The Hokkaido Road Trip

Departure: Saturday, May 2nd.  Murakami, Niigata, Japan.

Sasagawanagare, Niigata: we stopped for a look at one of the top-rated beaches in Japan and what-do-you-know, a helicopter was about to land.

Sasagawanagare

Sasagawanagare

Sasagawanagare

May 5th is 'Children's Day.'  People all over Japan hand koinobori, or giant carp flags in celebration for their children (especially their boys).

Zenpouji in Yamagata

a really REALY old shrine

monks were singing

the birds were chirping

I really like it when the sakura are 70% flowers, 30% leaves

Jenelle's in Akita-ken, Ruu's in Yamagata-ken

Taking roads through the mountains leads you to things like THIS

and THIS

but be careful of Bears

Fresh Spring Water on the side of the road.  Fill-er-up!!

Info about that fresh spring water in Akita

Kakunodate, Akita-ken

Kakunodate and it's hidden samurai houses ... and doors

Nenokuchie Campsite

Sunset over Japan's deepest lake: Towada-ko

First night of camping on the beautiful Towada-ko

This place was so nice, we probably could have made a couple day vacation of it.

LOVE コロッケ - croquet 

Nyuto Onsen.  Ruu found this place on the map.  Apparently it's been featured on TV as one of the best onsens in all of Japan.  

We even went in a co-ed onsen!!

Good thing we got there early; it got PACKED!!

Ruu whipped out the 'air-guitar'

Oga Peninsula

this guy seemed famous enough for a statue pose

Baba Aisu (grandma ice cream) - actually sold by grandmas ALL over Akita-ken.

Hokkaido waterfall

Hokkaido sake, not as good as Niigata's 

No one but us on the open road.

Hokkaido Sea

Billions of hanging fish on the side of the road.

Rebun Island

Ruu and our taxi buddy, Masashi

On and around Rebun Island 

The taxi driver cut us a deal, and we were able to go EVERYWHERE on Rebun.

Pretty view from Rebun Island

Sukoton, the most northern point of Japan

UNI

Opening a LIVE Uni

The insides of an Uni

Cleaning out the Uni

Eating a male Uni

Eating a female Uni

Ferry to Rebun Island

I just really want to learn how to ride a motorcycle!!

To: Futoshi.  With love, Ruu

Actually high-kicking a bell

Point to where you're from.

Statue pose

A Japanese tour group taking pictures at the most northern point of the mainland Hokkaido.

Finally, a Russian store.  Too bad for Jenelle it was closed due to the Golden Week Holidays.

Still practicing...

Apparently that stuff is GOOD.

Jenelle goes crazy when she sees waterfalls.

THIS much snow

We were hiking up this mountain thinking, this kind of looks like a skii-slope, and then we saw a skiier. 

Yup, we were definitely hiking up a closed ski-slope

Made it to the top ... or as high as we were up to going that day. 

Not going to lie, I was a little nervous about bears.

We met some snowboarders on the top, barbecuing lamb.  They had also hiked to the top of the mountain to practice jumps.  

Running and jumping down the mountain.

Lake Daisetsu was still frozen.

Hokkaido's pretty pretty.  

The reason Japanese farms look so perfect is because they do most of the planting by HAND.

We were shocked to see that we passed through a town called Saroma ... isn't that where Sean lives???  Yes, yes it is.  

Ocean, farm, mountains

Utoro sunset.

Made it to the Shiretoko Peninsula just in time to see a beautiful sunset.  

We made a couple friends from Tokyo while watching the sunset.  

Closed Campground = Free Campground

All these warnings about bear, but no sightings ... which is perfectly cool with me. 

Jenelle has never seen so many deer in her life ... AND she's from Canada!!

Cleaning and repacking the car while waiting for the visitor's center to open.  

Shiretoko National Park's Go-ko, or Five Lakes.  All but one was closed to it being too early in the season, or construction, or some other kind of BS

So we hiked around the one open lake.  

