Hokkaido – Asahikawa to Abashiri- (Day 7)

We woke up slightly earlier today as the journey is going to be slightly longer today. After a so so breakfast (the breakfast pales so much in comparison to the dinner last night, I was kinda disappointed) we retrieve our car from the hotel car park and we are off again.  OH yea .. did I mention? Asahikawa hotel also made use of the elevator car parking system and this time round I got the hotel attendant to help park my car in.  The amazing thing is when we park the car, the car went into the elevator head in…. I kept the car keys for the night.  However when we retrieve the car the next morning, the car was facing outwards. I am still wondering how the hotel staff had shifted the car without the car keys …. Anyway . parking per night was 500 yen.

Basically today’s journey is going to be a flower hunt. 🙂 Our route will take us to 2 famous parks in North Eastern Hokkaido where flowers are supposed to be in bloom.  After leaving Asahikawa, we headed north again towards Takinoue Park.  As we headed north and into the country side, the temperature drops noticeably and we started to see leftover snow on the banks of the road.

Finally we reached Takinoue Park around 11 plus (close to 3 hours of long drive).  Although the flowers are not fully bloomed yet, the sight is already very spectacular, save for a few bald patches here and there.  Here, the whole area included the hills are covered with a flower called the pink moss / Moss Phlox.  It is a very hardy pink little flower that tends to grow spread very fast, like a weed.  But the flowers are very pretty and to see a whole hill filled with the same flowers, it is as if you are immersing yourself into a sea of pink petals.  Look at the picture and you will know that I am not exaggerating. It was said that the flower was introduced into this park after a sever blizzard killed all the Cherry blossom trees in the region.  What started as a single plant soon spread and covered the whole area turning the hills into a sea of pink with the turn of every spring. (As the flowers have a white color variant, sometimes, the park attendants would arrange the white and pink flowers to form pictures.  The one I saw in a brochure was a white Cow in a sea of pink.  could not find the picture though.)

The pink moss are only about 80% to 90% in bloom at the time of our visit.  The flowers will generally be in full bloom some time towards the middle or late May. Well if 80% bloom is already so spectacular, I wonder how 100% full bloom would look like .. hee hee .

Bidding farewell to the cute pink little flowers, we made our way northwards again towards Monbetsu.(official website of town) This is the place where people generally come to during winter to travel across the sea/drift ice.  It was said that during winter, the sea coast around the area would be frozen with sea ice. Although it is not winter nor are there drift / sea ice, but there is a sea ice Museum called Okhotsk Sea Ice Museum (photo of the musume)where various studies on the formation of sea ice are done and explained to the public in layman’s term. It is also act as an observatory where visitors can view Sea ice forming along the coast during winter in the comfort of a confined and warm place.  There is actually a lot of information behind the formation of sea ice, different from the formation of ice cubes in your fridge. One thing is sea water has a higher content of salt and that complicates the ice formation process and changes the structure of the ice formed. More information on sea Ice can be found here. Visitors who plan to visit the museum, do take note of the change in operating hours for the different seasons.

What interest me in this place is that there is a low temperature simulation room where the temperature is kept at a constant minus 20 degrees Celsius.  We had to put on extra clothing and gloves when we visit the simulation room.  It was not a bad as I thought, primarily because there is not wind.  It was like walking into a very large freezer… (wrong … think even the temperature in the average temperature in the freezing compartment of your freezer is not that low)

There the attendant brought us to a corner and showed us ice crystals forming at the side of a thick window.  Then she blew bubbles and we literally watched the bubble crystallized / freeze in mid air and dropping onto the floor.

We also saw ice tombs of fishes and plants.  Basically the museum tried to show us how things look like in very low temperature.  They encased various marine creatures in blocks of ice and leave it on display … impressive… but I keep having the thoughts that I am walking in an ice tomb … oh well… see my pictures and you will understand. (could not take many photos as my fingers are frozen solid and it is very difficult to hold a camera steady with all the thick woolen gloves.)

Leaving the ice tomb (opps..) I mean museum, we make our way to somewhere more cheery. We travelled along the sea coast of Monbetsu before turning into Kamiyubetsu to visit the kamiyubetsu Tulip Park. (another official site and pictures).  If you think the tulips you saw during our early part of the trip is nice, then this park is 10 times better. Entrance / parking fee is 500 yen per person.

The tulips are grown in mass abundance here and the different colors are neatly arranged into rows forming a big rainbow when seen from afar. This lifted my spirits considerably.  unfortunately the sky is overcast and my pictures did not turn out a good as I would have liked. The tulips are for sale and so if you are interested, you can specify which plant you want and bring it home in a pot.  The park hold a Tulip fair every year from 1 May to early June so if you plan to visit this place, try to coincide with the fair. You will not be disappointed with the flowers. Enjoy the photos.

By the time we left the tulip park it was already 5 plus.  It is too late to visit Lake Saroma or Cape Notoro and we do not relish the thought of driving in the dark in the country side. So we decide to make straight for our hotel which is also another 80km away from the Tulip park.  However along the way we did stop by one part of Lake Saroma as we spotted this pair of crane frolicking by the bank.  This lake is special as there is only a very thin (150 to 500m) sand bar bank separating the lake from the sea of Okhotsk…. The pic may look like it is taken at the shore of the sea .. but trust me . it is actually a lake..

We arrived at Hotel Abashrikoso in time for their dinner.  This is a very big and nice ryokan style hotel by the side of the lake. From the hotel room, you will oversea the lake and its natural surrounding. The staff speaks little English and there are even free computer terminals at the reception area for guest to use.  All in all a 5 star hotel.

And the dinner is good !!! as good as the one in Asahikawa… if not even better… (in fact, dinner seems to be getting better and better ..) just take a look at the spread !

The way they prepare their food is superb … not even Waraku or SunMoon restaurant comes close to the taste …. yum.

The rest of my pics can be found here.