I just returned from my vacation in Hokkaido with SA Tours. The trip was wonderful and thoroughly enjoyable. The tour guides Connie, Steven and Kenny were helpful.
4 of the hotels we stayed in Hokkaido have hot spring baths and tatami rooms. We spent a night in Tokyo (return trip) and the airport hotel served the best breakfast during the whole trip, it had a wide variety of food!
It was snowing from Day 1 to the delight of every traveller to Hokkaido. On our trip along the mountain range back to Sapporo, we experienced blizzard which slowed down our travelling! Gosh, it was interesting to see so much falling snow. The coldest termperature we experienced was a -14 degrees celsius and that's in Sounkyo Gorge - that's where we see the Ginga no Taki (銀河の滝, waterfall of the galaxy) and Ryusei no Taki (流星の滝, waterfall of the falling star). Too bad that both waterfalls were frozen due to the freezing temperature in winter.
We even spent over an hour (in a -10 degrees celsius temperature) walking on the frozen Lake Akan: by joining a march around the lake (each participant holding a big stick lighted with fire), taking photos, watching a fireworks display and a concert performed by the Ainu natives.
The food (full board) was great and we had mostly seafood (including the famous Hokkaido Hairy Crab). We tried the famous Hokkaido Ramen. Simply delicious and a wide variety to choose from.
