Tag Archive for 'hokkaido'

Eastern Hokkaido Roadtrip

Published by Kevin & Cathy on August 1, 2008 in General.   85 views 1 Comment

Eastern Hokkaido Roadtrip - Akanko, Kussharoko, Abashiri, Shiretoko

We took a camping/onsening/feasting roadtrip through eastern Hokkaido- known to have absolutely nothing to offer but breathtakingly beautiful scenery.

We took along with us our friend Michael Tripp who also is a former Hokkaidoite. Our final destination was Shiretoko but we planned on stopping in at many other places along the way.

Massive roadtrip success!

Furano

Lavender ice-cream
Furano
花

We left bright and early on Friday morning. Our first stop was Furano. Hokkaido people live for Furano in the summer. It’s something that you hear over and over for a few weeks each summer: “Have you gone to Furano yet? The flowers are blooming.” Furano is famous for its endless lavender fields and it’s lavender related products, such as Lavender ice-cream.

Akan

we went from Furano to Akanko (阿寒湖). It’s one of the many Ainu heritage sites with lots of Ainu influence. The Ainu are the indigenous people that were in Hokkaido before the Japanese invaded. We camped at the Lake Akan lakeside campground (阿寒湖畔キャンプ場. However, it really isn’t close to the lakeside… The actual lakeside is crowded with hotels and resorts.
We had a good night of Jingisukan (ジンギスカン) and dodging attacks from giant moths and foxes.

Our daily routine for the trip consisted of: camp->eat->onsen->photograph. After waking up and packing up our campsite, we headed into the town of Akanko to see some Ainu arts & crafts. Marimo is very popular here. It’s a green algae ball that grows in the lake. Inspired by marimo is the Marimo-kori which is a green doll with a huge green marimo boner. (no joke) We enjoyed the BEST onsen all 3 of us had ever had at Tsuruga.

Lake Kussharo & Lake Mashu

We made our way to Lake Kussharo (屈斜路湖 ) and Lake Mashu (摩周湖). It was a very foggy drive. By the time we got to Lake Mashu, we saw no lake. Lake Mashu is famous for being foggy. There’s an old myth that if a couple is able to see the lake on a sunny day, they will not get married. That explains how foggy and how rare it would be to see the actual lake. We saw nothing.

グルメ (gourmet)

We did our camping for the second night at a random auto campground. Our initial plan to camp by the water did not work out as it was a weekend and the lakeside campground was packed.

We navigated around the lake on a bumpy old logging road and took us 2 hours to get out. It was an adventure with lots of deers jumping around.

We did our onsen dip in Kawayu (川湯) the next day. This whole area smells like Sulphur. The onsen was a very sulphury one. Our silver rings turned golden under the water. We also visited the Iozan mountain (硫黄山). The direct translation of the mountain is Sulphur mountain. There were yellow patches all over it with bubbling water and steam. We bought an egg that was cooked with the sulphur steam. It tasted like sulphury goodness.

Abashiri

Our next stop was Abashiri (網走). To this day, the name Abashiri to the Japanese is the equivalent of “Alkatraz” to North Americans. There’s a big prison in Abashiri and it sure didn’t look pleasant when we visited the Abashiri Prison Museum. Being right in the blast-zone for the siberian winds coming south from Russia, the winter in Abashiri Prison most be almost unimaginable.

We camped at a free campground at Lake Abashiri. (呼人浦キャンプ場) The breeze from the lake was a bit cold that night but it kept the campfire smoke consistent.

Abashiri microbrewery

We went to another Tsuruga onsen - Hokutennnoka (北天の丘) the next day after our tour of the Abashiri prison. We also tried Milk beer here…. ewwww.

Shiretoko

Shiretoko Goko

We got around 4 hours of sunshine when we were in Shiretoko. The sun shone on the ocean and it was magnificent. We visited the famous Shiretoko 5 lakes but unfortunately we were only allowed to go on the observation tower to (barely) see one of the lakes because apparantly there were brown bears in the woods that day. Shiretoko is famous for massive brown bears. We saw one when we were driving from Shiretoko to Rausu. A little cub was just hanging out in the ditch eating leaves. We contemplated getting out of the car to take some photos… but we didn’t. (phew, dodged a bullet there…) We took a little windy mountain road from Utoro to Rausu, where we had the most amazing fresh seafood in a little shack by the ocean.