Tried to get around the gate to the natural waterfall onsens in Kamuiwakka-no-taki

Couldn't quite make it up the curb

So we hiked some more around that one open lake.

Disappointing but still stunning.  

Bear Onsen, why not?

FINALLY we see Russia

'Cow' mowed into the side of a hill

Grazing Cows

This was probably the first time I've ever worn flip-flops in the SNOW

Akan National Park's Mashu0ko, an ancient volcano crater that has become a beautiful lake.  

Good ol' suburban house.

Akan National Park's Kussharo-ko

Reminds me a little of Indiana

Free Open Campsite.  It must have been early in the camping season as we had the whole place to ourselves.  

Hanabatake-bokujo Caramel Factory

Pony

Lama

Nama-Caramel Shop

Holy crap this ice cream topped with hot caramel was delicious!!

Pretty in pink Nama-Caramel Ice Cream 

Futoshi to the rescue.  The place we went to for dinner was really interesting.  In the old days, all throughout Japan, little portable restaurants filled the roads.  With modernization, wide streets, and cars though, these little box-restaurants nearly went extinct.  In very few areas, they still survive.  We ate some pretty delicious Hokkaido karaage (fried chicken), omelette, and salad.  

Obihoro Hospital

Futoshi's Hokkaido ride. 

They grow GRASS to feed the COWS in Hokkaido!!  AMAZING!!

Waiting and reading 'Twilight' in the police station ;)

Inside a famous chocolate shop in Obihiro.

It's difficult for me to read kanji as it is, but this crazy Ainu-inspired Hokkaido kanji is impossible even for Japanese-Honshu people!

Bathroom break.

Actually, the reason Jenelle went walking around with a bandage on her head for a week was because of this very Ainu bear. 

The set of 北の国から, or 'From the North Country.'  Futoshi told us to sleep in the car while he secretly searched for Furano, the town of one of his favorite childhood TV shows.  

Futoshi, happy as a kid in a candy store ... or as Futoshi would be with good sake, on the set of his favorite drama.  

Pictures from 'Kitanokunikara'

Life on the farm

Shockingly, raw chicken is delicious!

A Hike Up a Mountain in Arakawa

It’s Showa Day!!  Flo and I drove to Jess’s neck of the woods for what ended up being a 4.5-hour hike up a rather steep mountain.  For the first time exactly four days, the weather was perfect.  The sun was shining, it was warm enough to put the jacket in the backpack, and cool enough to climb straight up without sweating buckets.   After PNG, I was under the pretentious impression that nothing I ever saw for the rest of my life could ever compare to the beauty that exists just below the equator, BUT today’s trek was pretty pretty, and to think it exists in the greater Murakami area!!  Jess’s lengthy legs forced Flo and I to bounce up the mountain until a pretty flower or gnarly root distracted us from walking.  At the tippy-top we joined the party of some other hikers for a bento (packed lunch), only we felt a little out of place as we neglected to pack the standard floor tarp, sake, and chocolate.  Thanks to not listening to Flo or my sense of direction, and instead leaving the navigation down the other side of the mountain to Jess, we were able to get back down.  What better way to end a beautiful strenuous day than with the Kappa-zushi (cheap, delicious, conveyor belt sushi) and Starbucks in Shibata?!?!  Needless to say, I was EXHAUSTED and STUFFED at the end of the day, definitely hitting the sack before 9:00 pm, ahhhh to be on my very own schedule.  [On a side note, as I write this, there is a crazy man in the teacher’s room singing some song LOUDLY, and no one knows what to do with him… just going to ignore it all…]

A Day Trip to Zenkouji (Saturday, April 25, 2009)

