Today was going to be a very ambitious day. I was leaving Sapporo the main city on Hokkaido Island, visiting the Ainu Folk Village in Shiraoi (previous entry), then travelling southbound back to Honshu Island via Hakodate.My end destination was Nikko which is 90 minutes north of Tokyo but there was no direct way of getting there if coming from the north.My complicated schedule for today7.38 Shin-Sapporo > 8.32 Shiraoi - Limited Express10.40 Shiraoi > 11.03 ...

This morning I would be leaving Sapporo and leaving Hokkaido Island, travelling back to the main central island where Tokyo is situated. Before I was to stop and visit one of the Ainu Folk Villages. The Ainu people are the local indigenous people of the island and maintain their folk way of live in certain areas of the island.Researching online there are several places to experience Ainu culture but all not easy to get to. http://www.jnto.go.jp/eng/indepth/sceni ...

Leaving the outdoor Historical Museum of Hokkaido I took the bus back to Shin-Sapporo station but got off early at Shinrinkoen. I was going to go across a couple of stops to Naebo to reach the Sapporo Beer Museum on a different line from Shin-Sapporo station.Coming this way from behind and not from the town centre it was hard to navigate my way around the streets to find the museum, whose tall tower was visible thru the buildings. It was behind a shopping mall an...

This morning I was leaving Hakodate at the foot of Hokkaido Island and travelling further north to the main city of Sapporo. I was awake again at 4am so watching some sumo wrestling on tv.I left the hotel by 6am and headed towards Hakodate Station. The first trams do not start this early and wouldnt have got me to the station in time for my train. My hotel had advised me to take a taxi but I didnt want to at Japanese prices!I passed thru the old red brick warehou...

Today was going to be a very busy day. I was leaving Tokyo and travelling to the north Island of Hokkaido. Still on unusual time I woke 4am and left the capsule hotel by 7am which wasnt that comfortable compared to others and was full of cigarette smoke.First I had to take a local Yamonote line train down two stops from Ueno to Tokyo station. My train to Hokkaido was at 8.40 so I tried to see if I could switch to an earlier train but no window seats were availabl...