I came back to Hokkaido on January 19th after spending three weeks at home in America with my family! It was nice being home and spending time with family and seeing friends, but I definitely go too into vacation mode
January 17th: My flight was technically at midnight on January 18th, but in reality, that’s really just leaving in the evening of the 17th. We left home pretty early, so there was virtually no traffic, and got to take our time once we got to the airport. Seemed like a pretty empty night, with my bag check-in being fast, and security was a breeze. Last time there was a fast-moving line with a dog portion, and none of that this time. Even the flight was super efficient, with everyone boarding smoothly and no mishaps or delays. We even landed an hour earlier than expected.
Unfortunately, it seems like ANA changed their movie rotation, as a movie I was thinking about seeing was completely off the roster. Sad. Within an hour after takeoff, we were handed a small water bottle and a hand towel, and then drink service accompanied by a snack box started. The official listing said the box had a sandwich, a snack, and fruit. This time it was a tuna salad croissant sandwich, a very cold banana, and a bag of Fritos. I believe last time the Fritos was a cookie.
Around 3 hours before landing, it was time for “breakfast”. Unlike my trip to America, this time the menu for the way back was actually different. I even looked up the menu beforehand, but it seems something had changed in the meantime. The braised beef over steamed rice (gyudon) I wanted turned into a sautéed beef with black pepper sauce, while the seafood garlic tumeric rice stayed the same. The rest of the meal consisted of udon noodles with sauce, fruit, and yogurt.
Although I’m not a huge black pepper person, the meal was pretty good. The beef was a bit chewy, but super flavorful. I liked the inclusion of plain edamame and corn, to go with the immensely seasoned sauce. The rice sucked, but I’m assuming though it’s ANA, the rice was still produced in America. The noodles were nice and refreshing (though very cold), the fruit was fine, and the American-style yogurt was a bit tangy, and not too sweet even with added blueberry.
I knew that ANA’s international flights in Haneda are in both Terminal 2 and 3, but this was the first time I ever flew into Terminal 2 on an international flight. Fully expecting to land in Terminal 3, and I planned to browse the morning options there for food. I resigned myself to just staying in Terminal 2, but since we landed earlier than expected, and immigration, baggage, customs, and transfer check-in were done in an instant, I ended up bussing over to to Terminal 3 anyway.
As expected, most places weren’t open that early in the morning, but the Haneda T3 options were definitely more than T2 last I was here. There were people sleeping everywhere on the benches throughout T3. After walking around and browsing my options, I went to eat at Suginoko, a 24 hour izakaya at 6. It was nearing 6 anyway, and apparently they charge a fee from late evening to 5am. After contemplating from a few options, I chose the sukiyaki version of their morning meal set, which comes with rice, miso soup, seaweed, pickles, tamagoyaki, chawanmushi, and 2 sides. And natto.
I was pleasantly surprised with the entire meal! I think I’m slowly growing a tolerance for natto, as it wasn’t that bad this time around. The pickles were fine, but the seasoned seaweed side dish had some kind of heavy shiso-like flavor to it. Eggs were soft and just a bit sweet, and the chawanmushi was light and instantly melted in my mouth. The main dish was very good! The sauce definitely gave sukiyaki-vibes, the meat was tender and flavorful, the tofu was a bit soft, and I liked the addition of the konjac. I wish they used better quality rice because a large serving was free, but whatever.
To walk off the very filling breakfast, I made my way to the Observation Deck. I spotted a Pokemon plane! If I remember correctly, this might be the ANA flight between Haneda and San Francisco, but I could be wrong. Wish it were my plane though. Why can’t LAX have it?
Around 8 I bussed back to T2. I originally went to the T2 McDonald’s to try out the newly released pies, but I truly felt a bit full from my meal earlier to eat anything else. Instead, I headed upstairs to the Starbucks to try out the new very chocolatey frappucino. There’s technically two, one using all chocolate, and the alternate “Blonde” one using caramel white chocolate.
I opted for the main chocolate one. It combines a melt-in-your-mouth chocolate whipped cream, with a sprinkle of gold powder on to. For a rich cacao flavor, a chocolate sauce is found all around the drink. To give the drink some crunchy texture, there’s also crunchy chocolate cookies on the bottom, for an amalgamation of fluffy, melty, and crispy sensations.
The drink was pretty chocolatey, but surprisingly not that overwhelming. I’m not sure if it was the temperature, but my frappucino was getting liquidy pretty quickly. Most of the syrup and cookie bits were on the bottom, and I made the mistake of not mixing enough and getting giant sips of straight crunchy syrup at first. Otherwise, it was very yummy, and the whipped cream was also a nice touch.
