hokkaido– tag –

A noble class still exists in Japan. They are not crazy rich, like being depicted as making a mess by power of money in some movies probably. Most of them look modest and behave modestly, and so, it's very difficult to spot them out.

The most popular Japanese noodle dish is definitely Ramen. Nobody would argue against it. These days, Japanese Ramen restaurants open even in Manhattan. For your information, one of such restaurants gaining momentum overseas, "Ramen Santouka" originates in Asahikawa (our hometown), though their NY shop is located a little outside of Manhattan.

Do you know what we used as a point of reference to find stag beetles gather? It's acorns. Yes, it's oak trees where stag beetles are gathered. In Hokkaido, there are many oak trees, and they grow not only stag beetles but also the industry of whisky and furniture.

Asahikawa is one of the five major furniture production areas in Japan. Then, why not use the advantageous position for local community revitalization? Our chairman's new challenge has just started to make this wooden furniture company a fun place where many people want to go. In fact, we always receive many favourable reviews and comments for our factory tour. Why don't you try it out?

Snow has already been used as a renewable energy source here. Hokkaido, the northernmost part of Japan, is the largest producer of potato, onion, and rice in Japan, and snow is used to refrigerate those crops during storage.

As I wrote before, our home town is the mecca of wooden furniture, where we have the world's famous chair collector, Noritsugu Oda. The number of chairs in Oda Collection amounts to about 1350, including most of the world masterpiece chairs, of course!

In the early 90's when I was a kid, the zoo was so boring and a little creepy. It was like a horror movie scene of Stephen King: there were few people; animals were deathly still; old and rusty attractions made a squeak (in the amusement area in the zoo). In 1995, the zoo took the first step to the great comeback by the inauguration of a new director.

Kiyomi Mikuni is the most famous Japanese chef born in Hokkaido. He grew up in extreme poverty. Soon after graduating from junior high school, he started to work for a rice dealer for free meals and the opportunity for attending a night cooking school. In Hokkaido, there are some restaurants supervised by him. Fratello Di Mikuni is one of them.

The hotel is an 11-story building: RC up to the 8th floor, wooden structure above it (1380 tons less in carbon dioxide emissions). Wood waste from the construction is used for interior finishing. I'm sure the hotel restaurant will provide food made with local ingredients, in addition

Sapporo, the capital city of Hokkaido, is famous as a place for test marketing. Many businesses test pre-release products because its age structure of population is almost the same as that of the whole country. In addition, the city has no strong characteristics or specific tendency in culture; the people are considered to like new things. Maybe it's because Hokkaido doesn't have a long history, different from other areas in the main land of Japan.