Hokkaido Trip: The Last Post!

I wanted to do one final post from our Hokkaido trip. I had a few random photos of things we stumbled across on our trip.

Have I mentioned that Hokkaido is beautiful? We came across stunning views like this everywhere we went.

This is somewhere between Furano and Sapporo. We cut across through Ashibetsu and Akabira to get to Sapporo. This is near Ashibetusu.

As we drove into Ashibetsu, we saw what looked like a huge statue out on a hill. We just had to get a closer look so we turned off our route to drive toward the statue.

This is a statue of Dai-Kannon - a deity of healing in Buddhism. The statue is 88 meters tall, making it the 3rd tallest statue in Japan, and in the top 10 tallest statues in the world. It is really impressive.

After coming home we did more reading about it and learned that the statue was built in an effort to attract tourists to the town. Ashibetsu was once a coal mining town, but after the mines were closed, the town tried to use tourism as a new source of income. We also learned that inside the statue is a museum and you can take an elevator all the way up near her head to enjoy the view. Its unfortunate that we weren't able to do this. We would have enjoyed it.

Near the statue we also found this amazing pagoda. It was also built for tourism and is now closed down. We weren't even able to walk around the grounds.

After leaving Ashibetsu we drove through the town of Akabira. We drove by this castle and I had to snap a picture.

Apparently this castle is for sale. I should make Seth buy it for me.

 Our view as we entered Sapporo. 

 The view from our hotel window.

Daytime view

We definitely had to ride that ferris wheel. It sits on top of a 7 story building. We were able to get a great view of the city.

We also explored the building, which had a lot of fun stores.

 We found the cosplay wig store.

 and the cosplay store

I got my dress caught in the escalator. It was quite embarrassing. They had to call someone from maintenance to stop the escalator and take the cover off the bottom landing. 

My cute boys on the ferry. 

 It's really interesting to be able to see the sun setting on one side of the ferry,

and completely bright blue sky on the other side:

Here's a view of Aomori Bay. Almost there!

We had a great time in Hokkaido. We're so glad we were able to make this trip.