Saturday, February 14, 2009

Day 9 (Feb 5) - Asahikawa

Location: Asahikawa
Weather: Freezing cold, -3 deg
Author: Chrissie

Hi all, it's me again! Happy Valentines Day to everyone ^^!! As you can guess, here in Japan valentine's day is a little different. The women are the ones who give the men chocolates! Traditionally, chocolates were given to your special someone, but in an attempt to make more money, I think the chocolate companies have convinced Japanese women they also need to give 'obligatory' chocolates to their bosses and work seniors (although this is probably not practiced in all companies). Anyway, boo to being forced to spend money on chocolates to give to someone you may not even like!!

Anyway, today's blog is about Day 9 and it's a really long post! It was a really busy day as we had to check out of our 2nd hotel and we wanted to visit Asahikawa. We woke up really early at 7am to finish packing and checkout by 7.30am. Our 3rd accommodation was a bit of a walk away, and yes, we DID walk lugging our suitcase across treacherous icy ground. It took us what felt to me like a century (but took maybe 30 mins) to walk about 7 blocks to our new place for the next 6 nights. I know it sounds a little dramatic, but it was seriously hard work. I made Amy promise me we could take a taxi to Sapporo station when it was time to depart! heh heh...

Our new room was very cozy. Bedding consisted of futons which were laid on top of tatami mats to sleep on. Bathrooms and toilets were shared with other guests. We even had a communal eating and kitchen area, although we didn't really bump into any of the other guests while we were there.

After we checked in, we headed straight for Sapporo station to take a JR train to Asahikawa. Asahikawa is the 2nd largest city in Hokkaido and is 2 hours by train, roughly north of Sapporo city. It also holds the record for the coldest temperature in Japan (-40 deg)!! Our reason for going to Asahikawa though was to visit the Asahiyama Zoo!! It is known as Japan's most famous zoo so of course we had to have a look!

We bought a combined ticket at sapporo station which included train fare, bus fare to get to the zoo and the zoo entrance ticket. It's quite a pricey trip as the train ticket alone costs about 4500 yen return. The train ride was quite uneventful, although very scenic with snow covered forests and rivers along the way.

Asahikawa train station was freezingly cold and we thought we had to brace ourselves for the outside, but it was actually warmer outside! We had to catch a bus to take us to the zoo, which was about a 40 min ride away.
Us at the entrance to Asahiyama Zoo

As you can see from the photo, it started snowing as soon as we got to the zoo. Our first priority was food, since we hadn't had anything to eat as we were rushing about so much to catch the train. A simple but warming ramen meal was devoured and then onto the animals!
Asahiyama Zoo - snowing and cold when we got there!

A word of warning - we took a LOT of animal pictures but I will try to restrain myself and post up a select few. The first stop was the penguin area which contained an underground tunnel where you can walk through and see penguins swimming underwater and on the top floor, a penguin information centre and enclosure. It was extremely congested inside with people and Amy and I got separated. I'm not sure how, but I ended up getting ushered to sit in front of a viewing window where you can see penguins 'playing' above ground and underwater. Apparently something special was about to occur but I couldn't understand the rapid Japanese being spoken by the tour guide. We waited a long time before seeing a scuba diver head underwater with lots of penguins swimming around him. I think they got tricked because he wasn't carrying any food with him. All he did was hold up plaques underwater.
A penguin swimming past us in the underwater tunnel
Amy took this picture of two frisky penguins (we all know where her mind likes to go... :P)
More penguins in the enclosure. They're all real!
Several Emperor penguins cleaning themselves in the outside enclosure.
Amy took lots of pictures of this fish. Why? She was convinced it looked exactly like Yoda from Star Wars...*cough* otaku *cough*
More Emperor penguins with very puffed out feathers to keep themselves warm from the cold

Amy and I eventually found each other and decided after looking at cute penguins to head for the 'fierce animals' enclosure as labeled on the map. What classes as fierce animals? look below.
A magnificent tiger prowling inside his cage.

A leopard curled up on top of his cage. It was so cute because all his fur was being squeezed through the mesh of the cage. Hardly 'fierce'!
A black panther looking lethal and about to pounce on his meal below him.
A solitary wolf picking out his next meal from beyond the cage.

Actually, the wolf enclosure was a little separated from the fierce animals section, but I decided the wolf looked fierce enough to be included here. There were also lions and bears but I think I only have videos of them. Next up were the small creatures.
An elegant Japanese crane

Next are a couple of pictures of what came to be my favourite animal of the zoo because it was so cute - the lesser panda (a.k.a. red panda or firefox).
Stretching...!

Strolling...!
Polar bear taking a nap. A group of Japanese aunties next to me kept telling it to "Wake up! It's time to go to work!"

The polar bear section was just next door. There were exhibits and viewing platforms for both underwater and above ground, but again I took more videos than photos. As we were just walking out from the polar bear area exit, they started announcing it was going to be time for the Penguin March.

The Penguin March is basically the main attraction of the zoo. Apparently the penguins get a little tubby during winter, so in order to keep them trim they get to take a stroll through a designated pathway in the zoo twice a day. We managed to get a really good standing position to take pictures and photos of the penguins 'marching'.
The penguins at the starting position
And we're off...!

A leader emerging...
and we have a winner!!!!
The stragglers

Next we stopped by the children's petting farm on Amy's request. The first thing we saw was the cutest St Bernard dog who was sitting patiently while being groomed.
Amy with the St Bernard
The guinea pig pen!
Chrissie petting the little cutie
The rabbit pen. Spot the little baby bunnies in the food tray!

That was basically our experience at Asahiyama Zoo. We had actually wanted to try to visit a really nice arts and crafts museum in Asahikawa as well so we only spent a few hours at the zoo, but it turned out we were too late and ended up strolling around Asahikawa town. Asahikawa was holding their own winter festival to start in a couple of days time and we caught high school students building hundreds of little snowmen to put alongside the shopping avenue to welcome visitors to the town! What a great show of community spirit!!
A teacher supervising his students
Carefully carrying the heavy snowmen around
The product of all that effort!

We were getting really famished by then so we decided to head back to Ramen Yokocho in Sapporo. This time we tried a restaurant called 'Higuma' because the pictures on the menu looked delicious! The restaurant could only sit about 7 people and we must have started a trend because by the time we finished our meal and exited the restaurant, there was a long queue of people waiting outside that restaurant only.
Higuma Restaurant
Amy's Kaisen (seafood) ramen with a big fat piece of crab meat in the middle
I had the hotate (scallop) ramen. Yum!

That's about it for our Day 9 outing! Thanks for persevering to the end, I felt it was a long post!! Until tomorrow, mata ne!

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