(Japan) Hokkaido (Aug 6-19, 2021)

This summer, pandemic still continues, and we are still stuck in Japan. So, we are going for the longest trip to Hokkaido (Northest part of Japan, supposed to be cooler there!)

This time, we arrived at Wakkanai airport (nothing in there, not even convenience store) at around noon, immediately head to the Cape Soya (the northernmost point of Japan)!

+++ From Wikipedia +++

Wakkanai (meaning “cold water river) (Russian: Вакканай) is a city located in Sōya Subprefecture, Hokkaido, Japan. It is the capital of Sōya Subprefecture. It contains Japan’s northernmost point, Cape Sōya, from which the Russian island of Sakhalin can be seen.

Really? I didn’t know that.

“Kakkanai” came from Russian??

Am I going to see Russian island from Cape Soya??

The sea was so clam, so beautiful reflecting the clouds… looked like heaven.

However, in reality, it was very sunny very hot, nothing between, we could smell the sea but we could see no seafoods… no lunch. All the local restaurants were closed after lunchtime. We were too late…

But anyway, we got there in an hour? The road was quite flat, but there were strong head wind from the north & strong sun.

I got this wooden plate for memory, and mailed this wooden postcard home!

After that, we ride south to town… Saw this cute deer on the way.

It was all nature… Protected Area.

Yeah! We finally found a Sushi restaurant for early dinner. The Sushi here did tasted better, much fresher!

Got Hokkaido milk & ice-cream from convenience store!

This was where we stayed for our 1st night in Hokkaido — a Rider House. For travellers.

We were lucky enough to secure a room, but the beds wasn’t so clean, and no air-conditioning, very hot. I slept on my caming mat on the bed, because I was afraid of bed bug!!!

See, Hokkaido is really popular to cyclists & motorists in the Summer. The Rider House was full of guests.

That night, the host told us that Wakkanai is usually around 20degC, cool even in the summer, that’s why they do not have air-conditioning. But somehow, this summer it was so hot. On the way we arrived, it was over 30degC!

Also, this Rider House has a public bath, but the shower & bath was unbelievably hot, and it was old-style, I didn’t know how to adjust. So, I tried to take to “hot” shower as soon as possible before I got “cooked”. After the shower, I became more sweaty than before… haha

Also, this Rider House had a custom that at 9PM, all the guests gathered together at the sitting room to sing their special song. So, we were holding fan, trying to avoid mosquetoes, while holding each other’s shoulders to sing the song. haha.

One more thing. The toilet wasn’t obvious, so the host told us that once a drunk guest mistaken the storeroom as toilet, and she found SHIT on the floor of the storeroom next day morning! So, she said watch out where you were before going to toilet. haha, really funny.

Lot of fields, lots of windfarms.

It was way too sunny & hot. We found a bakery to take lunch break.

Sweet bread with lot of (Hokkaido) cream inside.

We were so thankful that we found a local town center, to take bath cheaply, a restaurant to quick dinner, and then a FREE camping site!!!

We were the only guest, and there were pond, shadow, toilet eating and cooking area… so nice!

I had a guest in my frame bag!

This was where we ate breakfast!

Saw this deer head in the hotel lobby where we took bath. So real, and so sad.

The other night, we found another camping site next to the sea. It was very nice view, but extremely windy at night, very cold. We could hardly cook outside, because too cold & too windy.

At early morning, we saw a fox came to camp site to steal foods when most people were still sleeping Zzzz

Finally, strong sun were gone, became cooler, but next it started to rain… Geee… we had to ride in the rain again.

When we rode along the coast, we saw many Hokkaido Cranes staying on the rocks away from the coast. I couldn’t take close enough photos, but you can see from the link before. Terui Island in Hokkaido is an important breeding place for them.

https://www.jldb.bunka.go.jp/en/location/010100101/

https://best.visit-hokkaido.jp/nature/experience/cranes-wild-birds/

Riding with one side of sea and one side of mountain was so nice. Not much cars.

We passed by some historical building. This rest area was so pretty. See all the flags used to hang on the fishing boats. When people caught a big fish or many fishes, they would make a new flag to show off.

This fried Octopus tasted so good!

We came to some town, and had a very rich seafood rice bowl for dinner.

Then, we went to a Bedrock Bath at night, because it was the only public bath in town. We were cold & wet, desperately needed a hot bath.

Our visitor!!

Unfortunately, the free camp site that we found next to the sea was far from our imagination — the smallest narrowest camp site, with stinky toilet next to it, wet & damp from the rain. The only good news was that seabirds sometimes visited us!

