Hokkaido

We took the 7:07 bus from the bus stop just across the corner to Mozu Station. We changed trains at Otori Station and arrived at the Kansai Airport 30 minutes before the planned meeting time. It enabled my daughters to have breakfast at a cafe. They had come to dislike eating on board from their last flight experience to Los Angeles. At 8:35, we finished check-in and forwarded to a gate to be stopped at a security check. I had a "Swiss Card", which contained a tiny knife. The flight took us about 2 hours, and was, for our luck, not long enough for my daughters to have airsick, although it bored them. The Memanbetsu Airport was a tiny one. It does not have either mouthwatering restaurant or cute shop. We had some time before getting rantal car, and difficulty killing the time. Some depressing start. The arrival at Meruhen-no-Oka (Marchen Hill) after driving a while changed our feeing. We felt very Hokkaido-like. We felt happy to have come to Hokkaido. Waving hills and fields, waving to the end of our sight. A small red-roofed hut is dotted among in a broad sun-flower fields. It's really as if we were in a Marchen (a fairy tail). My daughters felt saticefied at last. We drove across a plain to get to Abashiri, where there are lakes and hills, and drove up a hill to find Okhotsk Floe Museum, which is at the top of Mt. Tento near the town of abashiri. Experiencing drift ice is very cool. We explored the exhibitions, with so many Chinese speaking people walking about. They keep chatting and shouting in Chinese, and even a group asked me in Chinese to take their pictures in a virtual floe room. At the cafeteria in the museum building, we had our first meal in Hokkaido, "Omoide Rahmen." The noodle had pieces of crabmeat, a cuttlefish and a scallop, and its soup was delicious, alittle bit salty though. Our next destination ws Abashiri Prison Museum. Dummies were so real that their impression led us to feel that we are just watching dummies when we see real human beings at other sight-seeing spots. At the rest room here, we enjoyed our first potato junk foods in Hokkaido, "Imo Mochi." When we find "Imo something" in Osaka, they are usually made of sweet potatoes, while in Hokkaido, those called "Imo something" are made of potatoes. Imo Mochi somewhat tasted like Mitarashi Dango, although its potato dumplings were fried. Tonight's stay is at Abashiri Grand Hotel. It is located at the joint of Yobuto Peninsula along Abashiri Lake. The hotel's disposable toothbrush is very easy to use.
We wake up next morning to find the hotel embraced softly with mist. So told, Hitomi cleared the window, and said, "I can see nothing as the windowpane is clouded." It was not the clouded glass that diturbed your sight, but mist. We drove along lake Abashiri, ran through the town of Abashiri, and went over the open field to Ko-Shimizu Natural Flower Garden to find a sign which said, "The bloom season is over. Please visit us in June or July next time." Flowers were scant. We consoled ourselves with the idea that we came to see Okhotsk Sea. My two daughters were playing at the sea shore innocently. We ran straightly eastward, turned in a right-angled manner to the south, and went down straightforward to Yuri-no-sato Lily Park. The rich variety of lily flowers surprised us a lot, and the sight of the park made up for what we could not experience in Ko-Shimizu Natural Flower Garden. The park also gave us an opportunity to have our second junk food in Hokkaido, sweet corns. They surely tasted good. After leaving Yuri-no-sato Lily Park, the road started winding after a while, and led us to the maountain pass between the Okhotsk Coast and Lake Kussharo. The area around the pass is called Highland Ko-Shimizu, which commands the lake, as well as even Mt. Shari-dake, Shiretoko Range of Mountains, and the Okhotsk Sea. The resthouse there provided us junk foods made of potatoes in a cool breeze: Imo Mochi, Imo Dango, Pote Rosu. Takako and Hitomi enjoyed siphon cakes, and Yuri had her favorite Shiruko. In front of the house, Chomei-no-mizu (Long Life Water) was fountaining. We left Ko-Shimizu Pass down to the basin of Lake Kussharo, and visited the foot of Mt. Io first. "Io" is the japanese word for the english word sulfur. The area was full of sulfur springs. The air smelled like boiled eggs, and the tempreture was a lot hotter than that of "normal" Hokkaido. We ate eggs steamed with the vapor from spiracles on the ground. The heat and smell was nearly knocking us down. We checked in Shizen-juku, an outdoor resort. We stayed at Suomi, a sweet lodge with a bath and toilet. We dined out for supper, out to an Ainu-flavored restaurant. There were several Ainu folkcraft shops around it. We also found Ainu Ethnic Museum near there, but it was closed at the time.