We started our Fall 2008 trip with an overnight stopover in Tokyo en-route to our first trip to Hokkaido. Staying close to Ginza this time around gave us some time to explore a bit more of the side streets and check out a Spanish tapas bar which Leeann had discovered in her readings.
Tapas of Jamon Iberico, cheese, oven baked mushrooms and Spanish wine were served along a small table top bar overlooking the kitchen - absolutely brilliant!
After stuffing our faces with some good food, we headed back to our hotel in Hamamatsucho for an early night.
Haneda Airport (Tokyo) to Memanbetsu Airport (Sapporo)
The advantage of flying from Haneda is that it only takes 20 minutes to get there from Hamamatsucho, which meant that the 8am-ish flight wasn't too horrendous! The quick 1.5 hour flight got us to the most Northern Eastern airport in Japan and put us smack in the middle of Hokkaido.
But we still had some ways to go. Memanbetsu (女満別) Airport sits near the Northern coast of Hokkaido, about 500km Northeast of Sapporo, not too far from Abashiri city and Ozora city. We arrived mid-morning to a beautiful fall day and picked up our rental car from Mazda as usual and headed straight towards one of the main highlights of our trip, the Shiretoko Peninsula - which marks the most Northeasternly point of Japan and is just across the Sea of Okhotsk from Russia. Driving North through Abashiri city and then East on Route 243, Route 244 and then 334 brought us to some of the coolest coastal drives so far.
We encountered seemingly endless roads, remote rest stops and almost no cars on the 2.5 hour drive before stopping first at Oshinkoshin Waterfall, an interesting, but by no means spectacular waterfall somewhere along the coast between Shari town and Utoro.
Food on the way:
The rest station:
With our hotel check-in time still some hours away, we headed further into the Shiretoko Peninsula towards Utoro high pass, the Five Lakes and Shiretoko National Park:
At a little past 3pm, we arrived at the Shiretoko Grand Hotel Kitakobushi, a rather large scale Ryokan hotel situated in Utoro town. We got a beautiful room overlooking the Sea of Okhotsk and the bay:
Some drift ice in the hotel lobby:
Our kaiseki dinner where we could choose what fresh seafood we wanted was served in the hotel restaurant:
Awesome breakfast of natto, eggs, ikura, sausages, miso soup:
Next day we headed first to Lake Masshu (摩周湖), a body of the water once had the honour of having the deepest transparency (at 136ft deep) in the 1930s.
We then stopped for lunch:
Driving West towards Lake Akan on route 241, we reached our hotel Tsuruga a little after 2pm.
Volcanic mud pits:
Lake Akan:
Sweet potatoes in the lobby of our hotel:
Dinner at Tsuruga:
Marimo:
Ainu Village at night:
Such an awesome breakfast the next day! More natto delight:
Leaving Lake Akan the next day, we headed towards Sounkyou Onsen (層雲峡温泉) in Daisetsuzan National Park, stopping first at the Edel Kase cheese factory:
Arriving at Sounkyou Onsen 'village',
we stopped to get a quick bowl of ramen:
A little on the touristy side, Sounkyo's main attractions combine a number of resort hotels, waterfalls and a ropeway which leads to Asahidake Onsen on the other side of the mountains. Aside from the ropeway, it was not particularly interesting.
The two main waterfalls Ginga-no-taki and Ryusei-no-taki are a quick 5 minute drive from the main village:
The ropeway took us up to 1,744m above sea level to the fifth station. Amazingly, it was covered with snow and fog:
It was unfortunate we were underdressed, or else a trip to the seventh station further up would have been warranted.
Extremely cold! But the views were awesome
Chairlift to the seventh station:
Kevin's new friend:
On the way down:
Arriving at our hotel, the Choyotei:
They originally gave us the wrong room (as we had decided to try out the newer western-style rooms), but the actual western style room was extremely modern and very cool!
Not a bad stop before we continued to Asahikawa and Biei/Furano the next day!
