Travels, Pt. I

This update will be something of a dumping ground for various pictures I have floating around from October. Chronology and relativity will be a bit strained, but hey, it's an update.





This is Asahidake, the highest mountain in Hokkaido, and the surrounding area. We traveled here for a friend's birthday and spent the day hiking and going up most of the mountain. At Asahidake, one rides a ropeway most of the way to the treeline, and then kicks around up at the top. Asahidake is an active volcano, and is full of vents belching sulfur. I'm still waiting for a bunch of pictures from this trip, because certain people are very slow at updating them. No names. This was in early October.



This is what's known as a ryoukan, a Japanese-style inn. The Monbetsu Crew traveled to Furano, Land of Lavender, for an ALT conference and we stayed here overnight. Ryoukans are meant to be fairly old-fashioned, and more involved than a standard hotel stay. You get a single tatami (rice straw mat) room like this one, with fold-out futons for sleeping on. They are actually wonderfully comfortable. With the normal stay, you get dinner and breakfast at the inn, and have a good soak in the tub before bed. More like a traditional resort than a hotel, ryoukans are popular in secluded areas but can also be found in cities, like Furano.



Nothing terribly exciting. Waiting for the bus to go home from a small town on the outskirts of Asahikawa, after a long weekend.

Finally, a special preview of my upcoming Halloween update:



Buddhist pilgrim. The effect is better when I have my staff, but it will have to wait.

On The Road in Hokkaido

Sorry for the complete lack of updates in October! I've been quite busy, and I'm still waiting for some pictures from other peoples' cameras. Over the next week or so I'll try to get through a backlog of updates I meant to post, but didn't get a chance to. October was busy!

Today's update is actually from this week. At long last, I've got a car! I present the Daihatsu Opti, on a rare clear day:





I picked up this bad girl two days ago for a great price, and it's been quite fun tooling around in. The universal comment I get is "It's so cute!" Look at the size of those little wheels! In Japan, cars are classified as "Light" (yellow plate) and "Regular" (white plate) vehicles. The classification is mostly based on engine displacement, along with a few other restrictions. Light cars, like mine, have several fees lowered and bureaucratic hoops removed to encourage people to drive them. This is great! The downside is that they are clown cars. I can fit in just fine, and I can fit one other person of not-exceptional height, but anybody in the back seat is going to have to get comfortable with new methods of folding themselves. They can consider it a cultural experience.

I'll be taking her out for out first road trip this weekend, to go volunteer at a kids haunted house a few hours away. I will try to get pictures, as well as post later about the Halloween experiences I've already had in the last week or so.

As for the weather, it's been getting quite cold, in addition to a pretty dismal amount of rain. We had some snow a while back, but nothing that stuck; further inland, however, there's a good deal of snow on the ground. Winter is on it's way!