Shiretoko

The second day we woke up to a beautiful view of the ocean, onsened on the cliff overlooking the ocean and drove home.

Really, it was a fantastic trip.

Camping at Toya Lake, Hokkaido.

Published by Kevin & Cathy on June 23, 2008 in Japan.   340 views 1 Comment

Have you heard of the g8 summit? Well, this year it’s happening in Hokkaido at Toya lake.
We took a camping trip to Toyako (which is Toya lake in Japanese in case you haven’t figured that out already..) last week. Aside from the super high security highway checks, it was more than beautiful.

We bought a tent from Costco a while back for 6000 Yen (that is 56CDN as of Jun 23 2008). This trip was the first time for us to use the tent. We found a campground which allows open fire. (Our campground - 仲洞爺キャンプ場. Here’s a great website for looking for campgrounds in Hokkaido: camp navi hokkaido). In Japan, it’s not very common for people to camp and have open fire. It is usually not allowed in camp grounds. Moreover, it is also not common for people to camp just at the middle of no where. People usually camp in camp grounds. We had our doubts about it before this trip, but due to high security around the Toyako we decided that it is best to stay out of trouble by staying in a campground.

Our campground is really not what you think it is. It is still the middle of no where, but with running water and toilets. (In our case, it also had a onsen nearby - 来夢人の家) We set camp RIGHT by the lake. We had an open fire going right by the water and we fell asleep listening to the sound of the lake (and rain for the first night.) We were blessed with beautiful fireworks on the lake as part of Toyako’s attraction during summer. It was really quite romantic to be snuggling under big umbrellas, drinking beer, eating bbq steak and watching the fireworks by the lake.

The tent held up to the rain the first night. We had minor leakage but it was very fixable problem with a little help from garbage bags. Kevin went outside with a giant sun umbrella at the middle of the night with gold miner head flashlight to attach garbage bags to the corners of the tent. After that, we stayed dry and comfortable inside. Thankfully for the tent being a 3-person tent, we had plenty of space. Kevin, as a giant, had to sleep diagonally in the tent.

We woke up at 6′o clock in the morning and find ourselves facing a beautiful calm lake with white mists and swans swimming by. (there were so many swans, they even tried to come on shore to attack us and steal our food, in our imaginary scenario that’s what they’d do of course.)

We had delicious Jingisukan (ジンギスカン) and yakiniku (焼き肉) and cheesy japanese pinky sized cocktail weinies and of course, marshmallows. We toured the town of Toya during the day and visited the Sun Palace Hotel onsen and the brand new super-eco toyako visitor center that’s dedicated to greeness. There were fields of solar panels and wind generators around the beautiful new log house. G8 is definitely bringing Toya new life.

Our trip goes on to Hakodate after Toyako. More to come.

We will go through photos and upload them slowly. Will insert photos later.

Our winter in Hokkaido

Published by Kevin & Cathy on January 30, 2008 in General and Japan.   642 views 2 Comments

can you kick it

Of all the things that you have heard about Hokkaido, they are probably all true, but really, Hokkaido is all about its winter. There might be delicious diary products and ice creams here, but nothing beats the powdery fluffy snow. To keep warm in this kind of weather, we have grown accustomed to long johns and toque hair. We have also learned to enjoy a nice warm Shōchū (焼酎) from time to time.

Things we do to try to keep warm and keep ourselves lively

hmmmm beer
- We drink and hang out. Did you know that Japanese bars sometime serve beers in Big, Medium, and small size?
The dark yebisu Japanese beer is almost a meal… (almost. I said.)

- We went on the local radio station FM G’Sky to be the foreigner guests. We later on went to Taichi’s house for a new year party. Did you know, Japanese people celebrate new year with families, so the new year party is usually sometime in January with friends. This is the “party” where people drink and eat and chitchat till the wee hour. If you prefer drunken chitchats, it’s also an option.

- Cathy enjoys kicking snow/ice behind the tires and around the bumpers on the car. A lot of ice builds up on the cars around here. Cathy kicks our car, sometimes also other people’s car.

