Hokkaido, September 2019
Hokkaido September 2019
With the Rugby World Cup due in 2019 and Sapporo being one of the venues, what better opportunity would there be to visit the island of Hokkaido? Not that I am a great rugby fan or that Hokkaido jumped off the scheduling page, but it did all fall into place coincidentally. Joining an online ticket-queue for a world event works like this: call or visit the centre online as per the advertisement, receive a reply saying that you are number 16,432 in the queue; go off and do something, check an hour later – 7,432; check again - 1,954; check once more - you are now No. 87 and so on, until it is about three hours after you originally started. Finally get through to be told that all the big games near Tokyo have been snaffled up (hospitality and those with connections most likely) so you can have Ireland vs Fiji in Oita on Kyushu Island (or something like that) or England vs Tonga in Sapporo. Thus is a decision made. After waiting for three hours, you are hardly going to say, ‘Can I think about it and get back to you?’
Looking at the island of Hokkaido the planning alights on places of interest that are widely spaced out and often in rural locations. Perhaps hiring a car will do the trick, for which a Japanese driving licence will come in very handy. Passing the test just involved watching a road-safety video, failing to fill in the multiple-choice questionnaire and handing it in completely blank at the end (it was entirely in Japanese), and having my British licence translated. Not showing my Thai licence meant that I didn’t have to take the otherwise mandatory test on the actual roads.
Hakodate in the south-west of Hokkaido boasts an adjacent hill for a great night-view looking down on the town, and a fish market, where everything is super-fresh. It is one of those places where you point at something swimming casually in a tank, and lo, next thing you know it is on your plate cooked in the way that you requested. You can even hook a squid minding its own business in a big blue trough to increase your level of ownership over the poor thing. Bung it straight into the wok full of boiling oil? Probably. I saw a video on YouTube where a couple were sitting looking at their freshly prepared platter of fruits de mer when the small octopus started walking off the plate, across the table. Giggling, they tried to jab it/shepherd it back to join the rest of their lunch. Not for me, thank you!
Driving up the coast to Mt Usu and Lake Toya there is the chance to look over a fantastic example of a crater lake, almost perfectly circular in shape, with a 10 km diameter, and featuring a textbook island cone sitting in the middle of the water. It is great to see these things in real life. In fact, Mt Usu triggered a memory from a different life. I recalled making a worksheet for Geography students forty years ago about efforts to stabilize the recent lava flow on Mt Usu. I had totally forgotten about it but remembered once arriving at the top of the ropeway and looking at the shape of the lava-dome. ‘Just a minute,’ lightbulb goes on, ‘Well, I never!’
And so, to the rugby and Sapporo. It was all fine, with the crowds being in good spirit, boisterous as sporting crowds generally are, but non-threatening as the rugby-lot tend to be. With fan-zones and trains full of jolly rugger-types there was a decent atmosphere, although it is difficult to tell what the locals made of it all. The lines of staff bowing as spectators exited the stadium, did bemuse the visitors and certainly gave them something to talk about as they streamed down the concourse. One negative point was that the Rugby WC was sponsored by Heineken, so no Japanese brands were allowed to be sold inside the ground. This, in Sapporo of all places – a case of a corporate imperative prevailing over common sense. Cue folks standing outside 7-Eleven places all over, with beers in hand, none of which were Heineken and many of which were Sapporo. Take that!
Furano is famed for its flowers and in particular their field arrangements to create linear coloured patterns following the contours in the landscape. So famed, in fact that tractors pull trailers full of tourists up and down the lanes between the fields, thus presenting those Instagram moments (used to be Kodak moments). Being a cold and rainy day, this exercise was curtailed rather, with folks huddled behind the plastic sheeting as they trundled through the drizzle, and content to poke phones through the gaps rather then get out and explore. The warm souvenir shop was rightly jammed and the canteen was doing a brisk trade, serving up piping-hot ramen to ward off the cold. As for the fields, they were striking and very much worth the side-trip, but clear skies would have been an absolute bonus. Can’t beat a blue sky!
