The
one that looks like an upside down jelly fish. That’s right, an onsen!
Finally, I can take a bath and get really clean. The place is called Misogi no
Sato Kikonai Cho みそぎの里 Asahikawa American English Conversation School
Travel Log
Road Trip along the entire coastline of Southern Hokkaido
2005 April 29 to May 3
旅行日誌
道南海岸一周廻り
Today is the start of Golden Week. One of those very rare, long holidays in this workaholic society. That is if you consider one week to be a long holiday. Anyway, being a workaholic myself, I decided to take advantage of the 7 day vacation and make good use of it by going on a ROAD TRIP!!! Yes, that’s right. The wind in my face, good tunes on the stereo, a preplanned route with no hotel reservations. What?!? Are you insane??? You will never find a hotel room with no reservations! You’re right. I won’t. But then again, I don’t need any. I can park at any one of the many Road Side Rest Stations called Michi no Eki (道の駅) in Japanese. You can’t take a bath at most of them, but they all have toilets and running water. And best of all, it’s free! By the way, I am typing this travel log into my old laptop PC, as I am sitting here in the parking lot of the Muroran 室蘭 Michi no Eki. I have an AC inverter that I can plug into the cigarette lighter outlet of my van and as long as the engine is running at idle, I can use my PC all I want to without any worries of the battery dying. Things couldn’t be better. By the way, at this particular roadside rest stop, there are two huge windmills for generating electricity. They look a bit scary and they make this soft “woosh, woosh, woosh” type of sound. I think it’s kindda cool. Also, the sky is mostly clear tonight and the stars and planets are clearly visible. Very beautiful. Back to the beginning of the day. I couldn’t leave Asahikawa until about 11:40 this morning because I had to reinstall various software onto this old notebook PC. Finally on the road, I took highway 12 through Takikawa 滝川, Sunagawa 砂川, Mikasa 三笠 and Iwamizawa 岩見沢. Then I changed to Highway 234 and went through Kuriyama 栗山, Yuni 由仁, Oiwake 追分, Hayakita 早来, and then on to Tomakomai 苫小牧. I started taking photos of the Pacific Ocean at Tomakomai. Then, I got onto Route 36 and drove through Shiraoi 白老, Noboribetsu 登別, and finally to Muroran 室蘭. I arrived in Muroran at about 16:30 so there was still plenty of daylight remaining to snap some good photos. First, I drove up to Sokuryo Mountain 測量山 and got some very nice photos of Muroran Harbor as well as the Pacific Ocean and the other mountains in the distance. I also went to Cape Chikyu 地球岬 and took some more nice photos of the lighthouse looking out towards the Pacific Ocean as well as some snaps of the city below. As I was doing this, the sun was sinking low and I had to find some food and a place to stay for the night. I was able to do both and here I am at the Muroran Roadside Rest Station. This road trip continues tomorrow. I need some sleep tonight. Total driving distance today, 275km. See the photos for day 1
I woke up at about 04:30 to a bright, clear and soon to be sunny day. After making some hot tea, I was back on the road again at about 05:15. Today’s objective is to drive from Muroran 室蘭 down the remainder of the Pacific Ocean coast road to Hakodate 函館. I certainly have plenty of time to do it. First, I drove across the Big White Bird Suspension Bridge 白鳥大橋 and almost got blown off the road. The wind was that strong. On the other side of the bridge from an observation point I was able to take some nice photos of the city of Muroran, the mountains in the background and also a huge cruise liner called The Sapphire Princess. It was flying both a British and a Japanese flag. I wonder where their next port of call is? After that, it was into the town of Date 伊達. They have an interesting park there called The Date History Forest だて歴史の杜. Lots of nice green grass and some buildings that were not yet open. Also, the cherry trees were no where near being in bloom. A lot of people were camped out there in their cars because this location is also the roadside rest station for Date 道の駅だて. After that, I continued my drive and then stopped at Cape Arutori アルトリ岬. Then it was on through Shizukari Pass 静狩峠 and down into Abuta 虻田. There is a nice sandy beach in this area. The sand is a light brown color unlike on the Sea of Japan side where it is mostly black. I enjoyed walking along the beach in the warm sunlight but the wind was rather cold. Continuing on, I passed through Toyoura 豊浦, Oshamanbe 長万部 and Kunnui 国縫. Then it was onto Yakumo 八雲. I spent some time at the fishing port there taking photos of the mountains in the background. Next destination, Mori 森. About 10km before you get to Mori, there is a roadside parking area that has an excellent view of the ocean as well as Mt. Komagadake 駒ヶ岳. After Mori it was into the town of Sawara 砂原. I stopped at the only grocery store in town to buy some food for lunch. Rice balls and deep fried shrimp. Yummy. I parked in a field near the elementary school and ate my lunch. Then, it