Japan - Daisetsuzan National Park

A couple of days after my brother's wedding, my parents, brother, new sister-in-law and I hired a car and travelled to Daisetsuzan National Park, which is sort of in the centre of Hokkaido and a bit to the north. On the way there, we stopped at Biei to see some flowers and pretty landscapes.

Biei flowers

Famous tree in Biei
(it featured in a commercial)

We stayed the first night at Asahi Onsen. It was my first onsen experience. For those uninitiated in the ways of onsen, onsens are hot tubs/pools full of hot spring water of often varying temperatures. Men and women are separated into different rooms, you strip naked, shower yourself clean and then relax in the baths with a bunch of other naked (in my case) women. It was a bit awkward at first (nothing says "welcome to the family" like stripping naked and bathing with your new sister-in-law) but then I just sort of forget that I was naked. It was just like lounging in a hot tub.

The next day my brother, sister-in-law and I climbed up Asahi-dake (Hokkaido's tallest mountain, also a volcano with active steam/gas vents). As a disclaimer, we took the ropeway half way up and then walked the rest of the way ourselves. It was steep and tiring but beautiful. We then walked our way through some mountains, around a crater and down to another ropeway that took us to Sounkyo, where my parents were waiting to drive us to our hotel. It was a great walk with beautiful weather and scenery. There was a bit of a panic to make it down in time to catch the last ropeway of the day to Sounkyo but it all worked out in the end. There was another onsen in the hotel we stayed at in Sounkyo but I was too tired to go - I just took a shower and went to bed.



Asahi-dake from top of ropeway

Neighbouring mountains

View down from top of Asahi-dake

Trail scenery



Crater scenery



More crater scenery

On our last day, we explored the Sounkyo Canyon for a while before heading back to Sapporo. It's a very dramatic canyon with tall waterfalls and steep rock faces. I also discovered a new hobby of photographing butterflies and flowers!

Waterfall

River



Pretty river walls

Butterfly

Butterfly

Flower



Butterfly and flower!

Japan - Noboribetsu

The day before my brother got married, my parents and I, along with my aunt and uncle, hired a car and went to Noboribetsu for the day. It's a small town about 2 hrs from Sapporo with a lot of volcanic-type activity. There's a geyser in the middle of town (that goes off every 3 hours for 50 minutes at a time and around/over which they built an intersection) and valley on the outskirts called "Hell's Valley".

Hell's Valley

More of Hell's Valley

We checked out Hell's Valley and then walked around some trails a bit to a geothermal lake that fed a stream where there was a natural foot onsen (an onsen is basically geothermal hot springs in which you bathe... kind of like a hot tub but there's a whole ritual for bathing in them. A foot onsen is one in which you only put your feet).




Geothermal lake

     

Foot onsen (basically you just
wade in the warm river)

You can see the river steaming



 

 

A good time was had by all, I think, especially at the foot onsen.



Noboribetsu troll/ogre/mascot/thing

Japan - Sapporo

I started my big trip in Sapporo, mainly because my brother was getting married there. It was a nice almost two weeks because my family was there and we managed to do a lot of stuff in a short period of time.

Sapporo

We went to see a Sapporo Fighters baseball game, watched a sumo wrestling tournament (which was really interesting!), went up the Mt. Moiwa rope way to see views of the city, went to the Hokkaido shrine and some other things that I have forgotten now. We also ventured out of the city to Noboribetsu and Daisetsuzan National Park (both of which will have separate blog entries soon).

Sapporo Fighters baseball game

 

Unsuspecting woman holding
crab at the Fish Market





Top level sumo wrestlers introductions

Sumo Wrestling

All of that AND we saw my brother getting married in a traditional Japanese ceremony. It was a beautiful small wedding and the bride looked amazing in both the ceremony and reception kimonos (the groom looked ok as well, I suppose :) ). Her family was incredibly welcoming and inclusive of my family at the reception despite the fact that we couldn't really communicate (my very limited  knowledge of Japanese isn't all that conducive to conversation... unless you can make a sentence out of "sushi", "karaoke", "yakatori", "konichiwa" and "sake" without any sort of connecting words). My congrats to the bride and groom!

Leaving on a Jet Plane

After a month's rest in Canada, tomorrow I leave for Japan, where I will start my travels. I'd say I'm about 25% excited and 75% freaking out about it (which is probably about par for the course... that's how I felt before going to Scotland too).

I'll be spending roughly three weeks in Japan (including attending my brother's wedding), 10 days in Cambodia, 25 days in Vietnam, 10 days in Laos and two weeks at an elephant sanctuary in Thailand. After that, I'm not sure what I'll be doing. I'll figure it out as I go. Japan I'm doing with family and then by myself and then I'm joining tours for most of the rest of what I have planned so far.

