Winter in Japan : Hokkaido Trip (Part 1)

Hiiii readers, finally.. I'm gonna tell my most favorite travelling story, that I had in winter 2015 to welcome the new year of 2016!

A year ago, the best winter I have ever had in my life (Well, actually I never had winter experience before lol, since....long story to be told, many factors, but FYI, my family would not afford going to winter places and they would not stand being cold too). 

I would say, going to Hokkaido was the best decision I have ever taken in my life. Though, I did spend a lot of my monthly stipend, still I did regret not to be able to buy more omiyage for my loved ones. I always dream of travelling to places, that I dream of. For example, Hokkaido, at first for me, travelling to Hokkaido was just a cool destination. It is rare to hear my friends going to Hokkaido, I often hear people go to Japan, which could only mean Tokyo, Osaka or Kyoto, not Hokkaido. Since it's different, not a big city like Tokyo, it mostly offers nature and snow in winter. 

For the first time in my life, I thought of taking my parents with me to travel there again someday in the future. The bliss that I wanna share with my loved ones. It was backpacking with my chinese friend, who basically led all the ways there. I was basically just a follower lol. Yet, I learned a lot during the trip. I enjoyed everything there, tried to remember every step we took, the moments we had together and not to forget, the powdering snow that we experienced in the first night at Hakodate. 

The second trip I had with my Chinese friend meant a lot to me. It made me realize, that I have passion in travelling. I love being in different places, seeing new things, wandering around aimlessly, and taking pictures.

I took this photo with Snapchat app by the way, along with the filter.
View at Muroran

Now, moving on to day 1 of our trip!

Dec 28th, 2015. 
We arrived at New Chitose Airport in the morning around 9 a.m. I guess, because our flight was at 7 or 8 a.m (I should check again my boarding pass). We directly headed to Hakodate because it was our first destination. But before we went by train, we had to buy the JR Pass for a week there, it was not that cheap but cheaper and more efficient compared to buying it separately, since we planned to travel around Hokkaido. It was around 20,000 yen-ish. Then, off we went to the train! I forgot how to get there actually, it just connected with the airport. From Chitose, we went straight to Hakodate. 

But...wait...do you think it went smoothly like that? of course no! We were lost our way--you know, that NatGeo Travel motto, "Let's get lost"--and I did haha.. We went into the wrong train and so we headed to wrong direction, it was going to Obihiro, not to Hakodate! And my friend, who just realized it when it has reached the last destination of the train. After we got off first and asked where we were to the train master, he said, we were lost and had to go back to the reversed direction..and it took half of our trip on the first day. Supposedly, we would arrive at Hakodate at 2 p.m. After we got into the right train...my friend cried. And I didn't know what to do. Just to comfort her by saying it is okay. Long long day for us. 

Long story short, we arrived at Hakodate at 8.45 p.m, it was sooo late right? it was definitely a nightmare for us, as we had planned our trip and my friend always stuck to the plan she made. When we arrived at the station, she run and I had to follow her.. she definitely didn't care about me at that time.. she just catched up with the time, since we had to go to Mount Hakodate Ropeway and it will be closed on 9 p.m. As we rushed, she found a taxi and asked me beforehand if it was okay to ride taxi to catch up with the closing time. I had no choice guys... I said yes! Surprisingly, it didn't cost much, it was only 800 yen-ish. We arrived at the front office to buy the ropeway ticket to get into the Mount Hakodate Ropeway, it was around 1000 yen-ish. 
You know, what? Although I was a bit dissapointed that we arrived so late, I was thankful that I was able to see the powdering snow at that night and saw the night lights of Hakodate from the Ropeway Station. 

The City Lights 

As everything that happened on that day, I learned a lot. Lessons learned that we always have to check, check, check again. And don't always just follow. That was my mistake, not to care about my surroundings just because I trust my friend.

After visiting Mount Hakodate Ropeway

While we walked at that night and looked for our hotel