Through the fog and mist

Many, many hours after I checked out of the hotel, I find myself in my own bedroom trying to recall the last hours I spent in Lake Akan and Kushiro. I draw a blank, mostly because tiredness and jet lag addle my memory, but also because I think I didn’t do very much at all even with the aimless driving around.

Exploring the Kushiro Marshland was a total washout, quite literally so, when the most I could see was a few metres ahead. Kushiro city itself looked drab and grey in the early afternoon light. In desperation to pass the time, I decided that looking at cranes was in order and personally didn’t find them very interesting.

I gave up and got myself to the airport early.

So, until next time I step onto a plane again, that’s all, folks.

Mileage of the day: 172.1 kmTotal mileage of the trip: 1332.3 km.

Total amount spent on fuel: 12, 988 Yen.

Separation anxiety

I woke up a blustery, drizzly day and found that temperatures have fallen a whopping 18 degrees celsius from yesterday, which placed us firmly back in Spring weather. Ichiro Baba suggested that I paid Lake Onneto a visit in Ashoro-cho, a trip that I took and in all honesty, found useless given the weather. All lakes look the same when it’s raining – grey, washed out and sort of colourless.

I turned tail and headed back to Lake Akan, the last place I’m stopping at before I depart from Kushiro airport tomorrow. A half-hour drive from rural Teshikaga, it’s a place that appears to be built solely for tourists. The main street is lined with hotels and souvenir shops and the Ainu Kotan (Village) at the end of the street is more like a collection of small shops that offer wooden knick-knacks of the indigenous people.

In the slight drizzle, I took off for the short hiking trail at the end of the town that led to a small bubbling mud pool, heated volcanically and then up into the forest to look at…vegetation.

Then it was back to the hotel to check in properly. I was completely unprepared for the separation anxiety I felt when I left the Subaru to a valet to park it somewhere out of my sight. They even kept my keys! Bereft of a car, I sulked for a while, went to my room, changed and proceeded to visit all of the hot spring baths available to women in the hotel.

Now, if only my room would stop smelling of roasted seaweed.

Mileage of the day: about 85 km
*7.30 pm update: Still feeling the loss of the car, but I suspect it’s not even close to how I’ll feel when I turn it in at the rental station tomorrow.

Lakes, allergies and a language barrier

I got the distinct feeling that I was intruding when I pulled up at the door of Pension Polaris at noon, my accommodation for the night. Curtly, I was told that there was room for me but I could only return at 4pm. Peeved at the shortness of Ichiro Baba’s reply and the less-than-welcoming manner of his, I drove off, contemplated choosing another place to stay, then decided against it grumpily because I didn’t have an internet connection to book anything online at a discounted price. Cheap of me, yeah.

In the end, I found myself stopping at various lookout points in the hills and mountains to get a look at Lakes Kussharo and Mashu. The latter is stunning and the former, less so. The soaring temperatures for the past couple of days seem unusual for this time of the year (it was 30 degrees in certain places) and funnily enough, I could walk around rather comfortably in the mountains in a short-sleeved tee with thick snow still around me. The roads are trickier than I thought and dare I say, more challenging than the other mountain routes I’ve driven thus far, complete with the police speed patrol just to make life a bit more bitter and interesting.

Finally returning to Polaris after doing the whole circuit of panoramic lookout points, I dropped unceremoniously into bed with an allergy that had me sniffing (after taking a quick bath, for those of you who are hygiene-obsessed) to shake off the fatigue, no doubt helped along by that big glowing thing in the sky.

Only during the elaborate dinner was it made clear that all my confirmation emails over the past few weeks had been going into the Ichiro’s spam folder; my seeming lack of replies had made him assume I wasn’t coming after all. Being the small, petty person that I am, I showed him my backlog of emails as evidence of my earlier earnestness in wanting to stay at his place.

Now replete with the food, I think I can be magnanimous: Polaris *is* a beautiful place – despite the grief that spam folders, internet communication and language barriers has given me – combining Japanese clean lines and wood furnishings that the aesthetic part of me greatly appreciates. The 2 cats here help raise the cuteness factor.