I was surprised to see so many big snails on the road due to rain…

This area has special pork (do they eat sunflower too?), so soft & juicy. I want to eat this fried pork steak again…

We passed by the Sunflower Town, even had sunflower seed curry rice as lunch!

I thought this is amazing. They were made from old tires! Can you tell?

Family grave of the famous samurai called “Sakamoto Ryoma”. Somehow I feel like I saw his grave at many different places…

We were so lucky. After driving continously on the boring hot car roads, we found this amazingly good soba restaurant, at middle of nowhere. There were 18 kinds of tempura with the soba. They are all just fried & crispy. I felt so full!!

long quiet cycling road along the river, lovely!

We finally arrived Sapporo!!

I had been missing the soup curry from Sapporo for a long time, so our 1st dinner at Sapporo had to be soup curry!

(though there were too many soup curry restaurants, hard to make up my mind…)

Chinese dim sum take-out??

The night view was so nice, romantic…

Next morning, we woke up early, because we had to rush to the nearby morning market to line up for UNI-DON (raw sea urchin on rice)!

We waited for an hour… so ended up we chose the most expensive one.

You see, there are couple kinds of sea urchin, but only at Hokkaido you can find the orange (golden) kind. They are much sweeter!

Hello Kitty dram.

This kind of indoor shopping street is very common in Japan. Of course we can find it in Sapporo too. The street is very very long, all kinds of restaurants, shops, food vendors in there.

This is a hundred year old clock tower. It’s a symbol of Sapporo.

Sapporo beer (old) factory!

A big indoor shopping mall next to the Sapporo beer tower. It looks like a grant greenhouse.

Our lunch was a fish restaurant inside the mall. The fishes were dried in that oven, not under the sun. Technology!

Hello Kitty road sign (Be careful Steps!)

In the downtown, parking is always a problem. So, there are many public big free parking lots for bicycles! Good for us!

Tonight, we decided to eat CRAB for dinner!

Though we must say, this chain restaurant specialized on crab suck! Expensive, cold, small, tasteless crabs. Don’t come here!

Next morning we had THE BEST BREAKFAST BUFFET!

You see, we chose this business hotel because of it. It has the top 3-5? breakfast buffet in Japan!

All kind of fresh SASHIMI (raw fishes & eggs) at the buffet, and a lot others… really really high quality.

If you do come to Sapporo, you must stay here to have the BREAKFAST BUFFET!

Passed by a nice park, with pond at the middle and oversee the town.

After riding for quite a long time along side too much traffic and big trucks & uphills, we were in the mountain again. See, protected area.

It was the longest and toughest uphill we experienced in Hokkaido… not to mention that we passed many tunnels too.

We rode at under 10km/hr for quite some time… finally reached the top.

Riding in the mountain is not bad. It’s cooler, and the air is clean. Nobody & very few cars around.

Actually, we rode quite many uphill & downhill in Hokkaido, much more than other places that we had cycled, but it was a lot of fun! Because there are so many straight wide roads in Hokkaido with very few cars, so during the downhills we could go straight without worry.

I think my top speed was over 50km/hr!!! During which, I totally released the brakes for a long time, even at standing pose for a long time to avoid the bumps! I had such a good time!

Not to mention, even in Hokkaido, the roads are still well-maintained, so no worry for our cross bikes!

Uphill is always tough… but no worry, we always find our reward!

Passed by sweet shrimp town, where we had the best lunch set! The fried fish wasn’t shown in the menu, but it was so crispy & fresh, tasted the best!

Had seasoned pork on rice at Service Area. Looked attractive!

On the way to the hostel, we found a rest area to buy our dinner — curry rice again, with meat loaf. (Again, it was already closing even though only 6PM.)

This was our hostel tonight! It was an old hostel, 1st floor is a BBQ restaurant, rebuilt inside aiming for foreigners, especially during Ski season. It had a very nice common room (BBQ restaurant was just at the other side, but almost no customers), with fridge, microwave, hot water pot, TV, internet…

Lucky for us — because of pandemic & off-season, again we were the only guests! We slept in a capsule, but very new & comfortable, had power outlet, lamp & everything inside our little capsule!

Next day we went to camp at Lake Toya!

+++ From Japan Guide +++

Lake Toya (Tōyako) is part of the Shikotsu-Toya National Park. In addition to the lake itself, the Toyako region features hot springs and an active volcano, Mount Usu, which last erupted in the year 2000.

Interesting fruit (?), canned bear meat and others…

The lakeside was really nice and there were many lakeside parks… but they were not allowed for camping. We had to look for camping site instead.

We rode around the lake and found a cozy-looking restaurant for lunch! They had many kinds of homemade cakes!

There is nothing better than riding along the lake!

