Last Few Days of Hokkaido

 You know, around this time 12 years ago I was finishing up my cross country trip of America. This time I will be riding well into the fall and even a bit o' winter. Quite the contrast. 

But let's begin, shall we?

Took us forever to find a ramen shop that was open before lunch in Sapporo but we did it. "Shame we didn't take some time to look around up there." Meaning, had we went just another store down we could have had the notorious curry ramen. 

It was at this precise location I saw a DeLorean drive by. 

Look at this weirdly shaped tunnel. Who did this? 😂

You sure don't get these great sunsets in Utah. 

Mt Yotei is to the right.

Very cold morning to ride. We froze on our way down this mountain. 

I didn't know potatoes grew like this. Did you?

I think this is Mt. Yotei. Or the other volcano.

This lake was formed from a volcano after parts of the caldera collapsed.

There's a neat shrine that goes out to the lake.

Here's the shrine up close. You have to just look at it.

Very peaceful out here. We decided to stop for lunch.

The Quay is excited to eat lunch.

If this was an apple tree you could eat it.

Here's a personal favorite of mine.

Nice view as we ate lunch.

One of the 道の駅 we stayed at. This one let us stay indoors, which is great because it's getting pretty cold during the nights. 

We took the day off to ride the train to some hot springs. This train was full of High School students making their daily journey to school. Soon, they had to stand because every seat was taken. Well, except the ones in front of Holly and I. For some reason they didn't want to sit on those seats and they chose to stand.

No Honor.

Just some of the demons I battle daily.

The classic.

Rivers of boiling liquid run through Beep's Valley. Just like the real Beep.

It's like a mini Yellowstone, but without Old Faithful.

I like how you can see the rock formation from the trees as it overlooks the geothermal activity.

It's all neat.

Sometimes in life, if you don't just look at something you won't see it. "Would you just look at it?!"

This fun lake had hot water in it.

Another boiling river.

We're looking for the foot bath to rest our weary and worn-travelled feet.

Found it! There are a lot of foot baths in Japan. They're nice.

I'm just looking at it. 

Thinking if I should jump in, what will I come out as.

I'm holding onto his Booger Finger.

Like my friend, Jerry's late father, he would sit on his throne as the King of Kings shown here.

This little touristy town was great for exploring. My coworker, Brandon, would love it here. Explore!

Haha these signs were so funny.

Roar! Don't get between me and my bear.

Have you ever drank salmon before? If not then you didn't have a childhood. These bears have it made.

Just a little bit longer in the foot bath, I promise.

Some construction in the Tunnel gave me ample time to do the infamous Owl Face.

Decrepit tunnel.

Here's another 道の駅 we stayed at. Not inside, though. But we saved some of our stove fuel by using their microwave to heat up our delicious meals.  

Since I didn't grow up by the ocean, I don't get tired of seeing ocean views. I still pick mountains over beach any day. 

This little store was great. A lot of treats for free to sample. I ate so many then felt guilty so I bought some, too. My parents taught me well.

I wish this restaurant was open. Looked all neat.

It's gnat season. Look at my shirt. I'm covered. A few days back I was wearing sunglasses and I would get so many gnats in my eye. HQC and I have to periodically stop to get the bugs out of each others eyes. They're a real PITA.

I had heard that there are outdoor baths in the woods. We finally found one. This one provided a cold water hose because the water gets too dang hot if you don't offset it.

The little bath is right next to the roaring river. 

Perfect ambiance. You don't get this in Texas.

We used this little changing booth as our camp for the evening. A little cramped but it kept us dry while it rained all night. And the bugs didn't bother me at all, either.

See, the bath is right there.

The next day I could only manage to capture this pic because we got rained on the whole time and I was cold.

Usually Japan has horizontal stoplights, like most of Texas has. But here in Hokkaido they are vertical like the rest of the US. I like their stoplights because they're flat and sleek. Why can't the US make good stoplights like these?

Found Charlie Sheen's hotel. 

"I'm bi-winning."

I went to lean back in one of the chairs in this restaurant and nearly fell over because there wasn't a tall back to them. I looked around to inspect it. Look how rink-a-dink these seats are.

The Goryokaku is a neat pentagram shaped fort. But 9 gold to take the tower to overlook it was a little steep for me. Some of us are actually poor. And I remind Holly daily that some of us grew up poor and couldn't afford the finer things in life.

There are mounds surrounding the pentagon so you could get somewhat of an elevated view.

Cool vegetation.

These mounds right here.

If this toy was sold in the States feminists would have a hay day. You thought the riots were bad this summer. They would be livid.  

Finally, church is back in session!

Here's the brothel we stayed at for the weekend in Hakodate. A bunch of college students live here for free and they were very nice.