was on to Shikabe 鹿部 and Minami Kayabe 南茅部. After I passed through the last tunnel before Todohokke 椴法華 I saw 4 young guys out in the ocean surfing. The waves weren’t very big, but they were able to get some rides. When I was 20 years old, I used to go surfing almost every day at Iwo Jima 硫黄島. I really enjoyed surfing. If I tried it now, I would probably die. Anyway, I took some photos and drove on to Cape Esan 恵山岬. On the map it says that there is an outdoor hot spring 露天風呂 at 水無海浜. So, I was really looking forward to taking a hot bath by the sea. But when I got there, I discovered that there was only about 30 cm of hot water in the tubs! Only enough to wash my feet. Bummer. After that I went on to Esan 恵山 and I even climbed around on the mountain 毛無山. This mountain has some very strange and beautiful rock formations as well as a beautiful view of the ocean and the other mountains in the background. A very enchanting place. After that it was through the town of Toi 戸井 and Yunokawa 湯の川 in Hakodate 函館. And old guidebook that I have says that there is a public bath in Yunokawa at Hinode 日之出. I spent about 30 minutes looking for it but I couldn’t find it. Oh no! I can’t take a bath tonight! Yuck! Anyway, I drove into Hakodate and spent some time looking around the city trying to find The Roadside Rest Station 道の駅. But I couldn’t find it anywhere. Finally, I pulled over to the side of the road to look at the 3 different maps that I have. Guess what? Hakodate doesn’t have a Roadside Rest Station! What??? The 3rd largest city in Hokkaido and they don’t have one? Where am I going to park and sleep tonight? Finally, at about 19:00 I found an open parking spot at a very nice place. In fact, it is the first place that anyone except the Ainu set foot upon Hokkaido 北海道第一歩の地 at Higashi Hama. Wow! What an excellent camp sight. It is very close the Red Brick Warehouse District 赤レンガ倉庫, and it has a great view of the harbor and Mt. Hakodate. And the best thing is, there is a toilet and wash basin here too! I hereby name thee, Michi no Eki Hakodate!!!! Yes! Another lucky break. Now, finally, at this late hour I can go have dinner at the Hakodate Micro Brewery はこだてビール. And so I did. It was very crowded and I had to wait in line for about 40 minutes. At last, I got a seat at the counter and ate and drank a lot. So much in fact that I was very sleepy by the time I got back to my van at about 22:00. So, I fell asleep. The end of another excellent day. Total driving distance today, 348km. See the photos for day 2
I woke up very early at
about 4:00 just as it was beginning to get light. Lucky for me, there was a
toilet only a few meters away. I sat in my van by the harbor and typed up the
travel log for yesterday’s events. At about 6:00, it was back on the road
again. Today’s plan is to go to Matsumae
松前 and see
the one and only castle in Hokkaido. Along the way, at about 39 kilometers from
Hakodate, I saw a sign of the kind that I had spent almost one hour looking for
yesterday. You guessed it, it is this one The
one that looks like an upside down jelly fish. That’s right, an onsen!
Finally, I can take a bath and get really clean. The place is called Misogi no
Sato Kikonai Cho みそぎの里
I even saw several tour buses pulling into the town with a load of passengers. What a disappointment! Everything is ready to go and no flowers. I tried to find a free place to park because I wanted to take some photos of the castle, but I couldn’t find any so I ended up stopping along the highway and taking a photo of the castle from there. Not much fun. After that, it was on to Esashi 江差. When I got there, I discovered that there was a festival going on at the Inishie Kaido いにしえ街道. Inshie is another word for “old” and indeed all of the buildings along this street have been remodeled to look like buildings of the Meiji Period in Japan. This street is not a fake town, all of the buildings along this road are real homes and/or businesses. I took almost 100 photos of this area and will make a separate photo gallery for them. I was even filmed by a TV station crew while I was taking photos. It is a truly marvelous area and the festival was wonderful. I even found free parking at one end of the Inishie Kaido! I think I like Esahi much better than Matsumae. After that nice experience, it was back on the road heading towards Setana 瀬棚 and Shimamaki 島牧. There are a lot of very long tunnels along this stretch of highway 229. So many in fact that I was beginning to get very sleepy. Lucky for me there was a roadside rest station 道の駅 at Shimamaki so I pulled in to take a rest and eat some food at about 17:00. As I was resting and eating, the wind became stronger and stronger and dark clouds gathered all around. It looked a lot like a big rain storm was on the way so I decided to spend the night. As it turned out, I made a good choice. During the rest of the evening and well into the night, there was a lot of wind and rain. The wind was so strong that it was rocking my van back and forth like a rocking chair. A few times I wondered what I would do if my van got blown over. Fortunately, it was not a typhoon. Total driving distance today, 306km. See the photos for day 3
