Abashiri - Asahikawa - Biei (Part 1) Thanks guys who complimented me on the photos so far. BUT... believe me you ain't seen nothing yet. The best is yet to come in the coming posts.

The 2nd major fiasco of the trip happened today. More on that later. Woke up very early in the morning in the hope of catching the sunrise on photo. I think I must have slipped out of my room at around 4am. But damn the sun was already up. A coupla meters behind the pension is actually some railway tracks. I thought there must be some potential nice shots to be taken there. So I braved the chilly temperature (definitely below 10 degree) and brought my tripod and stuff out and tried various angles and settings. Photos didn't turn out as great as I expected though. So not going to post them here until I got the time to process them further.

Went back and basically lie down and wait for the time to leave. Since the train leaves at 6.32am I thought I can just wake KS up at 6 and still be on time. And so I lazed...

*Time Passed*

Reached station around 6.28am and was surprised when the digital signboard did not display our train. HOLY SHIT! The train left at 6.23am and NOT 6.32am! WTF! Arghh.... Can't believe I overlooked it! Best liao... I already wanted to faint. Luckily the stationmaster was nice enough and he showed us the alternatives. The next express train leaves at 10am+ but we could take the normal train at 7.40am which will mean that we will reach our destination Asahikawa 2 hours late. No choice, we had to take it. However, we were pleasantly surprised that we received a refund of Y2000 because the normal train was cheaper. Not sure whether other countries have this kind of policy but it sure is good.

So we just nuahed at the station until the train arrived and it was those kind of single carriage trains. Took about an hour to reach Kitami where we had to wait a bit more to change to the train which would take us straight to Asahikawa. The long train ride wasn't that bad. Initially the scenery was all farmland. Can see tractors, livestock, and crops just starting to be planted. Later on we reached the mountain regions and the view changed to snowy landscapes.


Reached Asahikawa at last and first thing we did of course was to get our railway passes. Alas, we had just missed the train to Biei, so we had to wait around an hour for the next one. Since we had time, we decided to have ramen for lunch. Our guide book listed several recommended places and we chose the one nearest to the station. Managed to find it after a little difficulty. The place is called Mei Guang Gan (in han yu pin yin) and apparently it is rather famous. KS ordered shoyu ramen and I had chashu ramen, which basically is the same as KS's but with a whole lot more chashu. Y700 and Y1000 respectively. Would've ordered the gyoza if we weren't so strapped for time. For the uninitiated, gyoza is the standard accompaniment for ramen. It's like eating donuts and coffee. The unique characteristic of ramen at this place is the huge chunks of bamboo shoots. The chashu was delicious also. But I got kinda overdosed with it coz mine really had a lot of it.


Interestingly, there were also a pair of foreigners who came around the same time as us. They looked Taiwanese and carried huge backpacks as well. They were girls btw. We had to eat our noodles fast because we realized we don't have much time left. Wow... the girls also ate their noodles in record time! I was alreadi kinda like struggling to finish the bowl lor. Anyway right after we finished, we got our bags and rushed straight to the station. The two girls also finished but they kinda walked leisurely meters behind us. Later we would find out that we are all leaving on the same train! And they walked leisurely because actually we still had some time to spare before the train leaves. :P Anyway, we got on the single carriage train and headed towards Biei. For a sign of how touristy the Biei/Furano region is, the train had English announcements as well. Very rare in Hokkaido.

To be continued...  F-ed by me at 6:13 PM

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