Heaven in Hokkaido

To be in Hokkaido is to get to heaven. Especially during winter time when there seems to be no demarcation line between the powder-like snow on the ground and the stretch of immaculate white horizon.

Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan’s 47 prefectures, turns into a clean and happy winter wonderland from November to March. Its cities and towns like Sapporo, Otaru and Niseko, which we visited last week, are covered in three- to four-meter-thick snow as white and as fine as powder that it is called “pow-pow” by the many Australian and European tourists who have fallen in love with this island.

Come February, Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido, turns into a snow museum. Small to large pieces of ice sculpture are displayed all over the city for everyone to marvel at  unmindful of the temperature that drops to -7 degrees Celsius.  

Niseko village covered in the whitest powder-like snow.

At the 63rd Sapporo Snow Festival that Bulletin’s Isabel de Leon and I attended last weekend, we had some magical experiences at the Odori Park where we were charmed by fairytale-like scenes of snow statues that measured as high as 15 meters. Some pieces of ice sculpture had dolphins and whales that seemed to flip in winter mid-air. Others depicted intricate castles like the Taj Mahal, whose ice sculpture was built by the Sapporo people to commemorate the 60 years of friendship between India and Japan. Of the hundreds of ice statues in the whole of Sapporo, one huge sculpture that the more than two million visitors did not forget to see during the seven-day snow festival was the “Castle of Dreams for Animals.” The said sculpture was built from the drawing of Konomi Itabashi, a third grader from a Sendai municipal elementary school. Konomi depicted her dreams for her pets through her drawing after the March 11, 2011 triple tragedy that struck the Fukushima prefecture.

At the Susukino district, the famous nightspot in Sapporo, I found myself at an ice bar  with tables and chairs made of ice slabs  enjoying hot red wine with Kaye-san, our Japanese English-speaking tour guide. A friendly Italian lady, Tatiana, who went back to Sendai University to finish her degree in Japanese arts and culture after being advised that the radiation contamination level in the region had been contained, shared her big bottle of Sapporo beer with Kaye-san and me. In the middle of the night, in the dead of winter, by the roadside of Susukino district, a Japanese, an Italian and a Filipino toasted to a new friendship found in Sapporo.

The following day, we hopped on our service car, a Toyota Majesta, a sleek and comfortable sedan that was our mode of transportation to discover Otaru and Niseko. The comfort the car gave us reminded us of the comfortable flight we took from Manila to Osaka via Cebu Pacific. From Osaka, a number of domestic Japanese carriers fly to Sapporo.

Romance, nostalgia

In Otaru, romance and nostalgia seem to be the rhyme and reason of the winter breeze. The road to this city, just a two-hour drive from Sapporo, is covered with snow. Snowflakes dance like fairy godmother’s powder dusts. 

An ice sculpture of Taj Mahal in Sapporo.

Drab and dreary are words that don’t conjure the mind when one sees the city being enveloped in snow. Otaru is white all over  except, of course, for the leafless trees on the roadsides and the crows that happily gawk around town. Sometimes the blue sky appears, well, only out of the blue does it make an appearance. The sun unobtrusively peeps, too, in the veil of white clouds only to hide again the minute lovers strolling the Otaru Unga, or the restored canal, notice it. The steel benches and the roofs of the warehouses lining up the canal are heavy with snow, but they seem to be inanimately joyful to witness couples walk around Otaru Unga, professing their love for each other as they walk with their glove-covered hands locked into each other. Perhaps the biting cold in Otaru, where temperature goes down to -10 degrees Celsius, is no match to the winter wonderland happiness the strollers experience in the city.

A visit to Otaru is not complete without sampling the best-tasting fromage double cheesecake that Le Tao restaurant offers. This cheesecake is divine simply because it’s made of the best dairy products that Hokkaido is known for. As Kaye-san told us before arriving in the Hokkaido prefecture: “It’s a sin not to try the milk, cheese and ice-cream of Hokkaido  the best in the world!” And I agree. Truth is, everything you put in your mouth in Hokkaido is delicious  from the freshest scallops to the tasty herring, from the creamy potatoes to the sweetest melons, from the garden-fresh greens (yes, they grow even in winter in Hokkaido) to the melt-in-your-mouth local beef. These produce are also what make Hokkaido famous for.

Children enjoy the giant ice slides in Sapporo.

Lightest, whitest

Another two hours away by land from Otaru is the skiing village of Niseko. The finest, lightest and the whitest snow I’ve seen in my life drops on my lap in Niseko. Every street corner you see is a picture-perfect description of what Christmas land is all about  very cold, filled with snow, enchanting, magical, dreamlike. Despite the temperature of -17 degrees Celsius in Niseko, people  both locals and tourists  manage to greet each other with warm smiles. It is the warmth of the locals that make visitors gravitate to Niseko by hordes, with parents bringing their small children to this town to try skiing, snowboarding, snowshoe walking or simply to experience riding the snowmobile. 

For almost an hour, we tried snowshoe walking. Personally, my double thermal shirts under my super thick jacket kept me warm and comfortable to move around. I even put disposable heat pads in my boots, as advised by our snowshoe walking guide Mikasa-san, to avoid numbness, as we navigated a village almost submerged in snow. A flock of crows swung in mid-air, and gawked loudly when I stumbled and fell on a mound of super, super soft snow. The breeze blew, adding more inches to the already thick snow in the surrounding. I knew that snow was odorless but in Niseko, it smelled sweet like mountain breeze.

At the Hilton Niseko Village where we spent the night, a surreal experience unfolded at the hotel’s onsen bath. The onsen is a pool filled with natural hot spring water. Inside the pool, it’s 42 degrees Celsius; outside it, -17 degrees Celsius. You submerge yourself in the onsen and watch the pine trees standing silent and still in the middle of winter, like vanguards who secure your safety in the place. The ultra white snow sparkles, giving way to the silhouette of Mt. Yotei to shine through the night. Your body is kept warm by the onsen bath until you stand up from the pool. Cold winds wrap your warm body instantaneously and you discover some kind of high. Indeed, the onsen bath is one of the experiential highlights of your visit to Niseko. 

A Catholic church in Otaru.

Nature plays a very big part in enjoying Hokkaido. Simple joys and sincere dealings of people are characteristics of the prefecture. After all, simplicity is the art of Japan and sincerity is its heart.

Let Sapporo, Otaru and Niseko take your breath away with a thousand and one surprises this winter. Hokkaido is waiting.

(Cebu Pacific flies to Osaka every Tuesday, Thursday and Sunday. From Osaka, take a domestic flight to Sapporo. For flight details of Cebu Pacific, call its Manila office

at 702-0888 or Cebu office at 032-230-0888. For more information about visits to Japan, call the Japanese Embassy in Manila at 551-5710 loc. 2314. You may also visit the Japan Pavilion today at the 19th Travel Tour Expo at SMX Convention Center

in Mall of Asia Complex, Pasay City.)

(E-mail me at bumbaki@yahoo.com or follow me on Twitter @bum_tenorio.

Have a blessed Sunday!)