Top of Japan

45°31′22″N 141°56′11″E

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Cape Soya: The Northern Most Tip of Japan

We made it to the very tip of Japan this past weekend and the weather was phenomenal.  I have not seen such blue skies in my life - it was absolutely gorgeous.   I can say hands down that the Northern most part of Japan has been my favourite place that I have visited thus far on my various journey's around this amazing country.  I am sure the weather had something to do with it, but I am already excited about making another journey up North.

There is of course a McDonald's in Japan's most northern city of Wakkanai.  Here's us enjoying a little respite from our long journey up North with "Donaldo" as he is known in Japan.

This weekend we are staying closer to town.  Taiga's favourite superheroes, Ultraman, will be paying a visit to our neighbouring town and we were fortunate enough to have secured tickets to watch Ultraman do his thing on stage.  Taiga is one excited happy man and has been going crazy over Ultraman since arriving in Japan.  I will have to post Taiga's Ultraman collection one of these days, he hasn't done too bad for a guy who left all his toys back in Whitehorse.   Taiga's also already made the decision for Halloween he will be dressing up as Ultraman.  After this, Naoko signed us up to go apple picking and then making apple pies with a group of local people.

It is getting darn cool now; the temperature was only plus 3 outside.  We are still persevering and we have not yet turned on our heater, but I think we are going to have to give in soon - it was tough coming out of my warm futon this morning.  The meteorological forecasters are predicting a colder than average winter with lots of snow - yep, not quite the beach I was aiming for when I was thinking of returning to Japan!!

Fall Is fast approaching

We're fast approaching our two months mark in Japan already.  Amazing how fast the time has flown.  This past weekend we had the opportunity to visit Shakotan peninsula which is located on the southwestern coast of Hokkaido. 

There was a really beautiful Onsen (Hot Springs) at the tip called Misaki no Yu; the view was amazing and at the time of going in the water we hit the timing just right to see the sunset fall on the Japan sea.  Once snow falls and the blistering cold winds come with winter, the onsens are definitely going to be our favourite retreat.

One thing I am surprised at being in Hokkaido is how fast the temperature has changed over the last two weeks and it truly is feeling like fall has come in - mornings have been in the mid-teens while the rest of Japan continues to be quite hot.  I know everyone in Japan told me that Hokkaido would be cooler, but given that I am from Whitehorse, I didn't put much stock in what the Japanese think of as "cooler".  I was told that first snowfall will probably be at the end of October, so very similar to back home.

This weekend is a long weekend with Monday being a national holiday for Autumn Equinox; we are planning to go to the town of Wakkanai, which is the most northern area of Japan - right at the very tip of Hokkaido.  We figured it's better to check it out before the snow falls and the roads become skating rinks.  We have our tent in tow and plan to camp - everyone tells us camping season is over, but that's fine with us as that means no fighting for a campsites.

The farmers are out in full force harvesting; now that all the golden rice fields are gone, I must admit once snow falls the fields will look beautiful again!

Of note, a severe typhoon hit Japan yesterday, however, we were fortunate here in Hokkaido having no damages or severe rain.  However, in areas of Kyoto it looks as if they were not so lucky.  For most of Japan is has been a  difficult summer it started off with extreme heat waves, then heavy rain, tornados, and now we are into typhoon season; here's hoping that Fall will mean an end to the crazy weather that the majority of Japan has been facing and that we here in Kamisunagawa continue to be lucky with the weather we get.

Settling in well into our new home in Kamisunagawa

So we finally have internet up and running and are connected to the outside world on an ongoing basis at home.  Will try and blog regularly to keep everyone afloat as to where we're visiting and all the fun stuff we're doing.  So far we've done well in settling into our new home; the community has been kind to us and Taiga seems to be doing well at the local play school - Taiga will enter Grade 1 in April 2014.

So far we've done some travels; been to Sapporo for a weekend, visited the biggest mountain (an active volcano - Taisetsuzan), and done a bit of camping.  This weekend I'm entering into a 10km local race; I was doing well in my running up until about three weeks ago and have tapered off a bit... shall see if I finish it or not in one piece.