Dec 2022
Travelling or touring Hokkaido is quite different from touring the other parts of Japan.
Hokkaido was only developed quite late - within the last 200 years. At which point, western advisers (consultants?) helped to plan the towns. Which is why if you go to cities like Sapporo and Asahikawa, you will find that the streets and avenues are laid out in a grid pattern, and the cities have a "North American" flavour to them. And the roads are quite well planned.
Whereas the roads in, say, Tokyo, or Kyoto are often very "organic" - roads were built over customary paths and trails created by people and carts taking the most convenient routes, buildings sprout where they will, and roads intersect to create junctions and mega-junctions.
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| Narrow Tokyo street. |
This makes driving a Tokyo... an adventure!
If you're travelling in Japan, you would be well served by the trains, and you can depend on the trains and subways to get you to your destination.
In Hokkaido, if you're going to major cities and towns and do not intend to venture out of those places, you can stay with public transit.
BUT... a lot of Hokkaido's natural beauty is not easily accessible by train or public transit.
Anywhere east ofAsahikawa might be more accessible by car.
And the roads are quite good.
And there are michi-no-eki for you to rest, recharge, and explore.
But even as I write this, there was a report of a Singaporean family in a fatal accident on the snowy roads of Hokkaido, near Kamifurano.
So.... the roads are good, but winter driving is a different matter. If you are not experienced with winter driving, the roads conditions can vary quite drastically.
In our most recent travel to Hokkaido to bring the joy of winter and snow to my daughter (or to bring my daughter to the snow), we had chosen a travel agent to plan our itinerary.
(Because in the lead up to our trip, Japan was just opening tip after COVID, but cautiously. Overly cautiously. At one point, the entry requirement was that all tourists had to be accompanied by a tour guide from Japan, and the itinerary had to be in line with some guidelines, which included contingencies for infection with COVID and medical intervention. Which was all very restrictive. So the tourism lobby fed back their concerns, and the Japanese government loosen their guidelines. But it was not enough. So they responded by loosening up even more. But all these incremental changes were hard to plan for, so at some point I just stayed with ONE set of guidelines, which was workable to me, and got a travel agency to come up with the plan and the itinerary. And we were very happy with the plans!)
Even at the planning stage, winter conditions had to be considered. I had asked for at least one dinner at Loghouse Wagyu Bibi. This would be a return visit. And since the tour package would provide us with a driver, it would mean I could have a beer with wagyu yakiniku!
Anyway, the initial itinerary was to have a meal at Loghouse, right after our arrival (cos we would be arriving in Chitose, and Loghouse is in Chitose!) and then our guide and driver Hosono-san, would drive us to Furano, where we can ski the next day.
But, as our flight would land in Chitose (more correctly, Shin-Chitose) at about 4 pm, and after clearing immigration, and customs, we might only be having dinner at about 5.30 or later. Dinner might be over at about 7. And then it would be a two hour drive to Furano from Chitose.
At night.
In winter.
The Travel Consultant noted that it might not be such a good idea to travel at night in winter.
So we stayed a night in a hotel in Chitose.
Which was good planning. As it turned out, we arrived in a blizzard (not really. It was a blizzard to us equatorial-tropical Singaporeans. To Hokkaidoans, it was probably only "Thursday".)
As Hosono-san drove us to our Hotel in Chitose to stay for the night, he informed us that the highway to Furano was closed due to snow. So it was good (or fortuitous) planning that we had a hotel in Chitose.
The next morning, he picked us up and told us that the highway was still closed. It had continued to snow overnight.
How, then would we get to Furano.
If I were driving, and I was somehow able to listen to the radio and understand Japanese, and realised that the highway was closed due to snow, I would just throw my hands up and try to extend our stay at the hotel, while all our plans in Furano would have to be rescheduled.
Or I would head out, oblivious to the road closure, find myself diverted from the closed highway, and muddle through the GPS and maybe, find an alternate route to Furano, and maybe get there after a long drive.
But Hosono-san is the professional "Taxi-Driver" and he took pride his professional knowledge. He didn't need the Highway. It would have been faster, but there were side roads not closed, and he got to Furano a little later, but safe.
Later we would find out that the "blizzard" was a particularly heavy snowfall (Dec 2022). Perhaps fate wanted my daughter's first experience with snow to be spectacular!
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