Mileage of the day: 239.7 km

Caution, no bears in sight

“This is a Mandarin duck. And that is bear feces. The bark of this tree has been clawed by a bear. This is a bear paw print. This mushroom is good for rashes, but you can’t take it out from this place.”

I, along with another lady dressed in inappropriate attire nodded dutifully as Ayano Yuji (my guide through the lakes and a friend of Yamanoto in Iruka) spoke and made exclamations when needed. He conveys the wealth of information in slow, halting English, all of which I appreciated. My interest in ducks, admittedly, is restricted to the Peking duck on a dinner table so his ability to point out ducks’ gender, pregnant deer, weight of bears by paw-prints and distant sounds of woodpeckers from a distance amazes me.

The mercury has shot way up high today but this hike is surprisingly breezy – even though the deep ice that piles high above the boardwalk in places. Winter, according to Ayano, was warmer than usual, but Spring had sprung a cold surprise; the ice has barely begun to melt in some spots on the trail. In my rented wellies, the cold of the deep ice seeps through my heels like an ice-pack on sore muscles.

The primeval forest is carefully left undisturbed as small, guided tours make their way around on the boardwalk. We saw signs of bears and deer but none of the elusive creatures themselves. However, it’s a pleasant contrast to my individual and possibly ill-timed forage through the 2km trail that leads to the Furepe waterfall as well as my earlier try at going up half of the Shiretoko-toge (the mountain pass that leads to Rausu) with a tour bus.

I returned to Iruka to pay my accommodation charges and in all my years of travel, I’ve never seen someone scramble for change like the way Miyoko and Yamamoto did. She ran back and forth looking for loose bills; he asked the cook for some bills in desperation and raided the vending machine for coins.

My truthful opinion of this place? Paper-thin walls meant that a guest’s loud snoring next door kept me up at night and the funky odour that permeates the place couldn’t quite be gotten rid of with room spray. But the hosts are nice enough. So I’d stay here if I were on a budget…which I sort of am.

Mileage of the day (just up and down the mountain): 49.9 km

The wild frontier

I had lots of time to kill today, seeing as the distance to Shiretoko from Abashiri isn’t as great as the one I covered yesterday. The Shibazakura Park in Ozora-cho after checking out was my first stop at about 10am and already it was overflowing with tour buses.

After a short climb uphill to see the sprawl of pink flowers that really look prettier from a distance, I made a long U-turn and went back to Abashiri to visit the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Peoples, a permanent exhibition featuring the indigenous cultures of the North. A woman who thought I was a student gave me a discount for the entrance fee and frankly, I wasn’t about to complain.

Then it was onto Utoro via Shari, a coastal route that was long and boring – with speed traps! Thankfully, the Sapporo Drug Store in central Shari provided a smidgen of entertainment and broke the monotony as I went around looking for facial scrub as the stench of manure wafted in from outside.

The drive got more interesting and scenic towards the end and the place I’m staying at – Iruka (or Dolphin) Hotel – was hard to find; it’s somewhere along a small road off a tunnel leading straight down into town and the narrow parking makes it even more difficult to get down to it. Iruka’s like a budget hotel, simple and cheap by Japanese standards and the biggest issue I have with it is the smell of cigarette smoke that permeates the entire place, apart from the creepy feeling of walking to the Bates Onsen in the dark alone. Otherwise, the owners are great and take the pains to arrange whatever you’d like to see.

Shiretoko has oft been compared to the Yukon territory, the wild frontier equivalent far north of Japan but because the Japanese are out in full force during the weekends (today’s a Sunday), it’s hard to believe that right now save for the fact that some straggling deer are wont to wander in drains and by the roadside. My reason for coming is pretty much the same as these tourists: to see the nature park and the Shiretoko-pass, all of which lie at least 15 km out of town. The latter is closed to my extreme disappointment but the Goko lakes are still open, part of which can be seen on the short but brilliant walk on the elevated, wooden boardwalk affording incredible views of the mountain range and the Sea of Okhotsk.

