Driving in Japan, the Hokkaido countryside

In Japan they drive on the left side of the ride. This means you make wide right turns, and sharp left turns. Charles drove all over Hokkaido and never once had a problem. I am so proud of him for coping the way he did. Whenever he had to turn, I could hear him say 'Wide right' or 'Sharp left'. Also, we had an onboard navigation system that spoke to us in english, and between Hiromi reading the japanese maps, and the navigation control system, we got around beautifully. We could not have done it without the navigation system. From now on, if I need to rent a car in an unfamiliar city, I will insist on it.

This is a typical view in Hokkaido, except the camera can't really catch how beautiful it is. As you can see, we are on the left side of the road. Since the steering wheel is also switched. the driver is still close to the center and the passenger is on the left side. The only trouble Charles had was that the wiper blades and turn signal were also reversed, so sometimes when meant to signal he accidentally turned on the wipers.

All the public servants I saw were cleanly dressed and wore white gloves.

There were many tunnels in Hokkaido

Another beautiful view

This was a typical turn signal. It means go straight or turn left, but don't turn right. There is no right turn on red, or even left turn on red, if there is no arrow allowing you to do so.

Another public worker. I do like a man in uniform...

There was a lot of road contstruction that was marked with these blockades. We say green frogs, pink pigs, blue rabbits. The frogs had the word 'Sorry!' in english on them. Cute

Hokkaido countryside

We are on the way here to Furano, I think.

I have been looking for dogs in Japan, and haven't seen one stray. This is the traditional dog, and they are used as guard dogs. This one was not friendly to us, but he had a nice little dog house and seemed to be in good health. He lived with a family who had a home behind a convenience store outside of Furano. I suspect that at night he sleeps in the store.

One city we passed through had a tourist area dedicated to a goddess. She was very large and on top of a building. She reminded me of the giant Jesus in the ozarks. I wonder if she attracts wasps at sunset the way the Jesus does.

At this same site they had a new pagoda and a suspension bridge. Since we were just driving past, this was the best shot of the three that I could get.

More Hokkaido countryside. This is a river that was named 'Achiragawa'. We had a laugh because that translates to 'That's a river'. Such wonderfully literal people.

More countriside

We had to get gas. It is 158 yen per liter. That is about $8.00 per gallon. We were driving a Honda Stream, which was a delightful car and got good gas mileage. Still, it was close to $100 to fill up.

While Charles was pumping gas, I saw a cute schoolboy