Hokkaido Day 5

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Ruu left us at Asahikawa to go visit her friend in Sapporo so we decided to go hiking in Daisetzu National Park. I read there were many waterfalls and I LOVE waterfalls.

Can you find the waterfall?

We didn't think there would be soooo much snow.

Baby Ruu

The leaves had yet to bloom but it was still beautiful. I would love to go back in a different season.

Even though there was a bit of snow we decided to ride the ropeway to half way up the mountain and see if we could hike to the top. What we encountered at the top was a bit of a surprise.

The weather was beautiful so we braved the snow a little bit because we were determined to get some hiking in . Apparently the hiking trail became a ski slope in the winter and some die-hard skiers had decided to hike up and ski down. They passed us as we were climbing.

It really was hot!

We made it half way up and due to the sogginess of our shoes and the steepness of the rest we chose to end our hiking adventure. We did see a group of snowboarders who had hiked up and were practicing on a jump they made. They were having a BBQ of lamb or as the Japanese call it Genghis Khan?!

Engrish

We didn't really have any plans since we had intended on hiking for most of the day so we looked through the guide book found a national park on the most North-Eastern side and said let's go!

We went from mountains and snow to rolling lush farm lands.

Naomi saw this sign and said " Hey, isn't Sean from Sarona"! Sean is a former Niigata ALT who moved to Hokkaido and we just happened to stumble upon his town. Unfortunately he was in the US at the time.

We made it to Shiretoko peninsula just in time for sunset!

Met some random Tokyoites and shocked them with all the driving we'd been doing.

The campground we searched out was actually closed but there was no one to stop us putting up our tent. Naomi was kept awake thinking she heard aliens but it was only a bird!