Japan – Hokkaido

Japan – Hokkaido

5.10.2017 – 17.10.2017       683,5km

For our first trip point in Japan we chose the island Hokkaido which is the northernmost island with a cold clime. Compare to the rest of Japan it is the least civilized and is rich for its untouched nature. The flight took 27 hours including 17 hours land over in Hongkong. When we were freezing while
putting our bikes apart earlier that day in Irkutsk, we couldn’t have even imagined that few hours later we will be dying by warm. Even though it was already evening in Hongkong it was so hot and misty that we felt like in a washroom. We used the land over for a quick city visit. We jumped on a
double decker and were admiring the high buildings and all the colorfully lit up skyscrapers. We were like Alice in Wonderland again. We fulfilled our stomachs too and we need to admit that the Chinese food sold in Czech Republic is far away from the real Chinese. We hold chopsticks for the
first time but we had to exchange them for forks to be even able to eat. Their time was still to come. As it usually is with full belly comes the weariness so we came back to the airport and relaxed for the rest of the time.

Our arrival in the New Chitosa airport was scheduled on 05.10.2017 at 3:20pm local time. Regarding
to the time difference we moved one hour forward and we were now 7 hours different from time in
our home. Originally we planned to put bikes together right away and go 50 km to Sapporo where
we had booked our staying by Sylvia from Hungary. However after such long flight we didn’t have
any more strength left to do it so we agreed to sleep at the airport and head off in the morning. But
thanks to Sylvia we didn’t have to do that because she arranged an accommodation in Chitosa for us by her friend Tatua who came for us by car and took us and all our luggage to his place. His wife Kiyomi was there already expecting us with some prepared snacks and beer. We really liked the slim
cheesy sticks with something what Tatuo called “squid”. We didn’t have a clue what this word meant at that time but we continued eating it. They invited us to a restaurant where we expected to get some sushi. Nevertheless the Japanese cousin isn’t only about sushi. It contains mainly rice, sea food, salats, beans, soya bobs and products made of them. The portions are usually small because
Japanese people are used to order more kinds of meal and combine them in different ways. It means that the waiter serves everything at the same time – the soup, salat, rice, fish etc. Before the bed time we got a course about how to use a Japanese bathroom. After coming into the room you are actually standing in the shower already. The shower is very low, they take it in almost a squat
position while watch themselves in a mirror. The bath tub is only meant for taking a bath. And yes, the toilets are actually heated and have many other interesting functions. Being super clean we went to bed and slept like dead. In the morning we were served with a Japanese style breakfast. It includes so much food that it looks the same like a lunch or dinner. There was the Miso soup, fried egg with a ham, bread, jam, butter, salat, rice, plumbs, pickled vegetable, salmon and some sea food. After asking for what was this thing we got an answer that it was the squid, the same thing which we had in the chees yesterday. Kata got surprised because she didn’t like sea food very much
but she liked this squid a lot. Nicely full we put together our bikes and finally headed off to Sapporo. At the beginning we had troubles to get used to the left sided road. On our first circle crossroad Paja got in the right lane but fortunately there was no traffic. After a while we got used to it and it didn’t
cause any more problem to us. Just a moment after leaving the city we heard the birds singing, crickets and the road was surrounded by a lot of trees. Also the sun was up, it was all great.

There are 2 million of people living in Sapporo but it is a very calm city even though. There was no stress or rush. People bow down to you all the time, they are friendly, smiling, always in a good mood. Maybe that’s the secret of their long life. We managed to come to Sylvia by whom we spent two nights and got a lot of good advices and information. Before the next tour it was needed just to
exchange our damaged rear mech which turned out to be quiet an issue. Our rear mech are made in America but in Japan the main producer is the local Shimano. Many service shops couldn’t have helped us therefore but one skilled technician managed to do that fortunately. The weather was beautiful and we were enjoying the road along the cost. We ate our snacks on the empty beaches
and were admiring the beauty of the endless sea. For the first night spent outside we chose a public lay-by because there was a whisky factory nearby. It was called Nikka factory. It was established in 1934 by Mr, Masatako Taketsura who learned the magics of distillation in Scotland. However the first
whisky here was made in 1940. Interesting thing is that the distillation is still made above the carbon kilns which is a very complicated process due to temperature regulation. Early in the morning we went there for a tasting and the whisky was so delicious.

As soon as we got sober after the tasting we went to try the Japanese onsen. Thanks to volcanic
processes there are many hot springs in Japan which are used for baths and they are called onsen.
They can be outside or inside and usually are separated by gender because you need to be naked
when having a bath. Before the entry to the hot spa you have to clean yourself very well, not just like
the short shower which we have in Cech Republic before going into a pool. After that you can relax in the hot water as long as you can. Our first experience was outside with the view on the ocean and water temperature of 42,5 °C. This was a pleasant good bye to a nice sunny weather. Never mind, at least it wasn’t raining, we had to continue. We arrived to a city Kutchan above which there is a majestic non active volcano Yotei-zan. Not far from the volcano among beautifully colored trees we found a free camp. We couldn’t say no, it was getting dark anyway so we stayed over. Mornings there were very chilly. It was hard to get out of our sleeping packs and even harder when we were
hearing the well known rain drumming on our tent. We planned to go to the Shikotsu lake but we changed our mind and we headed off to the closest onsen. But what a pity, it was closed.

We didn’t have any other chance than to warm up ourselves with a hot tea only and go to sleep. The following day looked pretty much the same in terms of the weather. At least we slowly got to the Toya lake. In the middle of this lake there was an island where we finally could have enjoyed the onsen. Worse situation was with camping. We were so long unsatisfied with the camp offers that we
ended up in the dark somewhere in the fields. And also first hills appeared, very similar to the Norwegian ones which means long rise and long declining. Hard to say what’s worse, if to hard getting to the top or freezing on the way down. We arrived to the valley called Jigoku – Dani which means Hell’s valley. It was not hot but sulfur was stinking everywhere. We bought some ready to eat
cold meal which you can find everywhere in shops and the clerk is happy to heat it up for you. After that we went for a walk around the valley. It was made ages ago thanks to an eruption of volcano Mt. Kuttara. It is a crater 11 ha wide. Everywhere around us it was smoking and bubbling just like in hell. The crater made also a little lake Oynuma which is 1km wide and water in it reached the
temperature of 50° C, deeper even 130°C. Not far away from the lake there is a hot spring where you can warm up your feet.

The third day in a row without a sun light caused that our solar panel wasn’t getting energy and for the first time on our way we ran out of energy in our electronics and all back up electric sources. We wouldn’t mind that much if it wasn’t dark and our only map was in our cell phone. By heart we were
going to a place where was supposed to be a camp but apparently we missed some turn and suddenly appeared on a cemetery behind the city. Even though we were scared to death we were playing with the idea to build a tent right there. Thanks God besides the graves there were also toilets with power plugs which we immediately used for recharging our cell phones and checked the
way to the camp. It was like 5km away from us so we made it and fell down completely tired. In the morning when we were returning the same way along the cemetery we were so surprised by its size. It was organized with letters A-Z and the rows didn’t have any end. We used the toilets once again for recharging our electronics and then there was nothing standing in our way to Hokadate.
Traditionally we arrived in the dark. The sightseeing was therefore postponed to the following day and we slept in a park above a zoo. We got up a little earlier because we knew Japanese like parks for doing their morning routines such as walks or jogging. Despite our early wake up we missed our ferry to Oma in Honshu. Since we didn’t want to wait for 8 hours for the next one we used another ferry to a little more southern city in Honshu – Aomori.

Food