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posted: August 31st, 2009 |
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This page begins with August 3rd and takes you through the end of the day on August 6th. The first part of an amazing vacation to Hokkaido. Click on any thumbnail to begin.
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| Begin August 3rd |
On August 2nd Kazuya and I started a 12 day vacation which took us from Tokyo to the northernmost tip of Hokkaido (Japan's northern Island). This first shot is our room at Sukayu Hot Spring in Aomori Prefecture. This hot spring is incredibly old and rustic - a truly amazing place to spend a night and a couple of days. The supper meal they served us as part of the "package" was amazing. The 2nd shot is looking out the window of our room. This Hot Spring Inn is at the base of Mt. Hakkoda, which we climbed the following day. Just a 10 minute walk from the Hot Spring Inn you can find amazing plants - for example these "Sundew" (Drosera rotundifolia) plants. Of course they are carnivorous plants - as you may surmise from the sticky looking hairs. By the way, these pictures were all taken on August 3rd; there are no pictures from August 2nd.We were traveling on 5 day Japan Rail tickets which cost us ¥10,000 each. These tickets allowed us to ride only local trains, no Bullet Trains or Express trains. It was a heck of a deal on the price, we went all the way to Wakkanai at the northernmost tip of Hokkaido, arriving there on August 6th before noon. |
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Here is a shot of the marshy ground where we found the "Sundew" plants, in fact all of the reddish plants you can see in this photo are "Sundew" plants. The next shot is a part of a sign which tells you about the 3rd shot in this row - "Jigokunuma Swamp". Yes, that is steam rising from the water - this entire area is volcanically active, steam and gases are spewing out of the ground all over the place. By the way, in the background of this picture you can see part of Mt. Hakkoda - we'll climb it tomorrow.
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| End August 3rd, Begin August 4th |
Now it's August 4th. We are climbing Mt. Hakkoda (1,584.4 meters = 5,198 feet). The first shot is a beautiful sky and beautiful colors. The 2nd shot is Mt. Iwaki, the highest point in Aomori Prefecture at 1,625 meters. The 3rd shot is Kazuya on the trail where it crossed a small valley. You can see a small bridge and another couple of hikers in the background. This particular area smelled like sulfur - there was steam and other gases rising from the ground here and there.
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Yes, that's Mt. Hakkoda there in front of us in the first shot. The 2nd shot shows some true fir (Abies sp.) cones. The 3rd shot is a yellow flower, but you should especially note the "hover fly" hovering over the flower. These flies were everywhere on this mountain. We often see these non-bothersome flies when hiking, but they were more numerous here than we have ever seen before.
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Here is the summit sign. It says "Hakkoda O-Dake-San". In other words this particular peak is Mt. O-Dake (1,584.4 meters) of the Hakkoda Range of Mountains. This is the highest peak in the range of mountains. It was beautiful here. The 2nd shot is a stunningly blue group of Blue Gentiana (?) flowers. The 3rd shot, well, we called it a "Dragon-Fly Horror Movie". We'd never seen as many dragon-flies in one place as we saw here. Of course they didn't bother us at all, but it was rather freaky to see so many of them.
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Here is a beautiful scenic shot as we descended the mountain. The 2nd shot is a small pond with a nice cloud reflection and a field of yellow flowers behind it. The 3rd shot shows a marshy area which we hiked across. You can see the boardwalk which we walked on. This area was amazing for the diversity of flowers which was growing here.
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Here is one final yellow flower and one final Hover Fly from the Mt. Hakkoda Climb. This shot was taken at 12:30 PM. We arrived back at the Hot Spring Inn at 1:30 PM, ate some lunch, killed some time, went for another soak in the hot spring and then took a 4:58 PM bus back down to Aomori Station, where we ate supper and waited in line for this Hamanasu Express Train (we were allowed to ride this particular overnight express train with our tickets) bound for Sapporo on Hokkaido. We left Aomori at 10:42 PM on August 4th, rode all night and arrived at Sapporo Station at 6:07 AM on August 5th.
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| End August 4th, Begin August 5th |
And, here we are, at Sapporo Station. It's now 6:24 AM and we are going out to explore Sapporo, Hokkaido, Japan and also to look for a place to eat breakfast. In the 2nd photo it's 7:09 AM and we have found one of the famous historic places of Sapporo - the Red Brick Building. This is still used by the city administration. We never did find a restaurant and we ended up eating breakfast back at Sapporo Station before we got on our next train. The 3rd shot shows our train, bound for Asahikawa. The time now is 10:06 AM.
