Inspired scents: Hokkaido

I'm always thinking of new and fun scents that I'd love to make - so this is probably going to be an ongoing thing, writing inspired scent lists. 

Seeing as we're all in lockdown (or if we're not in the future, hurrah!) I'm painfully reminded of how much I miss travelling. One of my favorite places is Hokkaido, the northernmost island in Japan. It's famous for a lot of things, like its skiing resorts, the freshness of their seafood and agricultural produce and the snow festivals. While Sapporo is a bustling city centre, a lot of the towns around the area are smaller, more rural, and it's pretty hard to get around without knowing Japanese (unless you're in Niseko, in which, everything is in English.) 

I have a lot of fond memories associated with Hokkaido, and it's one of the most beautiful places I've visited. So here's a little scent list of some of my favorite places - and some photos I've taken of my favorite places. 

Farm Tomita - an endless stretch of lavender fields, crushed herbal lavender, with the creamy taste of lavender soft serve and lavender cheesecake, and the faint trickle of a babbling brook. 

Farm Tomita is one of the most famous lavender fields located in Furano, a region known for their goregous lavender fields and their delicious Yubari melon. The Farm sells a range of their own merchandise, lavender body oils, lavender colored hoodies, towels, aprons, lavender scented candles, home and body fragrances, lavender candy and also lavender colored plush toys. Basically, they sell just about anything lavender colored and flavored. On the Farm premises, you can also go to one of the little cafes, which sell an assortment of lavender flavored items, such as lavender cheesecake, lavender soft serve, steamed potato with lavender butter, lavender cream puffs, lavender custard...  You get the gist. You can go there and spend a whole day looking at their flower fields. 

I've always loved lavender flavored items, it's just one of those rare flavors that I'm just so obsessed with. It's light, and fragrant. The other memory I have associated with Farm Tomita is a small little stream of water that trickles down between the lavender fields. the water is always clear, flanked by a few rocks, and I'll always remember farm tomita in the height of summer, the warm sun, a clear sky dotted with fluffy white clouds, water trickling down a riverbend, an endless stretch of lavender fields and rice paddies, punctuated with the taste of a lavender soft serve. 

Natsu Matsuri - a bottle of ramune, the folds of floral printed cotton yukata, syrupy strawberry and lemon kakigori (shaved ice with syrup) and bright fireworks. 

During my first visit to Hokkaido ever, it was during the peak of summer, and there's nothing more like a nostalgic memory than a summer festival with your friends - and of course, the fireworks at night. The streets were closed off so cars couldn't enter, and everyone was wearing yukata, with some street stalls and shops - and we were all able to gather and watch the fireworks go off. Especially in the heat, it's nice to get cooler treats like kakigori, and they often have a few different flavors to choose from as well - including matcha, although I think fruit flavors are more satisfying in summer. 

Summer matsuris are very popular - and I wish I had the chance to go to more! My favorite activity to watch is always kingyo-sukui which is goldfish catching with flat paper scoops. How do they do it without the paper breaking? I really want to know. 

Ainu Kotan - Cypress and oak wooden carvings, the crackle of bone, fur, leather and animal musk. 

The Ainu are the First Nation people of Hokkaido, and in Lake Akan they have a small street made up of traditional handicraft items. The items are primarily made out of wood, leather and bone, with many wooden carvings and shops made entirely of wood, but all of the carvings around the street are of animals. They also have a small museum display at the top of the road. This street is one that really sticks in my mind as a place I went during a winter night - it was cold and illuminated by street lights and candles and the inviting warm and cozy lights of stores lining the street. 

Lake Akan - A calm ripple in a clear lake, flanked by rich forests and dotted with many many marimo. 

Lake Akan is a crater lake in Kushiro, known for its beautiful clear water. One of the most special things about Lake Akan is also that the lake is home to 'marimo', an algae that is formed into balls. It's one of the reasons why Zoro from One Piece is called marimo head, and it thrilled me to no end to be there. The marimo is a seriously significant part of Lake Akan's appeals, to the point where you can buy little marimo bottled up in key chains, and the hotel that I stayed at actually had a special mocktail with little green jelly balls on the bottom of the 'lake'.  

They also have the cutest thing, it's a little building called the Marimo Exhibition and Observation Centre on Churui island - which is literally only accessible by a special cruise/ferry you can take. There's literally nothing on it except massive amounts of trees, one building, and inside you get to see a bunch of marimo which is shown in an underground aquarium. They can grow to be ridiculously huge, and it's hilarious to see everyone take pictures with what is essentially a round ball of seaweed but I love it. When I think of lake Akan itself, I definitely think of that gorgeous aquatic lake scent, but you really need that mossy, kelp like fuzziness of the marimo, and a touch of wood and foliage that surrounds Akan. Even the grates of the city have little marimos decorated on them! 

Shirogane Blue Pond - sparkling water, an edge of refreshing lemonade and touch of salt. Sea salt ice cream but if it was a soda. 