The last month has been good. I got to spend time and catch up with friends and family that I hadn't seen in a while and I had a chance to rest and be lazy before getting sorted for my trip. Before I got home, I had had vague ideas about being a hometown tourist and visiting all the local tourist sites, but that didn't happen (laziness). I did manage to make it to Toronto Island though. We used to go there quite a bit when I was little and, although I have been back a couple times in the last 10 years, this was my first time going without one or both of my parents - I was visiting the island unsupervised! It was a beautiful day and I had a nice time wandering around, wading in the lake and easing my way back into being a tourist.



Log ride at Centreville (I was terrified
of this ride when I was little. Somehow
 it looked a lot bigger back then)

Toronto Island











Toronto - from the ferry



Isle of Skye

I ended up with 3 full days on the Isle of Skye and really enjoyed it. It was the first trip I've taken in a long time where I felt like I kept running out of time. There was more stuff I wanted to see and do each day but it always seemed to be 2 or 3 hours later than I thought it should be. I never felt rushed though and I'm fine with what I didn't get to see and do.



Skye Bridge from Kyleakin (where I stayed)

Kyleakin Harbour











The first day I went to the north part of the island (Portree/Staffin/Uig area). There were a couple walks that I had ear marked but I narrowed it down to one (the Quiraing walk) on account of still feeling a bit sick and spending time stopping at lookouts along the way. The walk was great (except for the cliff-top scared-of-heights parts) and the weather was fantastic.



The Old Man of Storr

Coastline



Kilt Rock



Quaraing (I'm so disappointed with this
picture. It doesn't show the fact that I'm
 standing on the top of a cliff, freaking out
so much that I had to give myself a
talking to before I was able to move
 away. All that effort and it's not
even a great picture)



Quiraing
(not on a cliff so not freaking out)




























The second day I went to the northwest part of the island (Dunvegan area). I went for a couple of walks, one that got cut short due to horizontal pouring rain and one out to a tidal island (where you can access it across a causeway at low tide). I learned that the right combination of pouring rain and wind causes my waterproof trousers to leak along the crotch seam, which lead to some suspicious looking wet patches on the walking trousers I was wearing underneath. I also got (or noticed) my first ever midge bite. It swelled up impressively (as I thought it might because my first few blackfly bites did the same thing).

Coastline near Ullinish

More coastline near Ullinish



My impressive midge bite near my elbow
(I had marked the limits with pen to see if
it would get bigger overnight... it did).

The third day I went to the Cuillin Hills, which were actually a bit of a disappointment. I'm sure had it been a clear day, I would have been very impressed but as it was, the hills were hidden by low clouds. I went for a walk and got soaked with rain (again) and decided to call it a day. It would have been nice to do some more walking but it was also nice to go back to my B&B, change into dry clothes and relax.

On the way up to Coire Lagan

On the way up to Coire Lagan

I think I was a bit surprised by the (lack of) extent of the Cuillin Hills. I'd heard a lot about them (most spectacular peaks in Scotland, etc.), and they were spectacular, but I was expecting more of them. I think it's a result of coming from a big country - everything in Scotland is so localized and distinct. Different parts of Canada are distinct but they're also large and spread out.

View of the Black Cuillins from Portree

On the way to Isle of Skye

I rented a car for 6 days for my short road trip to Isle of Skye and gave myself two days to get there (spending a night in Fort William, which is a little over half way there from Edinburgh). It doesn't take that long to get to Skye (it's only a 5 hour drive) but this way I didn't have to leave early in the morning and I could give myself time to stop and explore along the way.

The road I took goes through Glen Coe, which I'd briefly seen when I did part of the West Highland Way so I gave myself some time to stop and do a bit of walking on my way through. It was a beautiful day and I walked around for a couple hours and confirmed that, yeah, Glen Coe is a bit ridiculous! See for yourself:

Glen Coe (it's kind of hard to get a sense of scale... there's a
road cutting across about half way up the left side of the photo)

Glen Coe

Glen Coe

I woke up with a cold and a bit of a fever in Fort William (which made my tiredness and shaky legs in Glen Coe the day before make sense) so I altered my plans a bit for the rest of the journey to Skye. I had planned to stop and do a 3-4 hours walk on the way but figured it wouldn't be such a great idea so I did a bunch of little stops on the way instead. I'm glad it turned out that way because there were SO many places to stop and see beautiful scenery that I'm glad I didn't have to rush it in order to get the walk done. For the record, Glen Shiel is just as ridiculous as Glen Coe.

Loch Lochy (not even joking... that's what it's called)

Glen Shiel

Glen Shiel

Eilean Donan Castle

I also inadvertently ended up at a lookout area that my dad and I stopped at when my parents were over at Christmas. I thought it looked familiar so I looked at a map and realized it was the same one we had visited on a day exploring out of Inverness. It helped connect the dots of Scotland in my head.

Lookout at end of June

Lookout at end of December