Souun Kyou

We drove to SounKyo. They have a famous waterfall. SounKyo is alot like Aspen, except that the altitude is lower, so there was no problem with dry air.

I didn't take this picture, it came from searching google images. It was more cloudy the day we were there. I took the pictures below.

The kimono in the lobby of our hotel

Our room right before we got ready to check out.

This was a public place where you could soak your feet. The water was quite hot, from a natural spring.

Now we are on the way to Shiretoko

apparently bears like green tea ice cream

The occasional shrine entrance.

a farm on the way to shiretoko

touristy rest stop.

Furano Day two

Before we left Furano we stopped at a working lavender farm and then went to a scenic lookout.

Here is a man working, I don't know what this plant is and I didn't ask.

Beautiful tree at the farm

The yellow flower is rapeseed, which produces canola oil

More workers

Then we drove to the scenic lookout

Pretty farm fields

Hiromi loved the countryside

Furano

Here is the view from our hotel room in Furano. Again, the camera can't do it justice. Furano is famous for snow skiing and for the lavender farms. Unfortunately, we are a couple of weeks too early for the lavender, but it is still a tremendously beautiful place. Aspen trees are very common here.

This is our room. Small but very nice.

See the mountains behind the mountains? We are driving over them tomorrow and the next day.

We drove to a famous lookout point late in the afternoon.

Charles sat at the park and made friends with a dog, while Hiromi and I went up to a higher lookout area.

At the higher area there were lavender fields just beginning to bloom

This is a small part of the view from the lookout point

More view

On the way back we drove past a beautiful garden that was actually the entrance to someone's home. Over and over I have seen homes with amazing gardens. I finally got a picture of one.

We stopped at a McDonald's on the way back

The double cheeseburger tasted exactly like the one in the US

We got to practice our Japanese with some sixteen year old school girls. They know lady Gaga but not Justin Beiber.

Back at the hotel there was a craft village that was very cute but definately for tourists.

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