Japanese
Trip 2nd day
September 22nd
Otaru - Shakotan peninsula - Sapporo (Red line)



We started the day by waking up 3:30AM in the ferry. We arrived at Otaru on 4:30AM. It was still dark, but pleasant day.

We wanted to visit a church in Otaru this afternoon and arrive at Hiromi's sister, Yoko's house near Sapporo after 3PM.


Otaru at the early morning
We decided we had time to drive around Shakotan peninsula, one of the most beautiful coast lines in Japan.

Just before Yoichi city, we saw this fantastic scene. Mist was coming from ocean.
We went through Yoichi town and kept driving.
Near Yoichi in the morning We stopped at Kamui Cape and saw the same parking lot fox we saw 2 years ago. We had old raisin bread. The fox liked it. John said "This is a low class street fox not like the wealthy fox lived on the top of the mountain."
Two years ago, we did not have time to walk to the end of the cape. But this time, we did. Wow! What a big thing we missed and we did not know at that time.
Low class parking lot fox
We parked our car at the parking lot where the fox lives. We saw many sightseers later on, but it was still pretty early, and there were only a few cars there. At first we climbed up to the observation of the cape. This is a view to the west side. You can see our little white car at the right side of the parking lot.
Beautiful Bay
This is another view from the observation. The end of the cape was much farther away than it looks. John looks happy, doesn't he? John was wearing his new TABASCO jacket. Pretty "HOT" stuff, isn't it?
"The old man and the sea"
Here I'm wearing my TABASCO jacket. Can you see how rough and narrow the walk is? At first it reminded me "The Great Wall" in China. Because of erosion from the both sides, there is a very narrow place. Scary! Sooner or later the end half of this cape will be an island, like the other islands in the picture below .
Kamui Cape with the light house
Anyway, please remember this cape and these islands. We will see them again in this trip.
Can you see the Rock tower? It looks small, but it is actually 40m (133feet) high.
Islands the end of Kamui Cape
We saw two foxes near the light house of this cape. This is a bigger one, and the other fox was a little deeper in the grass sleeping in the nest. John wanted to take good picture of the fox and tried to make it to face the camera. Well, this is the best he could do. The fox was not cooperative. John thought this fox was very snooty.
Wealthy high class cape fox
This is the cape looking back from the end. The cape name
"Kamui" must be an AINU word. AINU is native Hokkaido people like Indians in U.S. They are totally different race from Japanese. I don't know what Kamui means in Ainu language, but Japanese uses Chinese letters for almost any names, and this case Kamui means "God's dignity."
Ridge Runner
We returned the same way we came, and went down to the parking lot where we saw this octopus merry-go-round. We took similar picture in 2 years ago. They are making octopus jerky.
Octopus amusement park?
We kept driving the peninsula and took pictures of especially interesting rock formations. The place we took this picture just opened the road in a few years ago. Before then, we could not drive around this peninsula.

And then we had lunch at a Sushi restaurant.
All the Sushi restaurants were expensive, but now we have inexpensive style Sushi restaurant like this one. We call this style "Kaiten Sushi" which means "merry-go-round sushi." Sushi plates are placed on the conveyer belt and continually passing by you while you are eating. If you see anything you like, you can take it. you are charged by the number of plates.
Hokkaido is famous for seafood. We tried totally three sushi restaurants during this trip, and they were all great.

This is a sign for Japanese dollar store. 100yen is usually a little cheaper than a dollar. There are a few big 100yen franchise companies, and this is one of them.
We ate lunch here
Like a dollar store - 100yen store
We went back to Otaru to visit Pastor Yoshida at Otaru Holiness Church. This pastor's parents go to our church in Fujisawa, so we wanted to visit their son. Pastor Yoshida has been a pastor for 18 years in Hokkaido. Inside the church, they were preparing for a church sale the next day, so of course we bought some little things. This church building is pretty new and very cute. The ladies working at the church were very nice.

Then we drove to my sister, Yoko's house near Sapporo. Yoko is always funny and happy, but she must be tired from her job when we took this picture. She fixed nice dinner for us and we slept like babies.
Otaru Holiness Church
Yoko's house near Sapporo
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