Typhoon: will my flight go?

This summer typhoon season has been unusually strong in Japan. I've been told that typhoons don't usually even reach Hokkaido, and this year there have been 3 or 4.

From Asahidake I returned to Sapporo for one night in a hotel before my flight home.

A typhoon hit Hokkaido the evening before my morning flight to Osaka and transfer to a flight to Vancouver. Upon returning to Sapporo, I checked the JAL flight status website, and saw that my flight was marked for possible delay or cancellation. The website was not very helpful in terms of providing more information about what to do. I was a little stressed. I went to the hotel reception and they called JAL for me. When they got through, they said the flight was OK for now, and I should go to the airport in the morning as planned.

The next morning it was still raining, but not that hard. When I got to the airport the departure information screen showed the flight departing as scheduled, and everything went OK. 

Asahidake

On Saturday, after the last day at the school, I took a train to the city of Asahikawa, and then an infrequent bus to the remote Asahidake Onsen, in Daisetsuzan Park in central Hokkaido. The park is very large with opportunities for multi-day hikes around several mountains. Asahidake Onsen consists of half a dozen hotels, each with its own hotspring bath, on the road leading to the tram at the base of Mt. Asahidake.

I stayed a few nights in a hotel here. On my first full day I took the tram, which is a 10 minute ride part way up the mountain to an altitude of 1600 m. This is just above the tree line giving great views of the mountain.

I was particularly fascinated by the vents of sulphuric steam coming out of the side of the mountain.

At the top of the tram there is a walking path that takes about 30 minutes, and has great views of the area and the valley below.

In addition, part way around the circuit there is a path that leads to the top of Mt Asahidake, the highest mountain in the park at about 2300m. Many people were taking the path, the weather was good, and its only a couple of hours to the top, so I decidedI to go.

Just over half way, I entered the clouds, and the wind became very strong blowing raindrops. The terrain became steep and scrambly as well. Overall not that bad though, and I was at the top pretty soon.

I was lucky to get up the tram when I did, since it was closed for the next couple of days due to high winds.

last day at school

The language school runs week to week, so every Friday there is a 'graduation' for those students who are leaving. Everyone gathers in the lounge and the graduating students get a certificate, and people take pictures.

Today about 20 people had their last day. Some had been here a few weeks, some as long as three months. Today was also the end of the schools 'Summer Course' which is six weeks long and includes a lot of cultural activities. Lots of good memories and good friendships were made, so it was a very emotional moment.

Here I am with a couple of friends: Krisna and Jason.

Jing-isu-kan

Another Sapporo specialty is Jing-isu-kan (from Genghis Kahn), which is a type of restaurant where you cook slices of lamb on a coal barbeque right in front of you. I found a great little place that I've been to a few times.

It is a small place and very popular so you have to way in line. You sit at the counter, and someone brings over a coal barbeque to put in front of you, and a plate of slices of lamb. They put onions on the barbeque, and you can order other vegetables as well. You put the lamb slices on the barbeque a couple at a time, turn them over once after a couple of minutes, dip in sauce and eat!

With the barbeque right in front of you, it gets quite hot, so you usually leave kind of sweaty, but it is worth it.

Historical Village of Hokkaido

Tuesday afternoon I took the subway to the end of the line, and then a bus to the last stop, to reach the Historical Village of Hokkaido. In this reconstruction of villages from the pioneering days of Hokkaido, actual buildings were moved from their original locations all over Hokkaido, and placed here. The village is organized into 4 parts: a town, a fishing village, a farming village, and  a mountain village.

The town had large government buildings, a newspaper building, traditional hotel and shops. Hokkaido was settled by the Japanese starting in the 1800's, at a time when Western culture was being introduced. So large important buildings such as government buildings are in a completely Western style.

Other smaller buildings like shops and residences are in the old traditional Japanese style, with tatami mats on the inside, for example.  In a way, the village feels very familiar to me, since it is similar to historical reconstructions of pioneering towns that you can find in Canada.

The farming village had an interesting silkworm farm. Overall, the fishing and farming village houses were even more traditional looking: 

The mountain village had extremely simple dwellings like a thatched hut. The larger buildings were dormatories for loggers:

Overall I thought the village was well done. You could spend a lot of time there if you looked at everything in detail.

Otaru

Sunday's there are no classes and no school activities, and so it is the day of the week that I do some travel on my own. Today I did a day trip to Otaru.

Otaru is a touristy city about 40 minutes by train from Sapporo, on the coast of the Japan Sea. Behind it are mountains on which you see the cut areas for skiing in winter.

 In the late 1800's it was an important port, and many of the buildings and a pictoresque canal from that time have been preserved.

There is a main shopping street with souvenirs, and crafts such as glasswork. There are artists drawing and selling their work along the canal, etc. An interesting thing that seems important here is the selling of music boxes. Maybe music boxes arrived when the city was a port in the 1800's, but there are huge stores selling music boxes of all shapes and sizes: Everything from the classic style to music boxes in the shape of sushi.

There is also an interesting museum with large music boxes from around one hundred years ago, and the metal plates that they played to create music:

After looking around the center part of town, I took a short tour by boat along the canal.

It was very hot and sunny in the morning, but by late afternoon heavy dark rain clouds were moving in, and I caught a train back to Sapporo.

odds and ends

This week was just a few small trips. The weather has changed.It cooled slightly to about 28 C, and it has become generally cloudy with a couple of days of very heavy rain.

On Thursday morning about 7 students met at the school at 5:45 am for a tour of the Central Wholesale Market. This is where the food comes in from the countryside to be bid on by brokers and then distributed to stores and restaurants. We got there early to be able to see the bidding take place, and we were given a guided tour of the huge facility.

That same day, in the afternoon, I joined some students on a tour of the Asahi Brewery. It covered the basic brewing process, and showed the machines for putting bear into kegs and cans at amazing speeds. And, best of all, there was free samples afterward.

Yesterday, I took a bit of time on my own and went to the Hokkaido Shrine, in Murayama Park. It is a new-looking building.

Generally, since Sapporo was built starting in the 1800's, it doesn't have the historical or spiritual feel of other cities like Kyoto. On the other had, the parks are large with a lot space and trees.

Today I went on a day trip with the school. It was supposed to be a trip to Josankei, a hotspring town about an hour from Sapporo, where we would do some hiking before going to the hotspring. However, the heavy rain has caused some landslides there lately so that trip was cancelled. Instead, we went to a large bath house in the city.