Here we are entering the belly of the beast saying goodbye to Hokkaido and on to conquer Honshu!

Chapter 3 is in the record books.

Weekend in Sapporo

Alright you guys are letting me down and getting your free lunch and thus in return not feeding me. Don't try me. 

This weekend found the Chiu and I in Sapporo enjoying the Capital of Hokkaido. It's a little bit bigger than Hiroshima with plenty to do like in every city of the world. We enjoyed a quality bike path that strolled right past the Holy Temple.

We stayed at our first Warmshowers host. For those of you that don't know what Warmshowers is, let me Indulge for you. 

When I was young, my dad would let cyclists stay at our house while they were traveling through town. We met some *interesting* people, including one of Einstein's sons. The Einstein. Another guy brought his dog named Hummus that slept in my room. And one time, a German professor and his students came to stay. Talmage made out with one of them. I hated him for that. 

Anyways, I used Warmshowers once during my American cross country trip 12 years ago. And in order to use Warmshowers you need to be a member yourself and you can either set your status for available to host or unavailable. Earlier this year, I received an email from Warmshowers  saying that my status was still set to unavailable. I thought, "If I want to bike across Japan I better start to get to know some cyclists and pick their brains." So I set my status for available and within the next few days I got two notifications: one from a Swiss guy. His was a nice visit and he gave me some good tips. The second was from HQC asking if she could also stay with me (that's how we met) and the rest is history. Pretty neat huh?

Since people who use Warmshowers are bikers themselves, our host spent 4 years of his late 20's to bike 55,000 kilometers around the world on several continents. His family was very friendly. They cooked for us and washed our clothes. 

I've learned from my niece, Dana, that a pic doesn't count unless it's blurry beyond recognition. I almost #nailedit.

Usually bike paths are converted from old canals or railroads. I don't know where they got the real estate for this path in Sapporo.

Sometimes in life you just have to look at it before you can do anything else.

"I've been though there, [Sapporo] is a fine town."

In certain intersections there are crosswalks that go in every direction, as you can see here. It's neat.

Zoom in and you can see another naked statue. 

I really, really hate when cities discourage biking by placing no bike parking signs in the busy downtown areas. The officials really are idiots for doing that. I hope at least one official is reading this now so he/she will know that. We could care less about those no parking signs, however, even to the point of parking my bike on top of the sign. "How do you like your bagels now?!"

One of my favorite stores is called Don Quixote. This one had a section where people can come play Magic: The Gathering or other games. I didn't know people still played that today. Pennell and the Scarbers would love that. 

Eiffel Tower ya'll.

Our Warmshowers host's house.

With Covid-19 making everyone live in fear, "[church] has been cancelled, due to lack of hustle. Deal with it." I'm still waiting for the day when I can worship the Almighty in the chapels again. 

Look how fun these things are. 

                                        Jana, if you ever get on my blog again, you'll like this bit. 

Our host is showing us where to go to see this neat village museum. 

Old houses brought in from over 100 years ago.

This green one was all neat.

Many homes still look the same today. They age very well, you might say. 

The different buildings were coolo. 

She's giving me Asian attitude but I'm not having any of it.

Me during school.

This house had a ton of organs in it. Tiny ones, too.

This was how people dressed back then.

Finally a decent Japanese style house. They are rare in Hokkaido. The only con about this part of the country.

I think this was an armory. Actually I have no idea what this was for because "Mother of Mercy, I don't speak Japanese!"

Hay to eat. 

I love how the center of the rooms will have little places for fire to heat up the water.

Fall colors. I'm telling you.

I think farmersonly.com would love this part of the tour.

It's not every day that you see an apple tree.

Why don't we have rooms like this in the US? Oh yeah, cuz you're all watching stupid Netflix everyday and wasting your lives. 

I think this was for the Slaves.

Do you guys think these sandals are comfy? Yay or nay. Or keep playing the Quiet Game and never comment at all. You're doing good at that one.

Thomas the Train has nothing against these. 

Looking outside the boarding room.

I like how part of this roof was see-through to allow for more light to come in here for professional photographs.

Hard at work.

They even wore masks in the Olden Days.

Mr Police Officer is going to write someone a ticket. I just know it.

These sliding walls are all rich. 

This was where the doctors worked. They even had little sinks.

Somethings never change. The Cans.

This poor horse was struggling. I felt bad for him.

Another fun building exterior shot.

Railroads for days.

Holly with the Orthanc.

Now it's time to pack all my crap to leave in the morning.

Not wanting to over-burden ourselves, we shipped our front panniers to Sapporo loaded with food and other goodies. Now we have fully-loaded equiped bikes.