Monday 14th May
On arrival we were shuttled to our waiting rental car, a modest Impreza, and we set course for Furano. The GPS was in Japanese so to start with we stuck with Google Maps and although it took us through some questionable back streets (possibly saving a couple of metres... but it would've been better to stick to proper roads) we started making good progress. As various correspondents had noted, the speed limits throughout Hokkaido were ridiculously low and pretty much ignored by everyone. The roads were generally elevated above the surrounding fields and there were frequent overhead edge markers for when there's deep snow. There were also giant louvres alongside many of Hokkaido's roads - these are wind/snowbreaks, and are often folded down to the ground when not in use.
We passed through some fairly built-up farming areas, had a break at a small waterfall, and made it into town for a late lunch. It was very, very quiet! It seems that like much of Hokkaido, everything is set up for the winter ski season and the summer flower/festival season, and we were there in between times - there were very few signs of any activity before mid-morning, and even after that it was still very sparsely populated.
Our accommodation wasn't going to be ready for another couple of hours so we drove on to the Blue Pond, which wasn't particularly blue. We drove on (via my errant directions and a couple of roadside deer) to see the Shirahige waterfall and have a walk around - there were some impressive patches of snow still.
We checked into our apartment-style accomodation which was very comfortable, but with a few gotchas and involved quite a lengthy briefing from the manager. We had a quick drive around the neighbourhood, which was the ski field part of Furano, and Asahigaoka Park, then ramen for dinner. Everything was so quiet - it was almost a ghost town feeling!
Tuesday
Once we turned around we found that it was much easier on the way down, particularly once we found a toboggan a little off the side of the trail. Hopefully it hadn't been stashed by another climber that was hoping to retrieve it later that day! We had an awesome time taking turns sliding down towards the ropeway station, and enjoying the magnificent, albeit hazy, views. We handed the toboggan in to the ropeway staff, once we were done goofing around!
On the drive back I missed the most direct turn off back to Furano, and we skirted the edge of Asahikawa, looping around the airport; this detour meant that we were passing the miniscule Kita Biei station just at the time the very cute single-carriage train was passing. I had cheekily placed a 1 yen coin on the track and had it thoroughly squashed by the train.
We headed back to the laundry to dry out our clothes that had got wet, making good use of the shoe drying machine. We saw that there was a Japanese curry restaurant nearby - it looked quite suspicious from the outside (once we found it! It rather resembles a vacant lot), but it was fantastic - a great tiki-bar style atmosphere.
Wednesday
We then went for a drive around Biei. With it being too early for most of the flower fields, the main landmarks seemed to be trees that had been made famous by appearing in TV commercials. There were a few other low-key attractions - lookouts, a tourist farm that seemed a little run-down, and the Shikisai no Oka flower farm, which looked like it would be stunning in late summer - but for us there was just one small patch of tulips in bloom. Adding to the low-key fell was a thick haze the obscured the mountain views.
We met Shinojima-san and another new student, Remi, at the accommodation, and headed to the Iyasaka Taiko practice hall in Nunobe. It was fantastic to join the class of pre-teens and teens, plus a couple of adults, and run through some of their drills, including a brush-up on the correct bowing technique, before enjoying their performance pieces. Mariko had her first taiko lesson and did a fantastic job, and seemed to quite enjoy it! They didn't have any okedo-style drums, but they had a quite flamboyant style with lots of big choreography, and the odaiko drummers were always playing in combination with the miya daikos. They asked me to perform something so I played a quick round of Yatai Bayashi. We left as they were getting into the fine details of a very fancy 10/8 piece. Big thanks to the group for letting us join in! In particular to Shinojima, and Remi and Mariko for translating.
We picked up some light dinner from the supermarket. Afterwards I tackled the BlueTooth functions of the car, repeatedly cycling through all the menus (mostly in Japanese) and was delighted to get it working - after about 15 minutes - with both our phones, meaning the rest of the trip was set to a soundtrack of Spotify, some of my classic albums (Burt Bacharach went down surprisingly well) and cool podcasts.
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