Embedded Files
The beginning of June was time to settle a bit, and a blitz of planning and reservations for the last month and a half that we are here. (Wait, what?! How has it already been 10.5 months...) For the 15th, we rented a car to visit a number of the attractions that are close by.
Flowers
First up was a place where they grow a range of different flowers across various fields, as well as lavender when it is the season. We had just missed the spring flowers, and while the summer flowers were planted they weren't in full bloom yet so the fields looked a tad empty, but it was still a nice place to visit, and admission was free because it is the off season. There are paths between the fields, and there are even golf carts for rent which make touring all the fields a lot easier, although Jesse and I still chose to walk.
Some of our favourite flowers were the snapdragons which reminded us of tiny Christmas trees. It was also fun to read the names of the various flowers and compare the English names with the Japanese ones. Sometimes they were the same, sometimes they were completely different!
(Top right) the snapdragon field with it's bilingual label, (above from left to right) mascots made from hay bales, a colourful poppy field, a salvia field
Blue Lake
After the flowers, we were going to go to a café across the street for lunch, but unfortunately they were closed so we continued on to the Blue Lake and decided to keep an eye out for places along the way. The blue colour comes from the concentration of aluminum in the water from the surrounding geography. It certainly is visually striking, although it was incredibly busy.
Lunch
For lunch we went to a small cafe down the road from the Blue Lake. They clearly dealt with a lot of tourists, because there were signs on the way in saying things like "no English, we only speak Japanese" and the classic "cash only". While our Japanese is far from perfect, we are generally able to competently navigate restaurants, so we went ahead regardless. Inside there were a number of other folks at tables, but they were all Japanese, we were the only foreigners. Luckily, because a lot of the dishes were western-inspired (I had a quiche), the menu was almost entirely written in Katakana, which is one of the writing systems you can sound out, and the names were English in origin, so we were able to order just fine. They even had all the ingredients listed! When it was time to pay and leave the couple expressed surprise at our level of Japanese, which happens often at restaurants, but then it becomes obvious how bad our Japanese truly is as we struggle to respond and continue the conversation. The food was delicious though! It reminded me a bit of Bistro Le Chat Bleu in Baie Verte.
Dessert - Santa's Beard
For dessert, Jesse had found a place that serves something called "Santa's Beard" which features a local specialty - melon! Hokkaido is known for their melons, and Japanese fruit tends to be of higher quality (and higher price) than back home, so he wanted to give it a try. The dessert is either half a melon or a slice of melon with plain soft-serve ice cream on top. I am not a melon connoisseur, but Jesse is and he assures me that it was delicious. It was very juicy, sweet, and soft, and the ice cream and side of beans that came with it were also tasty. And in case anyone doubts how much Jesse loves melon, I think I had maybe 5 bites of fruit? He polished off the rest by himself. (And we were both happy with the arrangement!)
Furano Cheese Factory
To wrap up the day we visited a cheese factory nearby. Hokkaido has a lot of dairy farms, and has a reputation for consuming more dairy than the rest of Japan which seems to be fairly true in our limited experience. For example, the milk section alone at our local store here is the size of the entire dairy section at a similar sized grocery store in Tokyo or Sendai. In Canada, Jesse and I always had at least one block of cheese in the fridge for snacks or sandwiches so I have missed good cheese. (The number of times feta cheese has been replaced with cream cheese here is... disappointing.) But Hokkaido has more cheese, and I bought a block of onion cheese to take with us! The cheese was tasty, although as someone who loves onion, I found the flavour rather mild. I had it with crackers for breakfast on our camper van trip which was always a great breakfast in my humble opinion.
Craft Village - Ningle Terrace
And finally, as things were starting to close down for the day, we visited Ningle Terrace, which is a craft "village" next to a ski resort. There are a number of small log cabins, all connected by a wooden boardwalk, and each cabin is rented by an artisan who makes, displays, and sells their crafts from the cabin. There were some that focused on jewelry or cards, and there was even one gentleman who had a cabin full of wooden pinwheels and model airplanes. I both love and hate going to craft villages because all the things are so beautiful that I want to buy everything but at the same time, I responsibly mustn't buy everything so it's forever a conundrum.
Oh! And the name Ningle is adapted from the Ainu language, which is why it doesn't sound particularly Japanese. (The Ainu being the indigenous people of Hokkaido.) There are a lot of winter photos where everything is covered in snow and it looks quite pretty.
Finally, this was a first! Between the two of us we have rented vehicles from Toyota Rent a Car five times, and this is the first time we have had this sign added to the window. The English text on it says "Friendly Driving" but the Japanese translation is "A foreigner is driving". 😂
Google Sites
Report abuse