Mileage of the day: 170.5 km

Hit the road, J(ill)

I woke up at 5.30am (and it was already bright with some skiers doing their thing next door), having not slept that well last night because of the strange feel of the pillows, apart from the long journey ahead.

The first half of the epic journey was exciting and the second half, hellishly monotonous.

By 8am, I found myself on the expressway by accident and decided to continue on it  for the sake of finally being able to drive within a range of 80-90 km/hr rather than follow my carefully planned route through Sounkyo and Kamikawa. The toll cost 450 yen, but hey, for about 100 km of fast driving, I’d take that option any day. Thanks to a group of helpful men who worked at the Asahikawa toll booth, I got to go through (and use their toilet at the same time) after a combination of broken Japanese words and hand signs.

After 140-ish kilometres, Subaru and I ended up somewhere near Engaru at about 10:30 am, which put me closer to Kamiyubetsu Tulip park than to the Shibazakura Park at Ozora-cho. Commercialised and crowded, I caught a glimpse of more soil and kitsch than flowers and hightailed it out of there down route 238, past Saroma and Tokoro to Abashiri.

Driver-exhaustion warred with the urge to explore the surrounding nature, so after checking in (I’m quite seduced by the native Ainu architectural and interior design theme of the place) and changing my dinner reservation time, I made my way down to Cape Notoro on the advice of a helpful staff member of the hotel. What was initially a quiet exploration of the coast with the Shiretoko Mountain range in view turned unpleasant when a busload of chattering tourists clogged the trails.

The car and I went straight back after getting my pictures for the day, then up the other side of the hills, opposite my hotel in the vain hope of catching glimpses of Lake Abashiri from a vantage point. The only place that guaranteed a good lookout was closed; in the carpark was merely a bored van driver who sat in his vehicle and kept his eyes on his phone.

I got back about 90 minutes before dinner; weighing my options, the public bath seemed like a good idea: get hot, then clean, then hungry. My first public onsen experience was an enlightening one, and frankly, quite disturbing. As much as I would have liked to pretend that public nudity of sorts among women doesn’t bother me, it does. Or perhaps that’s also a remnant of a Methodist upbringing rebelling at seeing some nude people frolicking in steaming water while others rub patches of skin (and fat) vigorously. I hoped, as I cast surreptitious glances around to make sure I was doing things right, that no one thought I was lecherously eyeing nubile flesh.

I crept out of the place when done, still feeling like a prude.

Mileage of the day: 334.7 km, on my own, with only my ipod for company.

A new record.

When snow refuses spring

The blue expanse of sky pushed away the heavy clouds that had lingered over the past few days, finally casting the Furano-Biei landscape in hues of greens, yellows and browns. Feeling somewhat cheated at the bad pictures of the rain and all-around miserable weather, I thought to re-discover the patchwork circuit again. Then, panicked at the thought that I wasn’t ever going to make it to Asahidake in time, I decided to pay Shirogane a visit (the famed Blue Pond looked a murky green in the dim light), only to realise that the exhilarating roads go straight up to Tokachidake.

The Onsen at Tokachidake lodge itself was a disappointment but the drive was the highlight of the day – the roads were windy, twisty, relatively empty…and a driver’s dream (or nightmare) come true. What made it unexpectedly delightful was that the mountains were only just starting to thaw in the spring weather. So patches of white everywhere – I hesitate to call it snow because it resembled hard chunks of ice up and personal – and still quite cold to boot.

Unfortunately, the route to Asahidake meant a complete U-turn after that and an additional distance of 30km. The ropeway, according to the receptionist at the hotel, only opened today. After a period of closure for whatever, I didn’t ask. All hopes of doing the trail around the ropeway station were dashed when I was unanimously told by everyone who worked that that the snow was still at least three metres deep.

The views at least were breathtaking, but it could be my mountain fetish talking.