Somehow many camp sites were either full or closed, so this was where we camped — on top of the hill. Although it had lake view, quite far from lake.

Also, no shower/bath, and firework at night was noisy.

But there was an interesting tent that we could play with.

We had to ride uphill for the campsite, then ride downhill for convenience store… so we skipped the bath.

Next day morning, we visited a Jomon bural site & museum near Toyako.

In Jomon period, the graves were covered with sea shells. How romantic!

Lake Toya actually has a volcano at the middle, how interesting!

There were many many items from Jomon period in exhibition.

So much that most of them are not even organized yet, just casually put into baskets lying on the floor…

There are actually many burial sites all over Hokkaido, but we only visited one.

Long empty tunnel, pretty cool!

Actually, we rode through many tunnels especially in the mountain, but there were usually many cars, and we had to be cautious, wear reflective vest, turn tail light on… no such luxury to take photo inside the tunnel. This one even have wide sidewalk!

Yeah! We camped no more, so again we mailed the camping good home!

This is our No.1 favorite convenience store in Hokkaido — SEICOMART!!!

They have many own brand goods! Had been feeding us everyday on the road!

This is the most common chained convenience stores in Hokkaido, especially northern part.

We LOVE it, because “Hot Chef” means that they always have in-house handmade riceballs, freshly baked breads, even handmade fried chicken (our favorite!) Too bad that Hot Chef is not available in Tokyo area…

Such nice view outside our window!

Thank to the Pandemic, we stayed at Prince Hotel at very low price! (USD 50 per room?)

We took a walk to the nearby lake. Again, amazing view.

There is a very short railway, just for tourists to go around the lake.

There were too many trees & bugs on the way, not really pleasant for walking, but the view was nice.

Next morning we passed by other part of the lake. It looked different, but also beautiful.

We passed by a town which produces potatoes, so they had this adorable potato street lamp at the service area. Love it!

We stayed at a local guesthouse. It was a town with nothing around, not enough convenience stores. The host (old lady) had a big dog (outside cage) and this small dog (inside the house). She was so cute.

Byebye, Hokkaido cows… thank you for giving us fresh wonderful milk…

Hokkaido is famous for their sweet corn, especially white color sweet corn. We often bought steamed corn to eat on the way.

Gelato ice-cream!

Interesting local takeout restaurant

“Lucky Pierrot” is a very popular fast food shop, founded and only available in Sapporo area.

We passed by their Headquarter shop. It was really interesting, decorated like a Circus!

Actually, their burger & sandaes were not bad at all!

We rode for long time next to the woods. Flat land. I think the woods is beautiful.

We finally arrived our last stop — HAKOTATE!!

Of course, we had seafood on rice for lunch.

Tonight, we stayed at APA Hotel (a chained business hotel) in Hakotate downtown. They even provided bottled water with the face of their founder in the room!

Hakotate downtown looked so western. There were so many historical buildings & old embassies of many countries there. The old buildings all look amazing. I can imagine how modern Hokotate was, as one of earliest main ports of Japan… We visited the Old Public Hall of Hakodate Ward. The interior rooms were so grand and gorgeous. They were used to serve many foreign officials. The Old Hakodate Branch Office of Hokkaido Government was also very beautifully-reserved and worth visiting.

This red brick building is Hakodate Chuka Kaikan is owned by China, built in 1906. There were many gorgeous historical furnitures inside, but it had been closed for a long time, not open to public and not maintained at all. So sad.

We could visit the garden of the Former British Consulate of Hakodate for free. They have a beautiful British garden. Unfortunately, it was not flower season, and even raining. However, we found the image character of Hakotate!

We went to food stalls for dinner & drinking at evening… met & chatted with many interesting people…

The 2nd & last day we stayed in Kakotate, it was rainning all day… but this was our last chance! So, we went to the market in the morning, determine to look for good Crab (because the Crabs we ate in Sapporo didn’t taste good at all…) Indeed, a shop helped us choose a crab, and they boiled it & cut it for us to eat in the shop. It was so fresh, sweet & meaty! Yummy!!

This was the British Embassy. The garden was so pretty!

The shop was just too cute! So we had pancakes for lunch!

Before dark, we hurried into the Hakotate city museum of Northern Peoples before it closed. It was empty except for us, but the museum was really interesting to me. I love visiting museums!

There was a custome that totally looks like the customes of “Princess Mononoke”! The clothes were all handmade by the Northern people using bone needles. The details in the clothings were amazing… BTW, this one was probably imported from China.

Okay, when we came out. It was already all dark. It was still raining, but it was our last chance, so we still walked up the hill to take Ropeway to see the famous Hakotate Night View!