrumptious and healthy to eat but portions were really big. Indeed they meant to be shared as the Japanese waitress told us.
The Warehouses consists of small stalls selling traditional Japanese stuff such as as boots, clothes, bags, clothes, scarfs and little knick-knacks.
At one of the stall, we decided to try the rose ice-cream delicately sharped like a rose. Beautiful to look at and even more tasty to eat.
It was here that we parted with G and P as we had to make the long journey to Kutchan, Niseko a popular resort near snow capped mountains.
For dinner, we stopped at Siecomart to buy prepacked food such as ramen, rice, friend chicken to eat at the lodge.
It was a long journey and we only reached at night. We had to use google map before we found the place in Kutchan. The host was a friendly Australian guy (Rhys) who came to Japan and loved it so much that he stayed on operating the lodge.
He was very friendly and on his recommendation we made a trip to the local onsen for a hot spring bath. T had to join the men in the men's onsen but he chose to dip indoors.
A and I were the only ladies in the onsen. We felt shy to strip down to nothing so A went to the outdoor onsen and I stayed at the indoor onsen. At the onsen, we also took advantage of the free massage (massage chair) that was simply awesome. All our body aches fell away!
Rhys place turned out to be a lodge with many foreign guests such as Australians, Americans, a British guy from Manchester who made his own sushi for dinner (ate it with wasabi too) and also Japanese. This was really like a hostel for young people and most of the guests were around A's age range (20s). Some have lodged (Kara) more than 2 weeks. A had a great time chit chatting with them. She was having the time of her life!
The key highlights in Kutchan are the skiing, snowboarding, gondola riding, ropeway or cable cars. Although it was spring, snow was still on the mountain. Yoichi-yama (yama meaning mountain) loomed majestically in the landscape. I heard that the snow was soft like shaved ice making it difficult to walk. The only time I had played with snow was in Switzerland but the snow was very hard and slippery. Here A told me that the snow was very soft and if you do not slide down the snow, you will find it extremely difficult to walk.
I decided to stay in the warmth of the lodge as I felt that I was not properly attired. No boots, gloves, beanies or warm clothes. Spent the whole morning reading the Bible and praying!
They came back in the afternoon and we then checked out of the lodge to our next stop Otaru.
End of day 2.