Having Ruu as a friend is GREAT because she’s awesome, AND because she knows of all the cool things going around this prefecture and the next that I would never ever know about otherwise.  For example, in Nagano, there’s a shrine called Zenkouji that has a statue that was made by an ancient Buddhist person in India way back when.  This statue has never actually been seen, nor is it allowed to be seen, but it’s kept at this Zenkouji shrine in Nagano.  A replica of the statue thing was made, but even that is sacred, and is only shown for a month or so once every 7 years!!  Guess what guys??  I saw that replica!!  Ruu booked a classic Japanese bus tour for herself, Jenelle, and I that took us from Niigata to Nagano.  Aside from the weather being nothing but RAIN, it was GREAT to finally experience another stereotype of this country.  On the itinerary, we were to first stop at shrine for 10 minutes, then move on to a bread house for 3 minutes, a cave for 25 minutes, a souvenir shop for 20 minutes, then back to the bus, drive to where we would be provided with a soba lunch for 40 minutes, souvenir shop, and then Zenkouji for a group picture, a quick explanation, a chance to see a little bit of the shrine, meet up again to go to another souvenir shop, stand in a line to stake out of good spot to be blessed, race to get in line to be able to see the closing ceremony of the day, stand in line to get blessed for the second time by the same nun, back to the bus to drive to a shabu-shabu dinner of vegetables, pork, beef, and horse meat, and then bus ride home being forced to listen to the tour guide tell us for the billionth time that we should use caution when getting our bags together when we leave the bus in 2 hours!!  Haha, I had fun J

A Hike Up Gagyuzan (Friday, April 24, 2009)

Lucky for me, the weather sucked yesterday, so the Senami Elementary School hike up Gagyuzan Mountain got pushed back to today!!  I was told to pack a backpack, lunch, and gloves.  Why gloves you ask?  Well that’s because the trail gets pretty steep at the top and we must grip a rope to help us up those parts.  Why a lunch?  Well that’s because we love to eat cute bentos consisting of rice, little bits of meat, veggies, and fruit at the top of mountains.  Why a backpack?  Well that’s to hold not only our gourmet lunches, but also huge containers of tea, handkerchiefs, tissues, picnic tarp (duh, we need something to sit on at the top), and candy.  I packed mittens (thought we needed gloves because it was going to be cold toward the top), a sandwich, and a backpack containing mittens, a sandwich, and a water bottle. 

The WHOLE entire school, hundreds of 1^st through 6^th graders, got into a single file line and walked from the school to the base of the mountain, and then up the narrow trail to the top.  It was so much fun to walk amongst the crazy students pushing each up and down and off the rope, and listening to their ridiculous stories that little kids that age talk about.  One of my 3^rd grade friends even shared her tarp with me at the top so I wouldn’t have to sit on the dirt-y ground!!  Obviously, this was one of the best school days I’ve had in quite some time.  

Niigata Road Race

A couple weeks ago Aya-sensei told me about the Niigata Road Race.  We had three options: a 5K, 10K, and 16K.  After some deliberation, we both ended up choosing the 10K while Hiromi and her husband trained for the 5K.  Having to be in the city for the Sunday race, this was a great reason to spend another one of my dwindling weekends with my obaachan.  We walked around Hakusan Park to look at the falling cherry blossoms on Saturday, which actually I think are prettier than the blooming sakura.  A combination of growing green leaves with the falling pink sakura flowers and a carpet of pink petals over the grass makes for one really pretty Spring day.  The race route the following day was along the river and also through falling cherry blossoms.  It was a nice run, with a few familiar faces.  Futoshi even came on his bike to cheer us on!!  As always though, I went out too fast and ran out of gas on the way back.  They award the top 6 finishers of each category with not medals, but boxes of sports drinks, tea, mushrooms, and so on.   Immediately after finishing the race, you can stand in line and get a certificate printed out with your time and place.  I got 7^th, JUST missing the giant box of mushrooms!!

Hanami

Hana = flower; mi = look; Hanami = going to a park to view the blooming cherry blossom trees while drinking!!  Takada Park in Joetsu was the location, about 3 hours south of me.  It was great times with other ALTs from this prefecture and the next.  I’ve been waiting my whole life to see the Sakura in Japan!!  They were pretty in the daylight, and got even more good-looking into the night.  The next day’s soccer practice (with a little bit of softball catch) but a cap on another fantaubulous weekend J