Blogs from Hokkaido, Japan, Asia - page 23

A few weeks ago I had a few days off so I made the trek back to Eastern Hokkaido. Eastern Hokkaido has a lot to offer if you can see beyond the countryside. Mountains great for hiking and seeing wildlife and plants, drift ice, parks, great scenery and lookouts, onsens, amazing sunsets.... I arrived to Abashiri around 1 and was met by Mavi and Chris. Andy hadn't arrived yet, so we went back to Mavi's for some tea. Then when Andy arrived we went for lunch. Lunch turned out to be a mission! A lot of places were closing so we drove around and had the brilliant idea to take a helicopter ride after lunch! We ended up eating at a new soup curry place and some of Mavi's students were there and thought she was ... read more

This city even more remote than abashiri and 7 hours more to the nortth is japans most northern city. With coincidence i met a japanese guy with car who offered me a ride to th ecape soya, the most northern cape of japan. A little bit touristic, but a very nice scenery. The driver insisted to bring me back to wakkanai train station, about 40 km and i took the train to sapporo. In here i will stay the nigth before leaving to Nagano....yes the olympic village.... read more

Last year I made the trek up to Abashiri to see drift ice (from russia) and wasn't so lucky! On a few levels actually. Last year, I straight-away lost my SLR camera ice fishing on Abashiri lake. Long story...! and it was too windy to go out on the boats to see the drift ice. So this year I had high hopes of getting to see ice. One of my building mates went the weekend before and saw loads of ice, so I felt pretty confident it would happen this year. My co-worker Olivia decided to make the trek with me. There was a bit of drama involving me getting to the train and we just barely made it! The ride up there was pretty uneventful. We just chatted and slept. We pulled in to Abashiri ... read more

A couple of weeks ago, I went to the Yuki Matsuri in Sapporo, Hokkaido with the Kinokawa-Iwade Kazoku on a trip arranged by the Kyoto JET coordinators. Let’s enjoy reminiscing! Japanese vocabulary yuki: snow nenkyuu: paid vacation leave kazoku: family hikouki: plane kouen: park yuki daruma: snowman samui: cold kani: crab hotate: scallops sake: salmon (or sake rice wine depending on the context) shiroi koibito: white lovers tabehoudai: all you can eat nomihoudai: all you can drink February 7: Let’s enjoy Nenkyu Nenkyu is wonderful…instead of waking up at 7:00am and snoozing my alarm every five minutes until 7:30am, I got to sleep in until 8:15am! Woo-hoooooo! For on this day, the Kinokawa Kazoku and I were off to Hokkaido to go to the Yuki Matsuri!!! We... read more

What a weekend! So much happened and so many pictures were taken, well into 200 of them. I will do my best though! So On Saturday my co and I left Sendai at 11:30 on the sleeper train and headed into Hakodate. The sleeper train was pretty nice. You get your own little bunk in a small compartment of 4 bunks; 2 on top and 2 on bottom.I had a top bunk for both trips. The train gives you a really thick blanket, pillow, hanger, and yukata to sleep in. My co and I headed straight to bed and tried to sleep through the bumping and moving train. I got lucky and ended up sleeping for about 5 hours but my co wasn't as lucky. We arrived in Hakodate @ 6:30am on Sunday and headed straight ... read more