Day 3 - Abashiri to Asahigawa

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Today I made my way back to civilisation.

Don't get me wrong, I like Abashiri.

It's a nice quiet little place, I don't think it's classified as a town but then there are many smaller towns in England so maybe it is.

After checking out of the hotel (Hokuten no Oka if anybody is interested, about 10 minutes drive from the station - the hotel can pick you up from the station if you let them know), and bid a very long farewell with the only English speaking staff there (Miura Yuuko-San, one of the loveliest person I have met this trip), the hotel shuttle bus dropped me back at the station.

My train was at 1329, so I have some time to kill.

I stuffed my suitcase in one of those infamous coin lockers, which always reminds of Murakami Ryu. I love reading his books - he wrote many books about the real underground Japanese that most people don't know about. One of them was coin locker babies where unwanted babies were put into a coin locker by the mother, and they either die in the heat of Tokyo summer, freeze to death in Tokyo winter or starved to death unless their crying was heard. It is daunting but so very good. I wandered into town to find somewhere I can pick up some bits for my four hours something journey to Asahigawa, and also to look round the town itself, which I never did.

It's very quiet, and people are very friendly.

They were very helpful when I asked them question and one of them even went as far as google translating things for me because he doesn't speak English and my Japanese is kind of rusty - there are words that I don't know how to say or describe.

I had lunch at a little ramen shop, which is prove lay family run and everybody in there knows everybody else and everyday the same people go for lunch there.

The food was mediocre, but the device was amazing.



The journey on the train was similar to the one on the way to Abashiri.

The only problem I had was the carriage was really really warm.

I thought I was going to get heat stroke at one point.

It was THAT warm.

The person sitting next to me from half way through the journey was also quite disturbing and he was taking up quite a lot of the middle space.



I got to Asahigawa at 1712.

And of course, Japanese train is NEVER late.

The hotel itself is about 10 minutes walk from the station. It's an old hotel, but in the sense that it's not like old-school pretty and classic like the one in Abashiri, but old as in it has seen better days.

There is no wifi.

They said there is wifi but it doesn't work.

So when this goes live, it would be 2 days late because there isn't internet either.



I went out to have dinner after settling at the hotel.

And change my snow boots to my heels because the heels are my spare shoes and my snow boots are falling apart massively.

I have to glue them again until I can find a nice pair of snow boots in the shops.

I am hoping I can stick with it until I get back to Sapporo.



I went to a Korean style barbecue place for dinner because I have been craving meat for the last few days.

I have been eating sh*tloads of seafood, when I missed dearly because the seafood isn't quite up to par in England (even though it's an island and all).

But I miss having chicken.

So I had chicken and beef.

And beef tongue.

And of course, can't do without carbohydrate in a balanced diet so I then walked to the original shop of a famous ramen place in Asahigawa called Santouka.

It was very yummy.

I went for a walk afterwards, because I ate a little bit too much.



For someone who has been to Japan so many times, I have never been into a pachinko.

And that's what I did afterwards.

It's similar to slot machine but instead you have little metal balls that you play with.

I have no idea what to do, so I asked the lady there and she showed me what I needed to play.

I put in 2000 yen and that's what I limited myself to.

If I lost, that's only about 13 pounds.

I had no idea what I was doing.

Little did I know I had the beginner's luck.

When I had no more little metal balls left, I walked out of the place but stopped but the lady who helped me earlier.

She gave me two orange plastic coins and then when she put it into the machine, it spit out money.

I actually came out of the place only losing 600 yen (about 4 pounds).

That was an interesting experience counting I have no idea what I was doing.

I thought I better not push my luck so I used the 1400 yen from the machine and got myself sh*tloads of ice cream.

Japanese ice cream.

So good.



Plan for tomorrow: beer brewery and sake microbrewery.

Hopefully.

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