I woke up and about 2:30
because I had to go to the toilet. After that I sat up for a while reading a
book and then I made about 2 liters of hot tea and some curry soup using my
small gas stove. I drank some hot tea and ate the curry soup with bread while
looking at all of the beautiful stars in the sky. The wind had died down
considerably and there were very few clouds left in the sky. A big improvement
from the day before. It was still too early to continue my road trip so I went
back to sleep until 8:00. When I got up again, I drank some more of the tea
and got my van ready for the day’s drive. First stop, the Idemitsu
出光 gasoline
station across the street for a full tank of gas and then back on the road
again. The first stop after that was Cape Benkei
弁慶岬. Again
today, it is mostly clear and sunny with a temperature of about 9 degrees C and
strong winds. Then, back on the road to enjoy a beautiful drive along the Sea
of Japan coastline. Today’s destination is Otaru
小樽. It’s not
that far from here and I can take my time and stop along the way and take a ton
of photos. Passing through Suttsu
寿都, Rankoshi
蘭越,
Iwanai 岩内
and Tomari 泊
I stopped at Moiwa So Umi no Onsenもいわ荘 海の温泉
I woke up at about 5:00 and went inside MaxValu to use the toilet. Then, it was over to the Morning Seafood Market 朝市 to have breakfast. I had the salmon sushi and salmon roe rice bowl 鮭いくら丼 and some grilled fish ギンダラ with miso soup. It was very good. After that, I took some pictures of the market and got back into my van to continue the road trip. Today’s destination, Asahikawa 旭川. I took the coastal Highway 231 and made a stop in Ishikari 石狩 and parked at the beach. The sun was shinning and the wind was not very strong. I opened the doors of my van and sat in my folding beach chair as I made 2 liters of hot tea. After about 40 minutes of sunbathing, I decided to go and take a bath at Banya no Yu 番屋の湯which is right next door. I have heard of this place many times before, but I had never been there. Today was my big chance. I drove my van to the parking lot, grabbed my bathing kit and went in thru the front door. The cost is 600 yen and the bathing area is large and very nice. They have two different tubs of different temperatures, a sauna and even an outdoor bath with a nice view of the beach. It was a very nice bathing experience. I was refreshed and relaxed. Next, it was back on the road, but first I needed to fill up my gas tank. I found an Idemitsu gas station very close by and discovered that it was a self service type station. When I lived in America, I used self service gas stations all the time because the prices are cheaper. But in Hokkaido, the prices at the full service and self service seem to be about the same, so I never use them here. I have an Idemitsu MyDo Card which is a debit card so I wanted to use it. I asked the old guy who was the station attendant if I could use my card and he said “I don’t know. Let’s try it and see.” As it turned out, I could use it and I did. After getting a full tank of gas, it was back on the road towards Asahikawa. I have traveled this road several times before so I didn’t take any pictures. I stopped at Cape Ofuyu 雄冬岬 and enjoyed resting in front of the Shiragane Waterfall 白銀滝 There was a lot of water falling from the cliff above and it was very refreshing. I continued my drive towards Rumoi 留萌 where I stopped at the MaxValu and bought 6 rice balls おにぎり. I ate them as I continued my drive towards Asahikawa. I finally arrived in Asahikawa at about 15:00. I didn’t realize how tired I was until I sat down in my classroom to check my email. I soon became very sleepy and went to sleep from 16:00 until about 21:30. Then I got up and went to the Seikyo Supermarket to check out the 50% off items. After that, my wife and I sat down and drank some wine while I showed her the photos that I had taken during my 4 day road trip. All in all, it was a very good experience and I was lucky to get such nice weather every day except for that one night in Shimamaki 島牧 when it was windy and rainy. I traveled the entire coastline of southern Hokkaido just as I had planned to do. I drove a total of 1,387 kilometers and took about 340 photos with my digital camera. I will put the best photos on my website so you can see them too. During the Golden Week of previous years, I usually didn’t go anywhere. The reason being that I had a Toyota Corolla and you can’t sleep comfortably in a car like that. If you go somewhere, you have to stay in a hotel and during GW a hotel room can be very difficult, if not impossible to find. You need to make reservations many months in advance. Now, with my Toyota Noah YY, I can comfortably sleep in the van and I don’t have to worry about where I stop each night. I think I’ll take another road trip like this again next year during golden week. Destination, not yet decided. See the photos for day 5
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