Behind the wheel

The end of the snow season felt like a perfect time to see what else Hokkaido has to offer - it's a massive island and most of it hasn't seen many Western tourists come through.

Last time out I forgot to get an international driving permit which was a massive schoolboy error, but this year I've got my little license from the Post Office in hand. It looks like a ration book from wartime Britain, maybe they'll get an update at the same time as the UK switches back to blue passports. Plus lucky old me landed in one of the only other countries in the world to drive on the left (that is to say, the correct) side of the road so there's no stress there - I've yet to experience the switch to the dark side on my travels.

Now unfortunately mid-March is a bit of a weird time of year around here. Most of the snow-based attractions are shutting up shop and, although summertime eventually brings some amazing hiking and outdoor scenery, there's a good month or two in the middle of nothing but slushy snowbanks, gross rain and general greyness. I had to cut Shiretoko out of my plans pretty early on - it's supposed to be stunning but not only did my gaijin brain underestimate the long drag across the island just to get there, but I also found out that the main mountain pass is completely closed until mid April. One to save for the summer then.

So I knew from the start I was taking a gamble and... yep, things really are closed. More than one driving route ended with me coming face-to-face with a closed gate fronting an impenetrable wall of car-high snow. And lesson learned: just because the path near a visitor centre is cleared doesn't mean you can count on the hiking trail twenty feet away to be passable.

Four days on the road led me to the conclusion that... some chunks of Hokkaido really do look like the midlands of England. Or maybe the north of France, but the shitty drab bits, not the nice places where you can drink good, cheap wine. The area around Chitose especially is mostly farms, flat fields and small, no-name towns. That being said, Hokkaido is a stunning place overall. The drive from Sapporo to Asahikawa is awesome if you take the road away from the highway through Tobestsu and Tsukigata, a winding path through pure white snowdrifts, Bond-movie-car-chase dams across frozen lakes and snowfields with eagles circling overhead. Keep a fully charged camera handy in the passenger seat at all times. The western lakes are also stunning, I could have spent a few days just exploring around there. Shiretoko had a massive Silent Hill vibe on the day I visited, hanging mist banks creeping off the hills onto a mirror lake, not a breath of wind. Next door neighbour Lake Toya is huge and lovely to drive around. There's also volcanoes you can just walk up to, surrounded by abandoned school buildings from the fallout of the last eruptions, which is quite a unique experience.

Traveling around somewhere like this is another lesson in being wary of Tripadvisor lists of 'The Best Things To See In...'. Shirogane Blue Pond is, well, a blue pond. It's nice but takes five minutes to walk up and say 'yep, I can now say I've seen that'. And at this time of year Chinese tourists seem to be everywhere, a busload magically appearing down every obscure mountain road I took. Not that there's anything wrong with that, but the serenity of a scenic area does get shattered by attempts at a hundred million awkward, posed photos and the clatter of high-end camera gear.

Oh, food, everyone always wants to hear about food and, I'm not going to lie, I am the sort of person who looks at the menu of a place online before I've arrived. This was basically four days of me driving fifty miles to eat something I'd seen online the night before. Sooo....

- Ghengis khan is a sort of stew/kebab you cook on a hot plate in the middle of the table. It's great.

- Traditional Japanese set meals always look lovely, lots of delicate portions of all sorts of colours and textures. But. The ones in big hotel mostly taste of foam, go for the smaller mum-and-pop hotels every time.

- Hokkaido soup curry! It's soup. But also curry. With the main parts of a roast dinner added in. What's not to like?

- Seikomart fried chicken is the king of road snacks.

A few final Cultural Learnings of Adam's Driving Trip:

- A massive pro of traveling solo: enforced language practice. Taking away the metaphorical water wings of being around other English-speakers is a good testing ground. And cheesy talk radio is a great way to absorb some new accents and speech patterns (Air-G carries by preferred brand of J-Pop)

- A massive con of traveling solo: there really is only so much fun you can have in hotel rooms on your own, even with the funky Yakata most places give you to wear.

- I raved about it before for city walking but it turns out 'Maps.me' also works as a fully functional sat nav, although it rinses your battery.

- I hate long tunnels. They make my brain go squirrelly.

Here's a map, just the 700km round trip. My Japanese talking car (TM) and I got very well acquainted.

#travel #japan #Workaway #iwanai #hokkaido #japanese #apps #izu #kofu