Oe Honke Kitami

... It's amazing how beautiful Japan's countryside can be. I don't know why, but it's when I travel that I actually remember I'm living in Japan. Working at school can be so busy and since it is an English only environment, sometimes I forget that I'm actually living overseas.
Day 2 was a very productive one. Day 3 however was a short one because I had to make sure I get to the airport in time for my flight at 7pm. I thought I'd rise and ...

... milk (is Hokkaido the dairy center of Japan?) And a filling way to start off a hiking day.

The bus to Asahidake Onsen, one of the gateways to Daisetsuzan park was long but had an intersting approach. Like Sapporo, Asahikawa (which incidentally has tons of neon and the people walk around like they're in a real city) sits on a plain, surrounded by crop land. And the bus is tracking along heading towards the mountains in the distance that basically randomly erupt from ...

Abashiri is famous for having the harshest prison in the country. I think the old version of it was but the current buildings are much better. I visited the prison museum which has removed the old buildings and reconstructed them in the museum so you can see what conditions were like. It was very interesting even if I did get a little spooked ...

In Sapporo, every first week of February they celebrate " Sapporo Snow Festival or Yuki Matsuri" the venue is in Odori Park and the unsung " Sapporo Ice Festival " the venue is in Suzukino. My story will focused in this Unsung Festival " Sapporo Ice Festival " in Japanese " Kori Matsuri". Kori means "ice" and matsuri means "festival". It was so cold that time but my eyes was warmth by the art they had done on ice. In every picture, it reminds me of the craftmanship they bestowed.

... in japan) we saw the common room which was filled with over one thousand toy cars, a bearskin rug, a grand piano, a deer head and a notable collection of teddy bears. To top all this off, the lodge played songs in the style of a wind-up music box through speakers reaching all corners of the lodge from 7:30 in the morning until 9:30 at night. There was no escape! The mastermind behind all of this was Naoki, a man of little English ...

... out this mountain because we were practically the only people there. Run after run we would look around and see that we were the only people on the trails. And the conditions were as good as they get! An awesome three days were spent riding at Rusutsu. We stayed at the Powder Lodge - a little pension with six rooms and a really kind Japanese/Australian couple managing the place. It was very cute accommodation next to a Seicomart, which has become our 'old faithful' convenience ...

I am writing from my comfortable, legroom-rich seat on a train bound for Sapporo, the principal city of Hokkaido, Japan's northernmost major island. This is our first of a number of train trips we will take here. My guess is that the car is which we are riding is better-than-average, but if the remainder come at all close, we shall be duly impressed, all the more so because we are traveling in ordinary class ...

Before we start our hot spring, we are serve with traditional Japanese dinner - in japanese style I guess. We are all make to dress up in Kimono for the dinner so that we can all proceed to our long waited hot spring bath after that. Exactly like what people were saying about Japanese hot spring bath ...

Since I am still carless (not careless), I put out a post this past week on the Hokkaido listserve looking for JET's who would be interested in getting out for a hike and, more importantly, had the vehicle to get us there. Thankfully a few people responded and I was able to get out on saturday and on sunday. Saturday I went out with James, a Canadian who had just moved to Abashiri, which is about 2 hours north of Shibecha. It's right on the Sea of Ohkotsk and its big attraction is ...

... similar to the way up, but there were a ton of cool mushrooms around...i left a few things to do for next time like, climb Akan Fuji and go to Yuno-taki, the free hotspring waterfall. Any takers? I camped in Akan Kohan that night. A village by the shores of Akan Lake...It's a really touristy place with mostly just hotels, gift shops, and a small encampment of the original native population of Hokkaido, the Ainu. As with most indigenous peoples, they were systematically and ...