Hotel Route Inn Abashiri

... hidden by snow for all I know, I spent a good 15 minutes fearing I'd turn up as a frozen corpse come the Spring melt. But I got throught it, got back on the path and didn't detour from it again.

After that it was still early and sunny so cross country hiked around the local swamps, which was nice, but not really that interesting. The thing about walking is that it's not a task that takes your attention. I like cooking becuase you have a task and it forced out ...

... some of the displays! I continued from here up to the top of a mountain to get a good view of the ice floes on the sea. Yes it`s bloomin` cold here! The museum of Northern Peoples documents the indigenous Ainus of Japan and their links with inuits, native Americans etc. It was an amazing museum and well worth the 14km hike! Pics to follow....

... recently constructed hostel provides spacious and sunny western-style rooms and nice traditional baths. Adjacent to the hostel is an affiliated restaurant that serves western-style meals at reasonable prices, but after the two meals we had committed to, we opted to make use of our car and seek out the Japanese food in the nearby town. Lake Mashu partially fills a huge caldera and from the viewpoint along its rim one can take in the lake and the broad plain that surrounds it. As it ...

... orientation given that evening in Japanese. By chance, there was a visitor there that night who was able to do some translation for us, but it sounded like much of the hiking was beyond our stamina and equipment. We settled for the easy, but rewarding short hike around several small lakes. Cutting short our planned stay in Shiretoko we decided to head to Akan National Park the next morning.

... need to be naked. The only difference is that, you don't really need to mix up with guys actually. They are seperated into ladies and gents division but of course you got to be naked when you are in it. So, it's either you let people see what you have, or you pay the trip to stay in your hotel room.

... myself on the road.). As with Rebun, the coastlines and the water were really beautiful. I had to stop every five minutes to take a picture. Things were going pretty well until I started to turn towards the South end of the island. It got cool and intensely windy and the sun disappeared for about 45 minutes. It's amazing how the sun can affect the landscape. Everything went from being deep blue and warm and inviting to being grey, bleak, and lonesome. Thankfully, as I ...

... hoping that my tent wouldn't collapse like the one that had been set up next to me. That was the glorious start of my vacation. The weather finally did break by Saturday night and I was up early (~4:30 am) on Sunday morning to pack up my tent and get to the terminal to catch the first ferry over to Rebun. You would think that the ferry terminal to a major tourist destination like these two islands would have ample parking and movement space. Well, in this case, you would be ...

... it to be at the height of the summer season so that I would hopefully see some of the best weather of the year. It was not to be however and, aside from a few days at the beginning, the rest of the time it either rained or was so clouded over that it made climbing, or doing much of anything in the outdoors, an impossibility. Welcome to Summer Vacation 2007!

... a beer in the onsen (Japanese communal bath), a bowl of noodles, and watching The Last Samurai in Japanese. So three days of skiing was perfect. Long enough to enjoy ourselves without getting bored by the lack of stuff to do in the evening, and fortunately short enough to ensure we didn't wrap ourselves round a tree while trying to compete with the Japanese ski team.

... to sit. The time we spent in Mt. Koya was only 2 hours. In the short time, we visited Okunoin with a guide, passing throgh the huge grave yard including Ieyasu's Tomb. We also visited Kongo-Sanmaiin which had a national treasure pagoda, but I was not sure why it was a tour destination, because it was not so impressive. Still, it seems to be designated as a World Heritage Site. By the way, I already blogged about Kii Mountain Range in another entry, Central Japan. Mt. Koya is just a ...