Hokkaido does volcanoes and big mountains quite well, so a drive to the ropeway leading to Mt Asahi-dake in the Daisetsuzan Range was one of the first things pencilled in. The gondola deposits you quite high up amongst the fumaroles hissing and spluttering and pretty-much ignoring your gaze; they do just get on with their low-grade roar irrespective of the weather and everything else that's going on in the world. It's fairly chilly up there in September but the Japanese are quite a hardy crowd and the outdoor types have always got the precise combination of essential gear. You notice in malls that there are many outdoor shops with all the well-known brands, not forgetting the local Mont Bell label, which will outfit you from top to tail while making sure you look fairly chic. You can’t walk out of a Mont Bell outlet without buying something, even if it is only a bear warning bell or some other useful knick-knack that you never knew you needed. Guaranteed it will also be the most stylish one on the trail, drawing secret, admiring glances. I’m sure the bears appreciate the effort too!
Driving round Hokkaido is pleasurable even if the highways often reduce to a single lane as they make their way through frequent long tunnels in the rolling countryside (a big sign at the tunnel entrance always indicates how long the tunnel is, so no need to fret). Traffic is orderly and the landscape is pleasing on the eye, being much less populated than the other islands of Japan. With Russia just across the water, it could have been all so different. Plans were in place for the Soviet Union to invade Hokkaido in 1945 and some would argue that this was one of the factors that led the US to accelerate towards a conclusion of its WWII conflict with Japan. Whatever, once US operations reached the mainland, such invasion plans for Hokkaido were shelved. It is possible to get a ferry across to Sakhalin but that wasn’t particularly tempting looking at the sea.
So, for Hokkaido there is still plenty left to explore, it is a big place after all. Put it on the list for later – spring or autumn preferred, unless you are the snow-sports type.
HOKKAIDO ISLAND
https://www.photoriente.com/hokkaido-island.html
With the Rugby World Cup due in 2019 and Sapporo being one of the venues, what better opportunity would there be to visit the island of Hokkaido? Not that I am a great rugby fan or that Hokkaido jumped off the scheduling page, but it did all fall into place coincidentally. Joining an online ticket-queue for a world event works like this: call or visit the centre online as per the advertisement, receive a reply saying that you are number 16,432 in the queue; go off and do something, check an hour later – 7,432; check again - 1,954; check once more - you are now No. 87 and so on, until it is about three hours after you originally started. Finally get through to be told that all the big games near Tokyo have been snaffled up (hospitality and those with connections most likely) so you can have Ireland vs Fiji in Oita on Kyushu Island (or something like that) or England vs Tonga in Sapporo. Thus is a decision made. After waiting for three hours, you are hardly going to say, ‘Can I think about it and get back to you?’
Looking at the island of Hokkaido the planning alights on places of interest that are widely spaced out and often in rural locations. Perhaps hiring a car will do the trick, for which a Japanese driving licence will come in very handy. Passing the test just involved watching a road-safety video, failing to fill in the multiple-choice questionnaire and handing it in completely blank at the end (it was entirely in Japanese), and having my British licence translated. Not showing my Thai licence meant that I didn’t have to take the otherwise mandatory test on the actual roads.
Hakodate in the south-west of Hokkaido boasts an adjacent hill for a great night-view looking down on the town, and a fish market, where everything is super-fresh. It is one of those places where you point at something swimming casually in a tank, and lo, next thing you know it is on your plate cooked in the way that you requested. You can even hook a squid minding its own business in a big blue trough to increase your level of ownership over the poor thing. Bung it straight into the wok full of boiling oil? Probably. I saw a video on YouTube where a couple were sitting looking at their freshly prepared platter of fruits de mer when the small octopus started walking off the plate, across the table. Giggling, they tried to jab it/shepherd it back to join the rest of their lunch. Not for me, thank you!
