Asahiyama Zoo 旭山動物園, Hokkaido 北海道 2013

My son Desmond has been chasing me to update this post, his favourite place of Asahiyama Zoo at Hokkaido. This zoo is beautiful and fun, even my mother also really impressed with this zoo. We purchased the JR Asahiyama Zoo Pass which included return train tickets from Sapporo to Asahikawa, bus ticket transfer from Asahikawa to Asahiyama Zoo and also tickets enter to Zoo, valid for 4days, it was a kind of good deal. You may refer to more details here.

 

My son know very well all the animals in this zoo, I have to seek for his assistance on this post ^_^.

 

Pengiuns



Seal

 

Cute animal signboard for direction..

 

Polar bear

 

 

This is my son's most favourite animal , also our first time seeing this animal..

Red Panda 

 

Snow Leopard & Leopard

 

Lions

 

Black Leopard

 

Wolves

(we can get a close look at those wolves )



 

I like these little green boards..

 

a nice way to explain with pictures..

 

monkey

 

We stopped here for a light lunch..

 

 

My son highly recommend Japanese rice burger here..you may find my recipe here.

 

ice-cream

 

My happy boy !!

Capybara

(this is my first time learnt this animal )



 

Spider monkey

 

At that time, we were also able to see the nice difference colours..

 

Ya, Desmond also wants to introduce his new pet to you-guinea pigs, One named Brownie  and another named Noodles, LOL..

Santouka Ramen 山頭火拉麵, Hokkaido 北海道 2013

Finally I have found a bowl of my favourite ramen at Santouka Ramen located at Asahikawa. A bowl of rich but not greasy (I think Chinese best describe my feeling 濃而不腻 ) (but in their website they said the soup is mild, maybe for Japanese standard their type of soup is considered mild), pearl-colored Tonkotsu soup (soup derived from pork bones) . I didn't appreciate very rich and sticky soup base until both lips can stick together, example a bowl of ramen we had in JR Kyoto station.

 

When we reached and check in at the Fujita Kanko Washington Asahikawa hotel from Sapporo, it was already over the lunch time, about 3.30pm, so we quickly check nearby restaurant for lunch..FYI, Hokkaido's night come very early, about 5pm sky will start to turn dark..

About few minutes walk nearby the hotel, and I noticed this restaurant name, sound like a famous ramen shop which I have read at the travel guide book..At that time I still blur blur didn't realized this is a world famous ramen shop ^_^ . Since all of us were starving, quickly went in for a bowl of ramen.

Luckily at this late afternoon, they were still open, and only few customers at that time. So very quickly we can have a bowl of hot ramen soup..

My son's favourite food is noodles (especially instant noodles ^_^), he was excited to check out how the staff preparing the ramen..

In fact, we returned to Santouka again for late lunch after visited Asahiyama zoo the next day. So here were few bowls of difference ramen soup we have ordered.

This was Shoyu Ramen (Soy Sauce flavour )

 

This was a bowl of Shio Ramen (salt flavour) that has became my favourite ramen..

You can see their soup is not so thick, love the little sour and crunchy pickled plum, and love love the crunchy bamboo shoots too. And the noodles also taste springy and good.
I also tried Miso flavour, it was good too but my favourite still Shio (salt) flavour.



 

The was the first time i ate ramen till last drop..This photo just show you the crunchy bamboo shoot that I love (my mother also gave thumbs up)

 

Not too sure the flavours of these two bowls that ordered by my hubby and kid.

We will not miss to order gyoza when we having ramen..

 

 

This bowl of rice topped with bonito flakes and onions was surprisingly good too, simple and yummy..

 

I guess this shop we went was their original shop, and look like their famous ramen is Shio Ramen (Salt flavour) ..

Now we started  missed their ramen, have to go Santouka KL to try out, hopefully it taste equally good if compare to the original shop at Asahikawa.



updated on 04 Nov- we actually went to the KL Santouka on the same day as I posted this. But we were quite disappointed with the taste. The taste was quite the same, but the soup base was more milky, noodles has more "alkaline" taste and no springy, and the bamboo shoots has no bamboo taste as it only tasted crunchy. I guess this was due to they didn't use the original ingredients from Japan. We still prefer the ramen from original shop at Asahikawa Hokkaido.