More Hokkaido Pictures

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Better late than never. Maybe.
Here are some more of the pictures from Hokkaido.

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Photos

Calorie Mate
This is a block of... something. I suppose lots of vitamins and nutritional thingies. I took a bunch of them with me, for eating on the way. There was chocolate, Fruit, and vegetable flavours. They tasted surprisingly good, and were very filling. Cheap too.

Black Chocolate
Very nice chocolate. I have been told people enjoying seeing the pictures of products.

Nacho Cheese Doritos
They taste like Doritos.

Cookies
At $1 a box, these cookies were a great deal. I ate way too many of them.

Flowers
There is a park near where I lived, that contained a natural volcanic mud pool. These are some of the flowers in the park.

Danger Zone!
I'm not sure how deadly the mud is, but it smells terrible. Sulfur. The smell alone may kill someone.

Mud 1
It bubbles alot. The town gets hot water from the volcano. The bath where I lived was natural volcanic spring water. Very pleasant.

Bokke!
They call this hot mud "Bokke" because it makes a sound kinda like that when it bubbles. At least that's the explanation I was given. The sign in the following picture claims it's an Ainu word. The Ainu are the indigenous peoples of Hokkaido.

Marimo Monument
This appears to be some kind of monument to the Marimo. The famous Algae. I wonder if anywhere else in the world has a monument dedicated to Algae. I'm guessing no.

Danger Zone 2!
I love the English translation on this.

Lake Singer
This person was singing and doing lots of hand movements. It was amusing.

Lake
The lake was very nice.

Snake
Slithery.

Hotels
The primary, nearly sole, source of income for this town. Hotels full of tourists, come to see the Marimo.

Ferry Port
There's a little ice cream stand near the ferry. It has "Marimo ice cream". But I asked, and it's just vanilla dyed green. I was sad. The ferry goes to the Marimo Observatory, an island with an underwater viewing chamber.

Marimo Kitty
Yes. Hello Kitty encased in a giant Marimo.

Marimo Ramen
This is an advertisement for Marimo Ramen. I never got a chance to try it, but I'm almost positive it wouldn't have actual Marimo in it. I would have just been disappointed.

Electronic Bear
When you walked by, this bear would growl and move. Beside this, was a shop with Ainu crafts that always had Jazz music playing.

Pan de Pan
The most modern building in town. A bakery. A place of immense joy. More on this shortly..

Pan de Pan 2
A welcome sight, the doors to Pan de Pan. That is Colin, he is a Bostonian. When I left the town, the people at Pan de Pan gave me a big bag of pastries.

Pan de Pan!
My favourite place in town. Incredible breads and pastries, with a french influence. They even had mille-feuille. Some highlights: Walnut and cream cheese roll (stuffed to exploding with cream cheese). Fresh baguettes. Giant pizza rolls with sausage and peppers. Camembert roll. Too much to mention. I went every day.

Statues
I don't think I've seen any other bakeries with their own Cherub band.