Pine House @ Otaru Hokkaido

Date:  Dec 13, 2014

Thanks to the burning down of 宏乐园 (Kurokoen Onsen Hotel) one week before our trip, we get the chance to stay in this 民宿 (Bed & Breakfast accommodation).

When we heard of the devastating news of the burning, we think we are very lucky that it never happen while we were there.  

It is also hard to find a hotel especially when it gets near to our trip.

But very luckily, we found this accommodation.

It is about 3 times cheaper than Kurokoen Onsen Hotel.

We decided to give it a try.

This is Pine House @ Otaru Hokkaido.

Web URL:  http://www.pine-h.com

If you wish to book this hotel, you can book thru JAPANiCAN.com

It looks like this from the outside.

This is the ground floor.  This is where we have breakfast and dinner.  We stayed in two rooms on the 2nd floor.

Wow, it has a lot of Japanese books.  Very old books.

Basically, there are only 5 rooms in this Pine House.  We stayed on the 2nd floor (Room 2 & Room 5).

There is only 1 shower and bath room.  There are toilets on both floors.

Very simple place to stay.  Of course, you do your own bed.

Quite standard Japanese style room with comfy comforters for you to sleep.

Very basic facilities available in the room.  TV, and heater.

Our room includes free breakfast and dinner.  And it comes with free WiFi too.

The kids are very excited staying in here.  It smell very well (pine wood smell).  Do you see that small little ceiling windows?

It is covered with snow.

We arrived on Dec 13 very late.  The flight touch down at New Chitose Airport around 6:20pm.  And we have to figure our way to Otaru from there.

There is free shuttle (4 passenger seaters car) from the Asari Station (a very small train station 2 station away from Otaru main station).

But on the first day, we took two taxi there.  

And it is very warm and nice for the old lady owner to prepare “light food” for us.  We ate it around 9:30pm.  The chicken was so delicious and nice.  And the rice is just nice for our empty stomach.

Both the owner and his wife cooked for us.  

Take a look at our next day breakfast.

Eggs, rice, fish, veggies.  It is Japanese breakfast.

 This is our dinner.

Paella.

Potatoe.

Fried Fish with salad.

Sashimi.

Another breakfast.

Today got Siew Mai and Sausages.  These sausages are very tasty sausages.

There are big enough space downstairs for us to play with the snow.

The scenery look over the Asarikawa Onsen village.

The owner is busying clearing the snow at the drive way. 

We love this place.

Dinner time again.

Tonight we have steaks, fish and stir fry pork.

Hamburger beef.

Fried fish.

Stir Fried pork.

Our breakfast on the day we check out.

Still very nice to eat.

It was so tasty and delicious, every one clean up their plates.

Stay 3 nights, eat 3 days breakfast and 3 days dinner.  Not too bad the price.

Last look at the balcony.

The kids say good buy to Pine House.

Next time, if you go to Otaru, I strongly recommend to give this 民宿 a try.

It is about 5-7 minutes to the Asari station.  It is about 15-20 minutes to Otaru station by car.  You can go to all the Asarikawa Onsen in surrounding.  There is one which is 7 minutes walk from the Pine House, but we never get to try it.  It was cold at night, and no one wants to go out once we are inside the warm Pine House.

The closest station is Asari Station.  Very small station.

Other comments:

1.  There is only one shower & bath room downstairs.  It is a share bath.  Japanese style.

2.  It is fun you see dogs and cats in the house.  Some guest brought their dogs to come stay in this accommodation.  Pets are welcome.

3.  Make sure you are roaming so that you can bring up GPS.  Most taxi drivers may not know the exact locations.

4.  There is a steep sloop to get to Pine House.  So, if the taxi or car does not have enough power, it cannot outrun the sloop during winter time especially the ground are frozen.  Relax, just get of the taxi and walk up. It is a good exercise.

5.  Woohooo!  Our first stay in Japanese 民宿.

6.  You need to know a little Japanese in order to 比手划脚 and communicate with the nice old lady owner.  The owner don’t talk much though.