D6 Asahikawa旭川, Biei美瑛

9~21May2024 13D13N Hokkaido adventure

Good morning from Sapporo.

After staying one day in Sapporo, we will be heading to Asahikawa  旭川 next.

We will only bring our small luggage for the next 2 days.

Leaving behind our large luggage.

From the hotel lobby, we can view the Sapporo station. The tall building is JR Tower with observatory.

Bye for now, Sapporo. We will be back.

Take note that the South exit is nearest to our hotel.

Getting breakfast to eat on board the train.

Taking the 8 am Lilac5 Limited Express to Asahikawa, seats already reserved.

Our journey will take 1 hr and 25 mins

We arrived!

We booked JR Inn again as it is just beside the station.

Had reserved a taxi package online for 39,500 yen, for 7 hrs to tour the Biei area.

https://asahikawa-travel.com/en/taxi-plan.html

The driver will pick us at 5F hotel lobby at 10 am.

We had dropped off our bags, bought my favourite drink and waiting for the pick up.

Here we go!

Our driver was Kawamoto, and here's our itinerary

Cloudless sky as we started off

Really beautiful view of the alps along the way

We started to see the Daisetsu mountains in the background.

Our nice driver offered to stop the car to let us take photos

The snow has not totally melted in the start of summer.

Those stretches of white lining the mountains make it a beautiful sight.

Arriving at Shirogane Blue Pond (Aoiike) 白金青い池

It was also quite sunny as we arrived.

And there's a short stretch of road to walk in to get to the pond.

There were a lot of people arriving around that same time,

but the place was large enough for us to spread out and photos appeared without others.

Kawamoto was kind enough to offer to help take photo for the group.

Changed to blue tone.. beautiful desu ka?

Or black & white?

Time for some snacks

Ooo.. the people bought Aoi 😋

Visiting the nearby Shirahige no Taki 白ひげの滝

We could only view the waterfall from a bridge. The beautiful alps can also be seen in the background.

Lunch is up next at Farms Chiyoda

Kawamoto waiting outside while we have lunch?

Trying the locally produced milk is a must if you can

Takushinkan 拓真館

This itinerary was recommended by the taxi company.

It was a good idea because this is a Art museum. As we had arrived too early for the beautiful flower fields in summer, we can view the beautiful pictures of the different seasons in the area.

Lavender field nearby the parking

This Art Museum exhibits the landscape pictures from the Maeda family.

Very nicely done up place. The pictures were also very beautiful.

There are many lonely trees along the way.. we will visit some of them later.

Shikisai-No-Oka Hill 四季彩の丘

The entrance is free since it's not the peak period.

We start to see fields of colorful tulips

Grape hyacinth, or Muscari (in Japanese)

Pretty yellow Rapeseeds

Preparing for summer

Alpaca farm - 500yen per entrance

So, this is what she is afraid of.. 😂😅

Pansy

An additional itinerary added.

Hokusei-no-oka Observatory Park 北西の丘 展望公園

Patchwork Road - to view the trees

Tree of Ken and Mary

That's the advert the famous tree got the name from: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PImcQzjIFWw

Parent & Child Tree 親子の木 are three oak trees that stand together like family.

Seven Stars tree

Famous oak tree that was once used on the packaging of seven stars tobacco.

This nearby row of trees look good too

Someone wants to show off that she can climb in from the back.

Back to hotel few minutes before 5 pm.

As we were not tired, we saw a nice Starbucks by the lake nearby and wanted to visit it before we have dinner.

Spotting the beautiful sun setting as we headed to our dinner place.

As mentioned in post on the first day, there are 3 types of ramen to eat in Hokkaido.

In Asahikawa, we are here for the shoyu ramen.

Santouka

There are many Santouka branches around in the world, and actually, it is also found in Singapore.


Back to Aeon mall, just beside our hotel, for some shopping.

Lynn wanna enjoy the newly bought drink which I introduced to her - Ramune