Almost everyone in Japan goes somewhere or takes a day or two off to celebrate this holiday. Shawn and I joined another couple of friends (guy from New Zealand and his wife (Japanese) and their son) and did a tour of Southern Hokkaido. They own a car and drove us all over and showed us around.
First stop was a nice townhouse/hotel place in the forest in the Sahkotan area. This side of Hokkaido faces the sea of Japan and if it hadn't been brutally cold and windy that night, our BBQ on the beach would have been much more enjoyable (the hotel didn't have an area that allowed BBQ and we had meat that we needed to cook so were forced to brave the wind and cook the meat). After dinner we enjoyed a few drinks and a nice onsen in the hotel.
Our cold BBQ.
The Japanese coastline is re-inforced with concrete everywhere you look.
The next morning we headed across Hokkaido towards the Pacific and enjoyed another BBQ along the way at a nice river. We were glad to have the BBQ because the smoke kept away the swarms of biting bugs that were there. We all managed to get a few bites but the sun was nice and warm and we were hungry so stuck it out. After lunch we continued on to Onuma Quasi National Park where we stayed in a B&B.
Our riverside BBQ.
I have no idea what Quasi National Park is supposed to mean, but my feeling was that it meant they would protect the ecological integrity of this place so long as there wasn't something economically intriguing enough not to do so. Onuma is a big lake that is at the foot of a stunning volcano called Komagatake Yama. After waking up and a nice breakfast and check out, we rented bikes and rode around the lake (14 km trip). The weather was fairly nice, but low clouds meant that we didn't get to see the nice views of Komagatake as we made the trip. There was a nice camping ground on the lakeshore so we hope to return some time this summer to spend a night there and maybe hike the volcano (not active any longer, don't worry mom!).
There are also lots of nice walking paths around the lake and arched bridges connect the small islands along the end of the lake. Here's us on one of the bridges.
There were also heaps of fishermen sitting on specialized platforms. They baited their hooks with mashed potato (seriously, they had to replace the dissolved bait every couple minutes) and didn't use a reel, just yanked the fish up onto the platform before releasing them. They were well equipped and entertaining to watch.
We left Onuma and drove south to Hakodate, an important historical port as it was one of the first international trading ports. The influence of this can definately be felt in the city as there are many churches, lots of park space and even a citadel in the center of the city. On our first night we took a trip up to the top of the tower that overlooks the star shaped fort but because it was pretty dark we didn't see much. It was raining that night so we grabbed a bite and took shelter in our hotel room for the rest of the night. Our friend and his son had a bad reaction to the bug bites from the prior BBQ and their legs were swollen so too much walking wasn't in the cards anyway.
The next morning we took a nice walk around the star-shaped park called Goryokaku (click here for more park info). There are about 1600 cherry trees in the park and while we were there most had already dropped most of their blossoms, but there were a few late hanami (=cherry blossom party) on the go so the atmosphere in the park was fun. Here are a few shots of the cherry petals that had fallen. This is definately a place I would return to have hanami if we were here next year at this time.
Next we took a drive up to the top of Hakodate yama (the mountain overlooking the city). It was a very windy day, but it was clear so we got a good view of the city. We couldn't see Honshu but I was told that on clear days you can see the north end of Honshu from the lookout. Before leaving town to drive back up to Sapporo we stopped at the dockyard area of town to eat lunch at a nice restraunt and brew pub there.
The drive back from Hakodate is short (only 250 kms) but as is typical in Japan, it takes a long time (around 6 hours of straight driving). I can't really explain why driving here takes so long, part of it has to do with low speed limits and I guess that there are a lot of stoplights along the way... but we took the toll highway... so that can't be the whole story. It has been the case no matter where we have gone though, short distances take a very long time to drive. At that rate it would take months to drive across Canada.
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