Day 9, our half way mark in our holiday in Hokkaido. Today we are heading East towards Tomamu Ski Resort. It will be a 3-4 hours journey.

After breakfast, we pick up our ride from Hertz. Fortunately for us, the car rental was just across Mitsui Garden Hotel Sapporo. It was pretty convenient to walk across the street to get our car. Walking in icy street was not easy. It was slippery and we had to be careful on walking the streets of Sapporo. Sometimes, we wished it was snowing so that the snow will give us some friction as compared to icy pavement, which proved to be a challenged for us.

After completing some paperwork, we were on our way to Tomamu.

After crossing our first toll booth ,near Chitose, we were getting hungry. Using 4-square apps we found a restaurant called Kamameshi in the town of Keiocho that serve delicious kettle rice. The kettle rice taste really nice especially in cold winter afternoon.

We were satisfied with our lunch.

We wanted to buy their takeout for dinner but we decided to be conservative in our expenditure for the day. We decided to head to the nearby supermarket to get some supplies for our dinner for our stay in Tomamu.

After another 2 hours journey on the highway, we reached Tomamu. As we head further east, there were more snow on the road and we knew we are close to our destination.

We stayed in AirBNB in a condominium near to Tomamu resort. Accommodation in ski resort is very expensive in Hokkaido and in order to stretch our dollar, we decided on AirBNB. It was not too bad. Similar to a hotel, there is a check in counter at the lobby that we pick up our keys to our room.

The accommodation comes with a kitchen, a living room and a platform bedroom. It was good for the family and enjoyed our stay there.

 

After our home cooked dinner, we took a free shuttle bus to Tomamu Ice Village. It was not 100% functional, however, we did had a go on the ice slides. We visited the various iglo tentage where they sell various candies and souvenirs.

We bought a $5 marshmallow, so that we have the experience of roast our marshmallow in the cold – a bit over price for the experience.

As Ice Village is not exactly in operation, we decided to head to the Foresta mall for some snacks. We had a pancake Ice-cream and that’s how we celebrated Jaydon’s 8th birthday for the night (Please note: prior to this trip Jaydon had already celebrated his birthday with his friends. So Jaydon, if you are reading this, remember that you had more then 1 celebration on your 8th birthday).

After the treats, we made our way up the connecting path back to the condominium. along the way, we were greeted with friendly crafted wooden animals.

Well, I guess Jaydon enjoyed the most when he reached back to our accommodation and have an nice warm onsen with his Daddy at the end of the cold winter day!