It’s my fifth night in Hokkaido and mid-way through this trip and finally, finally, I got my first dip in a private onsen. It’s fairly rewarding after a long day in the car, ruined only by my apparent inability to take heat.

I climbed hurriedly and prematurely out of the baths, only to find myself in conversation with several staff at La Vista Daisetsuzan, all of whom have travelled extensively, some around the world, and some in Hokkaido. That was when I jumped at the opportunity to ask about lunch places and speed checks.

Mileage of the day: 173.3km

Wheels or no wheels?

I was slated to pick up my set of wheels today. But when I made my booking, Times Rental company had still been Mazda rental and as the latter suggested, only rented out Mazda cars – it was for this bloody reason that I chose this company.

The change of name however, is not incidental; the cars they carry are no longer solely Mazda(s) but an unholy mix of Nissan, Toyota and Mazda: in essence, the lack of exclusivity makes it like any other rental company. To my horror, an employee cheerily pointed at a Nissan cube when I’d been expecting a Mazda Axela, a car that I absolutely refused to take. Thankfully, he was nice enough to tell me that there was no charge for cancelling the rental there and then, though I’m waiting with bated breath to see if a large charge is still going to be placed on my credit card.

So I went next door to Nippon Rent-a-car to ask for a Subaru Impreza all wheel drive, which had been my original choice, eschewed in favour of a more fuel-efficient breed of vehicle.

The positive bits? Having a set of wheels is beyond liberating. The Subaru also comes with an English GPS, something that’s unexpectedly easy to get used to. In the past when I’ve rented other cars with travel companions, we’ve always looked to maps (with a healthy dose of common sense), believing that an over-reliance on the GPS tends to render a person direction-blind.

And the negative: without the Internet price special, I ended up paying an exorbitant amount for it. The solid-feel that comes with the Impreza is however, mitigated by its ponderous pick-up and acceleration. Admittedly, on roads which have the ridiculous speed limits of 40-50 km/hr, that might not really matter.

After the adrenaline rush of seeing the Nissan cube faded, I took off into the hills of Biei and did some subaru-ing on the windy Patchwork and Panorama roads. Under a cloud-heavy sky and constant drizzle, the rolling landscape resembled and smelled like giant dung balls. Several flower farms, endless twisty roads, a few U-turns and christened trees later, I was ready to call it a day.

Mileage of the day: 105.2 km

Precipitate of the wrong kind

The landscape of the Furano-Biei region would have been brilliant, if not for the intermittent rain and the heavy cloud cover that seemed to surround the encircling mountaintops. But the hotel room looks out over a few majestic snow-capped peaks (I think this is my travel fetish) and it sort of helps make up for the miserable weather.

There’s nothing much to do in Furano now except to walk around a bit, do a bit of work and go for dinner.

So after visiting the Furano Marche and buying relatively useless stuff (this revelation comes typically on hindsight), I made my way to Teppan Okonomiyaki Masaya. The fact that it;s deserted save for a small group of Thai tourists is quite a mystery to me; after all, didn’t glowing reviews on Tripadvisor say that the place was always packed?

The chef chucks a menu at me while he tosses a bunch of ingredients onto the stove and gamely poses for a photograph at the same time. He’s chatty, speaks English quite well (having lived in Canada for 18 months) and introduces himself to everyone who sits at the bar counter as a guy who ‘came up 15 years ago on his motorcycle from a region near Hiroshima’.

And after that, it’s back to the hotel with more wistful glances outside at the intensifying rain.

Oh lord. Please let tomorrow be better.

Springtime in Sapporo

The DOA (day of arrival) is always the worst.

It’s when orientating is a pain rather than a joy because you’re all shot through with exhaustion. So each holiday, I wait for the plane ride to end and for the inevitable dreary first day to pass before waking up to a new one tomorrow. Needless to say, I also look my worst each time the DOA rolls around. This time, it’s pretty much my fault for having taken a pair of scissors to my bangs in front of the mirror on impulse two days ago. It’s unflatteringly obvious after I stood next to rows upon rows of neatly-coiffed, image-conscious Japanese while waiting at a traffic light.