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And, here we are - at Asahikawa Station. The time now is 1:38 PM. We went out and, with the help of the tourist information people, we found a famous Asahikawa Ramen Shop (Asahikawa is famous for its Ramen). The Ramen was exceedingly delicious and we were happy. Now, we have to get back on another train. It's now 1:58 PM as we board this train to Nayoro. We're only going one stop past Nayoro today and staying in a Youth Hostel. You are probably wondering who did all of this planning - the answer is Kazuya. He spent like a week of planning before we left, making phone calls and reservations at various Inns, Youth Hostels and Hotels and writing down train schedules. It was amazing, the amount of work he did to make this trip happen. The 3rd photo is "Pippu" (rhymes with people), we thought it was funny. There were lots of strange names up here in the far north. I hope that you have your map out by now and are following our progress on your map. Hokkaido is often referred to as "The Alaska of Japan" and I being from Alaska can attest to this - it is very much like Alaska - few people, long distances between places, lacking in amenities, and COLD in the winter. Of course we were not here in the winter, but we talked to lots of people who attested to the fact that it gets down to minus 30 degrees C in the winter.
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Here is the final train which we rode on August 5th. We just got off this one car train at our final destination for today - Nisshin. The 2nd shot is a scene from the train station platform. The 3rd shot is our Youth Hostel, also taken from the train station platform. There was not much here in Nisshin. After we got checked into the Hostel and relaxed for a while and showered there was not much else to do. We ate supper when it was served and then the Hostel Owner took those of us who wanted to go to a local Hot Spring for an hour. That was relaxing. Then, on the way back to the Hostel he took us to an overlook where we could see the town and the stars. It was nice! And that's the end of August 5th, we've covered a lot of ground and done a lot of things in 4 days, no?
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| End August 5th, Begin August 6th |
In this row we start on August 6th - the final day on which we can use our 5 day train tickets. The first shot shows the Nisshin Train Station as we waited for the train to come at 7:48 AM. The next shot shows a nice station for contrast - Otoineppu Station - a ways up the line. This was, apparently a "major town". The 3rd shot shows another contrasting station, only 1 stop beyond Otoineppu. This is Osashima Station. Note that it has a chimney - we had to wonder if somebody actually comes and lights a fire in the stove in the morning while people wait for the first train in the minus 30 degree weather.
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The first shot in this row was taken at 10:01 AM - from the train window. Looks like a "big town", eh! One vehicle on the road - yup, sure enough, the "Alaska of Japan". The 2nd shot shows another photo from the train window - this is Rishiri Island. Although we didn't go to this Island, you will see several more pictures of it tomorrow. The 3rd shot is the end of the line - Wakkanai Station - no trains go any further north in Japan than this.
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The sign shown in 2nd position here is in Wakkanai Station and it says "This is the furthest north train station in Japan". The 1st shot was taken along the shore at Wakkanai. The 3rd shot is a road sign - it shows 3 languages - Japanese, followed by English, followed by Russian. There are ferries from here to Sakhalin Island, Russia as well as to Rishiri and Rebun Islands. Rebun Island will be our next stop (hope you are following on a relatively good map).
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The first photo here was taken from the ferry which we took from Hokkaido to Rebun Island. We have not yet left the dock, but another ferry is coming in - the one we are on is very similar to the one you see in this photo. The 2nd photo is Kazuya on the upper deck of the ferry. We are underway at this time. The 3rd photo shows a wind farm on the northernmost peninsula of Hokkaido.
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The first photo in this row is one more of Rishiri Island. At 1,721 meters in height, Mt. Rishiri is an impressive sight as it rises out of the flat ocean. The 2nd shot is me on the deck of the ferry and the 3rd shot is one more of Rishiri Island and Mt. Rishiri. The ferry trip from Wakkanai to Rebun Island is 1 hour and 55 minutes and we had great weather the whole trip, so we took lots of pictures of Rishiri from different angles as we approached Rebun Island.
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The final 3 shots of August 6th. The first one was taken as we approached Rebun Island - the first clouds we've seen today. We learned that the western side of Rebun Island is often cloudy, while the eastern side is mostly sunny. This phenomenon explains why the western side of the island has such an abundance of flowers and plants. The 2nd shot is the "Field Inn" - if you check out Google Earth and go to the extreme northern end of Rebun Island you can find this Inn there - in the absolute middle of nowhere. The 3rd, and final shot of August 6th, shows the entire guest population of the Field Inn on August 6th. This place is not a Youth Hostel but they have an evening meeting and everybody has to introduce themselves and talk about what they did today and what they hope to do tomorrow. In that way people can get to know each other and also find out the best way to go about doing what they want to do tomorrow, or if their desire is even possible!
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| End August 6th, End Page 1 |
| Thanks so much for taking the time to look at this page. Now, please go on to Page 2 for the continuation of this month's adventures. |
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