My Trip to the Frozen North: Part 2

Ok, so I am a mean lazy blogger making you all wait for this post :)  Actually I have been enjoying a beautiful early spring, and blogging has been the last thing on my mind. 

Anyways let’s forget about that and get on to the good stuff.

Day 5 - Day 6: Traveling to Wakkanai and Recovering from Flights a.k.a. “Lazy Daze”

Didn’t do much these days so I will not bore you with the details. No wait, actually I will! 

Before we left Sapporo, I actually got to experience something completely foreign to Americans- Chinese Food. “Wait,” you’ll say. “There is like a Chinese restaurant on every corner.”  Correct. There are “Chinese” restaurants here in America, but most of them are “Americanized” Chinese restaurants.  There is a saying that the farther you get from China, the more shiny the food gets.  This is very true; so much so that I didn’t realize that I was eating Chinese food until after the meal when my sister was able to translate the menu outside!  And, let me tell you this, the food was amazing-weird, but amazing.  It was nothing like the food that you get in the traditional American Chinese restaurant.  In fact, the only thing that I recognized were the dumplings, and that was because I remembered them from Kung Fu Panda!  On a side note, I do find the disparity in what we view as Chinese, or any other culture's type of food, and what it really is as disappointing. I think that it is important that we as Westerners do not put our own assumptions on how food should taste or look, because we can miss some excellent opportunities to learn more about another culture.

-Ok, getting off my soapbox now-

After getting back to Wakkanai, I pretty much crashed until Tuesday evening when we went to the arcade, which was awesome!

Day 7 - Day 8: Horonobe Junior High and Office Party or “Who ordered the snow?”

On Wednesday, I got the opportunity to visit one of the semi-local junior high schools.  By semi-local I mean we had to get on a train at o’dark hundred to get there.

I had a great time at the school until they came to us with a weather warning. They said that due to a massive blizzard coming in, that we needed to catch the next train out of town, because after that, the trains were shutting down for the rest of the day! So we grabbed some bentos (boxed lunches) from the local market and made our way to the train station. By this time, the weather had turned nasty, and everything was falling sideways.

Once we got to the train station, we had to wait because the whiteout conditions had slowed the train down.  After we got on the train, we had a very slow trip back to Wakkanai because we had to keep stopping due to the weather.  They also said that we might have to get off the train and take alternative transportation.

Anyhow, we made it to Wakkanai safely and later went to a going away party for the head of my sister's department.  It was really fun!  We got to see a funny slideshow, and they had a cake- making competition since it was also his birthday.  The food was really cool and diverse.  Since I couldn’t well refuse what was given to me, I totally overate!

The next day I woke up feeling unwell, and I thought that I was exhausted from the previous days, but it was a forewarning of what was to come.

Day 9: Snow Park, Sunsets, and Russian Restaurants or “Snow Cold” or “Russian to the Restaurant”

Friday my sister got a day off work so we decided to go to the local snow park.  Sorry for my overuse of the phrase, but IT WAS AWESOME! They had a lot of cool things to do, many of them free.  When we first got there we went snowshoeing.

Mt. Rishiri

Snowshoeing trail

Sister trying to climb a steep hill

Sister going down another steep hill

 Then we tried cross country skiing,

Sister Cross-Country Skiing

Sorry Sis! I just had to post it!

 

snow rafting, and snowmobiling.

The snowmobile I wish I drove!

Then we capped it off with some tubing.

Sister Tubing!

Now that we were both worn out, we decided to head to Cape Noshappu to try and catch the sunset.

Our bus!

And we did!

Mt. Rishiri at sunset

Fishing boat

Wakkanai Lighthouse

 After the amazing sunset, we went to the local Russian Restaurant where we had a funny encounter with a young Japanese man who thought that we were Russian and tried to start up a conversation in Russian.  He became very embarrassed when, due to the puzzled stares we gave him,  he realized we were not Russian. It seems that he was studying Russia and was quite excited to have a conversation with someone new.  Poor guy, if only he wanted to know more about America :)

Another cool experience was that on our way to the restaurant, we got to catch the tail end of a Russian festival.

Dancers at the Russian Festival

Day 10 - Day 11: Winter Festival, Cape Soya, and Church or “The Northernmost Frozen Americans in Japan”

On Saturday we visited the winter festival and the ferry terminal, where we found massage chairs and excellent souvenir shopping.

On Sunday we went back to the winter festival to see the Taiko Drumming.

Taiko Drumming

Then we went to the northernmost point in Japan-Cape Soya.  Let me tell you this, it was cold! But I did get to see Russia!

Wahoo Memorial

Tower of Prayer (Korean Air Lines Flight 007 Memorial)

Add caption

Signpost with distances to major cities around the world

RUSSIA!

Northernmost  Point of Japan Monument

Temperature on the front of local shop

Later we were able to go to church and visit with a wonderful missionary family.

Well that is all for this post. Tune in later for the next and most likely last part. Now, off to enjoy more of this spring weather!