Driving up the coast to Mt Usu and Lake Toya there is the chance to look over a fantastic example of a crater lake, almost perfectly circular in shape, with a 10 km diameter, and featuring a textbook island cone sitting in the middle of the water. It is great to see these things in real life. In fact, Mt Usu triggered a memory from a different life. I recalled making a worksheet for Geography students forty years ago about efforts to stabilize the recent lava flow on Mt Usu. I had totally forgotten about it but remembered once arriving at the top of the ropeway and looking at the shape of the lava-dome. ‘Just a minute,’ lightbulb goes on, ‘Well, I never!’
And so, to the rugby and Sapporo. It was all fine, with the crowds being in good spirit, boisterous as sporting crowds generally are, but non-threatening as the rugby-lot tend to be. With fan-zones and trains full of jolly rugger-types there was a decent atmosphere, although it is difficult to tell what the locals made of it all. The lines of staff bowing as spectators exited the stadium, did bemuse the visitors and certainly gave them something to talk about as they streamed down the concourse. One negative point was that the Rugby WC was sponsored by Heineken, so no Japanese brands were allowed to be sold inside the ground. This, in Sapporo of all places – a case of a corporate imperative prevailing over common sense. Cue folks standing outside 7-Eleven places all over, with beers in hand, none of which were Heineken and many of which were Sapporo. Take that!
Furano is famed for its flowers and in particular their field arrangements to create linear coloured patterns following the contours in the landscape. So famed, in fact that tractors pull trailers full of tourists up and down the lanes between the fields, thus presenting those Instagram moments (used to be Kodak moments). Being a cold and rainy day, this exercise was curtailed rather, with folks huddled behind the plastic sheeting as they trundled through the drizzle, and content to poke phones through the gaps rather then get out and explore. The warm souvenir shop was rightly jammed and the canteen was doing a brisk trade, serving up piping-hot ramen to ward off the cold. As for the fields, they were striking and very much worth the side-trip, but clear skies would have been an absolute bonus. Can’t beat a blue sky!
Hokkaido does volcanoes and big mountains quite well, so a drive to the ropeway leading to Mt Asahi-dake in the Daisetsuzan Range was one of the first things pencilled in. The gondola deposits you quite high up amongst the fumaroles hissing and spluttering and pretty-much ignoring your gaze; they do just get on with their low-grade roar irrespective of the weather and everything else that's going on in the world. It's fairly chilly up there in September but the Japanese are quite a hardy crowd and the outdoor types have always got the precise combination of essential gear. You notice in malls that there are many outdoor shops with all the well-known brands, not forgetting the local Mont Bell label, which will outfit you from top to tail while making sure you look fairly chic. You can’t walk out of a Mont Bell outlet without buying something, even if it is only a bear warning bell or some other useful knick-knack that you never knew you needed. Guaranteed it will also be the most stylish one on the trail, drawing secret, admiring glances. I’m sure the bears appreciate the effort too!
Driving round Hokkaido is pleasurable even if the highways often reduce to a single lane as they make their way through frequent long tunnels in the rolling countryside (a big sign at the tunnel entrance always indicates how long the tunnel is, so no need to fret). Traffic is orderly and the landscape is pleasing on the eye, being much less populated than the other islands of Japan. With Russia just across the water, it could have been all so different. Plans were in place for the Soviet Union to invade Hokkaido in 1945 and some would argue that this was one of the factors that led the US to accelerate towards a conclusion of its WWII conflict with Japan. Whatever, once US operations reached the mainland, such invasion plans for Hokkaido were shelved. It is possible to get a ferry across to Sakhalin but that wasn’t particularly tempting looking at the sea.
So, for Hokkaido there is still plenty left to explore, it is a big place after all. Put it on the list for later – spring or autumn preferred, unless you are the snow-sports type.
HOKKAIDO ISLAND
https://www.photoriente.com/hokkaido-island.html
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