On the way on our semi-annual commute to and from Thailand, we are now spending three weeks traveling from Hokkaido, Japan to Tokyo, staying at many onsen resorts along the way, traveling by train.

Our flight from Portland to San Francisco departed an hour late due to weather-related air traffic control delays. As we had only a 1 hour 19 minute connection for our 11 hour flight to Tokyo, it made me a little nervous. However, we managed OK, just. Just a reminder to not schedule your connections too closely!

We arrived at our Sapporo hotel about 9pm. Long travel day! Three flights plus a train trip from the Sapporo Airport into town.

I have traveled Japan from north to south, and have come to like Dormy Inns, which all have in-house hot springs. So we began this stay in one in central Sapporo.

Onsen (hot springs) are a great Japanese tradition. Given its volcanically active location at the boundary of a tectonic plate, there are more than 27,900 hot springs!

Before bathing, you thoroughly clean your body from head to toe, so the onsen water remains pure. It is a soothing part of the onsen ritual:

Our hotel is situated on a covered shopping street. The next morning, we walked out for a simple breakfast. This breakfast cost $4 US dollars each. Miso soup, salad, noodles, rice and salmon.

Sapporo is a lovely, clean town. We traveled around the core area by tram, such as this antique one:

Nakajima Park is a beautiful 20 acre oasis that was one of our favorites. There is an exquisite Japanese garden there:

Sapporo is a sister city of Portland, Oregon.

After two nights in Sapporo, we walked about 1200 yards to the train station, and went 1 ½ hours by express train towards the central highlands of Hokkaido to visit Daisetsuzan National Park, home of Hokkaido’s highest mountain, an active volcano, Mount Asahidake:

When I first visited her in 2017, it was enveloped in clouds, and even snowed 6 inches on my second day (October 4). But we were lucky to come on a clear, beautiful day this time. After coming down from above timberline, we took a hike in the forest:

Japan Rail East makes reserving train seats and tickets quite easy, and even allows you to change them for free up until the day before. As it began to rain overnight, we decided to head back down to Sapporo for one more night before heading south.

We are definitely having fun!