Although it’s not immediately evident from the rapid train service from New Chitose airport, Sapporo shows itself up to be rather different from the congested byways of Tokyo. Under the melancholy, grey sky that threatens rain, I can almost kid myself that I’m somewhere in part of Western Europe. The blocky, dull tones of the low-rise buildings with large posters on them and the rapidfire chatter of a Japanese couple in front soon break the illusion.

The walkways around the city station are like wide (unbelievably clean) boulevards and an subterranean city teeming with life seems to run parallel to the roads above ground especially in the core of the city. In fact, it is entirely possible to wander through a network of long underground passageways from Sapporo station to Susukino without realising it.

Having had a peek of the snow-capped mountains that seem to encircle the southwestern part of Sapporo on the rapid train here, I hauled myself to Odori tower to get a better look. Then I ran a few errands, ending up with an all-Japanese driving guide (its only boast was that the maps were ‘big’) and some milk products from the maze of shops in the JR Sapporo main station. The Ishiya chocolate factory seemed to be a good idea at the time, until the surreal feeling of seeing a strange combination of ‘European architecture’ and Japanese kitsch began to get overwhelming. But then, Japan begins by being overwhelming: its people, the buildings, and now, the variety of food and choices, perhaps best encapsulated in Sofia Coppola’s Lost in Translation, where urbanity forces humans to live in a paradox.

So I get around as usual in my Japan-survival mode: a combination of winning smiles, embarrassment, lots of apologising and thanking (perfected to an art here). It works, mostly.

Even if the lack of space is nowhere as bad as Tokyo, space-saving seems to be inculcated into the Japanese mentality; it’s evident in the seating spaces, hotel-room sizes, and even the toilets. In a bid to get a bit more ‘outdoors’, I decided to visit Moerenuma Park over Otaru, a sculpture-park that’s Northeast of Sapporo and accessible by a combination of subway and bus rides. A helpful, middle-aged lady waved me off the bus cheerily; she spoke in Japanese, and I, in hand gestures and monosyllabic words. Only as I climbed my first sculpture-hill did I realise that it was actually quite hard to get around with bite-sized instructions gleaned from Wikipaedia and an outdated report from an anonymous review in Tripadvisor. But Moerenuma was fun despite my sweat-soaked back; I haven’t done this much uphill since climbing the Salisbury Crags in Edinburgh.

Above all, I loved the greenery.

Up north in Japan

It always begins with a niggling thought at the back of my head that says, ‘It wouldn’t be too bad you know, to spend a bit more money  - read: blow my savings – on a solo trip to Japan’. Despite having just bought a precious, precious Specialized bicycle, I decided to go for it.

After all, I reasoned, the last time I was in Japan, the tragic events of the 2011 Tsunami had left me in no mood to continue. But this time, I’m choosing wide, sweeping countryside and the wilderness over the typical claustrophobia that always accosts me on the Honshu island.

So Hokkaido it is. A 10-day trek that stretches from Sapporo – Furano – Abashiri – Shiretoko and finally to Lake Akan, with bears for company.

(Not) missing you at all

On our last day in Hong Kong, we hailed a taxi yesterday morning to get to the airport at 7.30 am.

The driver was in the middle of making his own instant noodles (hot water, packets of seasoning all in the basket) when he stopped his vehicle. He drove to the airport while eating his noodles, stopping before he entered the expressway to Lantau island to finish his breakfast, then flung everything – the bowl, chopsticks and remaining noodles – out of the window.

Free of his breakfast burden, he expansively swerved the tiny taxi into various lanes while pushing 120 km/hr, wobbling to pick his nose hard then rubbing them between his fingers. Lather, rinse, repeat. He cleared his throat loudly and then coughed hard – grimacing was all TC and I could do, thinking that was exactly why SARS had spread so easily.

The appalling but fast taxi ride aside (we reached the airport really early), the trip back as once again fraught with noisy  unmentionables.

Not missing you at all, really.