Japan Déjà vu: May 13-15 – Hokkaidō 北海道

To wrap up my trip, I will fly from the very south part to the northeast island of Japan, Hokkaidō.

The first thing I want to do might be eating Kobe beef, the finest beef in the world. Having Kobe steak for lunch might be too big a meal, but it’s only half price as a Kobe steak dinner.

For the last two days in japan, I want to end the trip with visiting a national park each day. The bullet train will take me to Kushiro Shitsugen National Park and Akan National Park, where I will linger to savior the last memories in this beautiful country.

Ban’ei Déjà vu

I learnt about Ban’ei, the special kind of horse racing from one of my favorite manga Silver Spoon, a story that sets in Sapporo, the capital of Hokkaidō. The Ban’ei horses are the tallest and powerfully-built of Percheron, Breton or Bergian breeds. I will try to make my way to Obihiro Racecourse and see the racetracks. It will be like re-living the manga scene!

Budget
Flight $782
Hotel $40*3
Food $50+20*3
Total $1012

Where

I will be going to Japan and spend half of a month there. When talking about Japan, people think about Californian Rolls and Comics. Sadly, neither of these is genuinely Japanese. Californian Roll to Japanese is like tofu burger to Americans – Japanese people have never heard about Californian Rolls. Also, comics are American art while people in Japan call theirs manga.

Besides, Japan is just so much more than its food and contemporary art. With land area 1/25 size to Canada, Japan is surprisingly blessed with 6 vastly different climate zones from north to south, and over 90,000 species of wildlife.

Who

I will be travelling by myself, which I have never done before. This will be somewhat inconvenient from a traveler’s perspective, since no one will be at my side to help me make decisions, nor will there be a company to share my laughers and doubts to a new culture. But I want to be an explorer this time, an explorer who strides along in a totally different country, with people speaking an entirely different language. And this will be a great chance for me to push myself beyond limits to overcome obstacles yet to come. To be honest, I kind of take these potential obstacles as surprises that will add flavor to my trip!