- We run around in the snow with kids and play: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=60KE9V-jzu8. We love these kids.

- The Costco at Sapporo finally opened on Jan 25, 2008. It was the first costco in Hokkaido. We paid a visit on Jan 26. There was a line-up for the cars to go into the parking lot all the way around the block. (which we avoided by parking in another grocery store’s parking lot) We bought blue cheese, costco muffins, san pellegrino, jelly beans, and chai tea. Between the 4 of us, Kevin - Cathy - Matthew - Kaori, we each spent around 7000Yen - equivalent to 70 dollars CDN. None of us planned to buy anything before we went in. Costco just sucked us in. Membership here is slightly cheaper than I remembered. It was 4500 Yen, with the great exchange rate on Canadian dollar right now, that’s 42 CDN dollars. it’s a ripoff if you are paying $49 in Canada!

- Sometimes we visit random small town businesses, such as, bowling alley on a Sunday night. excitementThe place was literally empty. We felt cool and lively while the Japanese teenagers gather around behind us, playing video games and taking sticker photos.

- Cathy got to go to the Sunagawa Hospital for a tour around the surgical room. my night at the sunagawa hospital “How often do you get to meet a cardio surgeon who would take you to the hospital for a private tour?” She said. I am not sure about you, but we don’t all live in grey’s anatomy land.

There are much more things we would like to do around here during the winter, but it seems that time is flying and we will never have enough time to do them all. There hasn’t been any snowman-building yet this winter.

This weekend, we will escape the cold and fly to Taiwan for Chinese new year. Delicious food awaits. We will, however, unfortunately miss the tug-a-war competition in town and the Sapporo snow festival. But we are almost certain that the snow will be here waiting for us till we are back.

On a side note, it really isn’t that cold… - 5 is considerably warm and refreshing. The coldest day of this season to date was -24. It was not pleasant.

If you are reading this post from somewhere above 0 degree, that probably means, you are one of those people we miss dearly.

p.s. All pictures are from Cathy because Kevin has been slow on uploading

We live in Japan!

Published by Kevin & Cathy on November 19, 2007 in Japan and Video.   525 views 4 Comments

Well- we made it!
After more than 6 months of planning, freaking, packing and stressing, we finally made it to Japan! (On top of that, we flew business class from Taiwan to Japan… in case you are wondering)

If we’ve kept you horribly out of the loop, we are living in a quaint little town of 45,000 people called Takikawa, on the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. It’s 45 minutes away from Sapporo by driving. We are here to teach English to a group of students of all ages. It’s a private business / freelance job and it has been going on for 17 years. Every year, a new couple comes over and takes over the apartment, car, fish, and everything else.

Hokkaido is famous for many things including its dairy and Sapporo beer, but perhaps most notably its vicious winters. We had been here for only 5 days when the famous Hokkaido winter started in full force. It has snowed every day since Thursday and it’s now currently -7 deg C outside with no signs of breaking above 0 in the coming week. Sweet. Apparently in the winter it can snow taller than Cathy in one night. (though she is really quite small)

(A little white air-born bug called the snow bug showed up right before it started snowing, apparently it’s a very Hokkaido thing as well)

Our first week here has been a little nuts. Our predecessors, Samantha & Rafael have been super helpful in getting us settled in and making us feel at home, but with only 2 weeks of overlap between us, there’s a lot to get done and learn. We’ve transferred ownership of the car and purchased our car insurance, transferred bills & account names, applied for our “Alien Cards” (mandatory I.D. for long-term foreigners), purchased our Hanko (stamps of our name) - important documents are usually “signed” with a seal in east Asia - and we have started our lessons and met all our students.

Between the two of us, we have over 50 students, not including our City Hall classrooms or our Youchien kindergarten classes! We have been learning our student’s names, their abilities, their workbooks and much much more. We are getting to know the town we live in. It’s quite a small town. The people here are very nice and generous. When we were at the photo place having our Alien card photos taken, the old Japanese photographer gave us a giant bag of mandarins. (which were amazingly delicious by the way)

It has been snowing hard and it’s looking like that the snow is here to stay….

Attached video of us on our way into Takikawa after landing in Sapporo Chitose Airport.