Starbucks and Security Saga Part 2: As I found out before I left, Starbucks is very much bringable into security. However, the security guy at Haneda this time asked me to take a sip, and bring the drink with me straight through the security gate. Pretty wild. They also didn’t ask me to sip my water this time either.
To kill some more time, I headed to the T2 Observation Deck, and saw a Star Wars plane!
Boarding for my second flight started around 9:40, and everything went smoothly. Nothing of note on the flight, and we landed at the exact time we were supposed to land. My suitcase took a pretty standard amount of time to come out, and with that, it was off to train back to Sapporo!
By the time my train would arrive, it’d be close to 1. I was meeting my friends at 2:30 for Afternoon Tea, and I wanted to eat something savory before stuffing myself with tea, sweets, and ice cream. Plus there wasn’t much time to leave the Sapporo station area, so I settled with getting a meat bun from the Hotei stall in the station.
It seems like its filled with cabbage, vermicelli, meat, and maybe mushroom in a sweet, savory filling. The bun was large and piping hot, and the bread on the outside was soft and fluffy. Highly recommend.
I hung out in the Tokyu building for a bit to kill time while waiting for 2:30 to roll around, and then headed to ANA Crowne Plaza Hotel and met up with my friends. The tea selection is the same as always, and the Haagen Dazs offerings were caramel, strawberry, vanilla, and green tea. This particular Afternoon Tea was available from November to January, and is cat themed!
We all ordered the mocktail to start, which was a honey and grapefruit lemonade. Very yummy, and actually reminiscent of ANA’s kabosu drink! I lost track of the ice cream I ate, but it was at least one of every flavor. This time, our strategy was to order all of their teas, starting from the bottom of the list upward. I ended up stopping at Silver Moon, making that a total of 7 cups of tea. Along with my teas, I had a lot of consomme soup.
As usual, the desserts were accompanied by three savory sides. One was porchini salami pinchos, skewered with tomato, smoked cheese, and a black olive. The other two were a smoked salmon with avocado whip, and a chicken breast and vegetable colorful marinade. And now to the sweets!
Cat Marshmallow: These fluffy marshmallows have ears and a tail attached to them. They were soft, chewy, and not too sticky. Definitely tasted better than store-bought ones.
Three Colored Cat Opera Cake: An opera-style cake that comes in three types, sweet, milk, and white. We also had three people, and each cake came with a different chocolate cat! The cake was fluffy, with layers of cake, chocolate, and some kind of berry jam.
Black Currant and Chesnut Tart: A tart with black currant and black tea cream covered with a chestnut cream topped with fresh berries. The creaminess of the top half with the tart on the bottom balanced out perfectly. I’m not sure if I tasted the black tea in the cream.
Cat Icing Cookie: An icing cookie that comes with various cat designs. We all had the same white cat, with two pearls that looked like a decklace. It was, a cookie, but pretty good.
Baked Cheesecake: Raspberry jam in a baked cheesecake, and baked to a pattern to look like a cat. The ears and tail are made from the same dough as macarons, and stuck on with chocolate. The cheesecake was very thick, not too sweet, and tasted like a very classic cheesecake. Personally not usually a cheesecake person, but I can appreciate the craft gone into this one. As a side note, usually when raspberry is used in sweets it goes by “framboise” in Japanese (likely a French borrowing). This was the first time I saw “tree strawberry”, so I thought it was a strawberry variety. In fact, it isn’t, and is a term for the bigger raspberry family.
Cat Macaron: A white and black cat-like macaron made with rice flour and raspberry cream inside. As a macaron enjoyer, I liked this one. Perfect texture.This had framboise “listed”.
Hojicha and Strawberry Tart: A tart with hojicha ganache and strawberry mousse. When two cats are put together, their tails make a heart. This one more so melded together into a slightly fruity, rich chocolate experience. I’m not sure if I tasted the hojicha, but if I read the description more, I might have.
Strawberry Charlotte: A vanilla bavarian cream in a simple Charlotte cake, with a fluffy exterior and a paw print. This might have been the fluffiest and lightest cake I’ve ever had. The cake itself was like angel cake texture, and the majority of the inside was airy vanilla cream. I will say, part of the cake layer tasted a bit burnt, but maybe that was the paw print burned onto the cake.
Blonde chocolate Roll Cake: A striped roll cake made to look like a brown tabby cat. It also cake with a white chocolate paw print. I thought this one was fine, a standard cake, and it actually felt a bit dried out.
Blueberry and Black Sesame Eclair: An eclair filled with black sesame cream and blueberry jelly. I’m not a huge black sesame person, but the flavor was light, and the blueberry jelly was the stronger flavor.
After we finished our afternoon tea, we parted ways, and my friend drove me home. On the way, we stopped by her house, and her grandma gave me some tea, oden-like simmered foods, and red bean donuts. I unfortunately did not get a picture…but it eas very yummy.
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