Shirogane blue pond is a little blue lake found around the Biei area - the blue was an accident caused by aluminium seeping into the water from an attempt to control mudslides around the area. It's a haunting but really gorgeous place - in summer you can walk around the area with a clear walking path around the perimeter of the lake, but in winter it's best just to have a look as the amount of snow makes it pretty hard to trek around (and it's very cold!) There was a special soft serve ice cream that was created with a lemonade flavor topped with the aoigitsune blue fox cookie (only sold at the Aoi Ike shop at Biei!) and there are also special ciders (Japanese lemonade) which have the special shirogane label printed on it. I personally really love sea salt ice cream and it's salty/sweet flavor, (and I have a soft spot for the aggressively blue paddle pop sticks from Kingdom Hearts) and so I liked the idea of that soft fizz paired with the creaminess of vanilla ice cream and salt. 

Abashiri - minty, soft vanilla, caramel salt, popping candy. 

Abashiri is known for two things. their Prison museum, and their drift ice cruises. I personally have never been to the prison/museum, but I have been there during summer and winter and it's gorgeous. During winter, drift ice comes down from the north along the Okhotsk sea and you can sit in a ferry and observe the ice. 

They have a special little boarding centre for the ferry where they sell special Abashiri beer, called the Abashiri Okhotsk Blue Ryuhyo Draft, which is made of natural ingredients and drift ice. It's a lovely turquise blue, and is supposedly made of flowers, seaweed, fruit.... Something like that. Yes there is also blue curry. They also sell their famous 'Drift Ice Soft Serve Ice Cream', which is caramel ice cream with blue salt. They also have little hard candies, with are typically mint flavored. At the ferry station, they sell their own version of the Drift Ice Soft Cream - which is a minty vanilla soft serve with popping candy. 

I really like the idea of this being a relatively cold scent, with the biting breeziness of the mint being the main note, complimented with soft pops of caramel and popping candy on top of a thin vanilla base - not too creamy! 

Sapporo - Lots of beer, dimly lit izakayas, and the refined metal of a huge clock tower and rapid trains. Boozy atmospheric. 

Sapporo is definitely the centre of Hokkaido for me - with the clock tower in the middle of the city and its giant underground mall and train station. Of course, Sapporo beer is also a staple of the city! I think this scent would be super cool with the more indulgent, bitter hops and malt notes, peppered with the more industrial and metallic edge of the clock tower and bullet trains. I think there are definitely more aspects that could be captured here but, I think leaving out beer from a Sapporo scent wouldn't sit right with me - although I'm not sure how much of the izayaka's savoury notes would work for this. 

Winter Festival - Crackling, sugared cold minty ice. Cold atmospheric. 

During winter, Hokkaido runs a winter festival - with snow and ice sculptures. I went to a little winter festival where they had a whole castle built of ice, and you could walk inside them. There was also a little bar where you could sit on benches and chairs made of ice. I think I would like this scent as more simple soli-note of sugary mint - like a blend of peppermint and spearmint, although I'd like that atmospheric twist to keep it more grounded in snow and ice. 

Biei - Wheat, freshly baked bread, corn, green asparagus, olive oil and basil. 

Biei is known for some amazing food, and one of the best places is ASPERGES, a restaurant in Omachi, Biei. It's actually a French style restaurant with a chain of different restaurants and they also sell local produce - as the name suggests, they sell asparagus, corn, rice and some other vegetables. MY favorite is probably their roasted dried corn - it's really delicious. The restaurant is a gorgeous glass structure and dining inside is such an experience since you can look outside at the beautiful views and also inside to the kitchen. All of their food is locally grown and sourced - and even if you aren't a huge fan of vegetables (I typically am not), they make these taste amazing. The photo is of their signature dish, 20 different vegetables salad, but I'm also obsessed with their potato bread (freshly baked bread with chunks of roasted potato in it) and their caramlized, slow roasted onions (which are amazingly sweet and soft). It also reminds me of the savoury sweetness of olive oil on ice cream - it's such a beautiful combination even when it doesn't feel like it should work. 

I think this scent would work really well as a sort of vegetable, herbal blend - with the freshness of the olive oil, crushed basil, paired with the savoury nutty and wheat heavy bread, and creamy corn. I think it would be really nice with that fresh edge to it - like a vegetable garden on some bread. 

Meron Street - fresh pulpy orange melon with its green rind. Sweet, soft, juicy and fragrant. 

Around the Furano-Biei area, the Yubari melon is one of the most famous and well loved fruits of the area. Although it's not officially listed as a place to go to - there is a stretch of road with "MELON" on all of the little stores on either side of the road. I jokingly named this 'melon street' since the whole road was just filled with shops selling fresh fruit and vegetables, but most of them had the Yubari melon (already pre-cut for tourism purposes), and of course, roasted corn as well. You can get freshly cut Yubari melon pretty much anywhere in the area - with ice cream or just freshly cut, and you can get these as in flavored omiyage (souvenirs) such as kit kats, pocky or square chewy caramels too. It was my first (and last time) ever having a Yubari melon smoothie on that street - but it was a refreshing treat of sweet blended melon. The orange candy melon is quite similar - but Yubari melon is incredibly sweet and juicy. My favorite Yubari melon snack is the Yubari melon jelly - the original formulation felt a lot more like mashed up melon squished into a jelly container, but the newer ones were definitely more jelly like but still wonderfully tasty.