Hokkaido - Asahiyama Zoo

Sapporo was easily covered in a day, so we took a train East towards the town of Asahikawa for Asahiyama zoo. The view was beautiful and the train would've been fine except for the headache inducing heat. For some unknown reason in Japan, train companies love to crank the heating up when it's cold outside - this doesn't balance the temperature, but create extremes (leading to coughs and splurges of passengers the country over). It's the same in Thailand/Cambodia with air-con.


Asahiyama Zoo was nearing financial ruin a few years ago, and a renewal exceeded anyone's expectations. Now people flock across Japan to visit the snowy mountainside view.


Again, we'd just missed the peak of winter, so we didn't get to see one of the famous sights - the penguin march, where the zookeepers let the penguins stretch their feet around the zoo twice a day. Since the snow was thawing, the penguins remained in their enclosure.


The busiest exhibit were the polar bears.



Most of the animals were snow-climate related, but they had a good mix of others, including lions who I never realised had incredible coloured eyes, and a few others, including the gorgeous lesser pandas:



Finished with the animals, we took a train back past Sapporo and onto a small town famous for glass-blowing. Otaru has a few interesting architectures.



One of them was home to ear-drum hell. You know those music boxes and spinning tops, imagine two floors of them. Bells, dinging-donging left right and centre. Every kind you could imagine - even sushi!


We walked along the canal area lined with warehouses, and even found a Hello Kitty with my favourite kanji, before heading back to Sapporo. Lots of bears in Hokkaido apparently.


One final stop for dessert before bed.


Of course not! These puddings are incredible; maybe one day I'll be up for the challenge.