Hello, I'm Jessica, a first year ALT in Kuriyama, and I spend a lot of time looking for places to adventure. Lucky for me, the other ALT in Kuriyama, Jeri, also loves traveling. Together, we adventure like a boss.
The end of October brought with it phenomenal fall colours and Hokkaido astounded me with her beauty. Everyone knows that cherry blossom viewing (hanami) is a famous activity in Japan. But did you know that viewing the fall leaves is also popular? As soon as I discovered this, I knew I wanted to take my newly purchased car and find someplace beautiful.
I planned a weekend getaway to Onuma Quasi National Park and Esan, both close enough to Hakodate. Onuma is a popular tourist destination and well deserves it. It consists of two lakes at the foot of Mt. Komagatake, which are dotted with over a hundred small islands. Esan is a mountain on the southeast tip of Hokkaido. On a clear day, you can see Honshu from the top.
This sounded like an awesome adventure to Jeri and I.
We set out in the early afternoon of October 28th, our goals clear in mind: get to Onuma, see cool things, take pictures, eat ice cream and see Honshu. The drive was long, even with me speeding along the expressway. Mix tapes (CDs) serenaded our travels. We rocked out. Jeri's mom, who was visiting from Canada, ignored us from the back seat.
Adventure began once darkness had set in (at like 7 p.m, really Hokkaido?) and our hotel was near. My car, which I had only had for about a week, started squeaking. Jeri looked at me. "Why is your car squeaking? Is there a bird in there?"
I thought for a moment. "Well, if there is, it will stop soon!"
As disconcerting as a squeaking car is, our hotel was only 15 minutes away. The squeaking went away after a few minutes and we made it safely to the Crawford Inn, a cute place near the station. I went inside while Jeri stayed in the car, and started the exciting process of checking into our room. One bad thing about being a foreigner is that I don't know how to properly check into a hotel. The good thing about being a foreigner is that as soon as they saw me, they already knew what my reservation was. Jeri's mom was staying in one room, while Jeri and I shared another.
The nice man at the desk told us where to park and followed me back out to the car to get our bags. When he saw Jeri, he said something along the lines of "Oh, the other person is a girl?"
"Yeah," I said, a little confused by the question. "She's my friend."
I should have realized that something was up then.
His statement made a lot more sense when he showed Jeri and me our room - with one double bed.
Ah. Naruhodo!
No big deal. Jeri and I laughed about it. Thats what happens when you reserve rooms online on a Japanese website!
Saturday morning brought lovely weather. I was itching with excitement to take pictures of all the things (+10 cool points if you get the reference. Check out hyperboleandahalf if you don't). And now for an embarrassing confession- the main reason I wanted to stay at the hotel was the breakfast.
And it was worth it.
We walked around the lake, enjoyed the stunning scenery, and took lots of pictures. We also stopped for a morning dessert at this fancy little restaurant.
There is a nice bike trail that loops around the lakes and you can rent bikes from several stores in the area- usually about ¥500 per hour or ¥1000 per day. You can also rent rowboats and paddleboats to enjoy the lake and try your hand at fishing- just like Link does in Zelda: Legend of the Twilight Princess!
We also saw, but did not sample, wine and squid ink flavoured ice cream. Excite!
The islands were beautiful, although I would recommend going a little earlier in the season. A lot of the trees had already lost all their leaves by the time we showed up.
We left at around 1:00 pm, heading for our next destination: Esan! But everything didn't turn out as planned. What happened? Tune in next time for the next episode of Adventure Time with Jess and Jeri!
(note from Jeri. I'm ending this with a great example of one of my favourite things about Japan: Engrish. :D)
I was right about you...you are an adventurer!
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