Hokkaido - Summer Vacation!!!

Last week Mika and I went to Hokkaido for summer vacation. we booked the trip about 2 months ago and even then we got the last seats on the tour. It's very popular in summer because of the mild climate (compared to the 37 - 38 degrees we've been having in osaka) and green open spaces. for those of you who don't know it's the big island at the top of japan that kind of looks like tasmania. It's famous for seafood (crab, salmon, oysters, scallops and prawns) wild bears, deers, foxes, patatoes, corn, flowers and beautiful mountains and gorges.

the tour was great and i'd love to visit again in another season. you can click on any of the photos in the next 5 blogs to see the pictures in a larger size. this one took me a few hours so if your friends or family please leave a message so i know i'm not wasting my time doing these. i will probably add some more pictures after i sift through the 800 photos i took.

Hokkaido is really famous for Ramen noodles. So that was the first thing we ate when we arrived at the airport. we had miso, butter and corn ramen. I don't usually eat ramen that often but it was beautiful as you can see by the empty bowl.

after lunch we headed to Biei to visit a corn and flower farm. We were supposed to be picking corn at the farm so we could eat it. When we arrived we went to a souvenier shop and picked a cob of corn from and branch. I couldn't stop laughing. not really the farm experience. the flower farm was really nice and i got some great photos. Lavender is everywhere here. not sue why and don't really care but everyone was buying lavender everything. Next is me and mika at a lookout. It's pretty exciting for japanese people to see wide open spaces. it was nice for me after living in such a big city but not a big deal when you live in australia. the last photo is mika with a roll of hay. she got excited everytime we saw these, not sure why. apparently they're cute. btw they don't usually come with eyes and a mouth.

here's our first dinner on the trip. lots of seafood. Mika was really happy becuase she didn't think we would be eating crab because it was summer. by the end of the trip we both were sick of eating crab. the dinner was really nice. we had raw salmon, tuna, prawn, squid and scallops.

we went for an early morning walk before breakfast. it was intersting to see a caution sign other than a kangaroo. i wonder if these are just for tourists like many of the kangaroo ones in Australia. the wateralls are famous for being husband and wife apparently. they're about 50m apart.