I’m going to try to write about a trip that I went on about six weeks ago. I’ve got lots of pictures to recollect what happened so this probably won’t be too tough...
Someone (we’ll call him 英雄 or E) asked me whether I wanted to take one more final trip in Hokkaido before returning to my home country, Canada. He proposed that he would drive and that I would only have to pay for lodging and food. My schedule wasn’t jammed pack at that time, so I decided to take him up on the proposition.
This was about six weeks before leaving on the trip.
Five weeks before taking off E approached be beforehand about where we would like to go. I felt bad enough that he was willing to drive me a long distance to hang out so I told him that it would be up to him. You never know. He may have wanted to go somewhere two hours away or six hours away. Hokkaido’s a pretty big hunk of land. If I had selected Wakkanai that would’ve been about a six hour drive. If I had chosen, Noboribetsu that would’ve been two hours away.
To be honest, I really wanted to go to Wakkanai for a few reasons. One: wouldn’t you want to say that you’ve gone to the most northern-point of Japan? Two: I’ve always wondered exactly how big that city is geographically. Three: I was curious to see what the terrain/land looked like, way up in Hokkaido (maybe I should’ve become a geography major).
About four weeks before leaving, E decided to email me several different itineraries. There was the Obihiro option, the Hakodate option and the Wakkanai option.
I should be thankful that E did quite a bit of thinking about this and that Wakkanai was part of our options.
I gladly chose Wakkanai.
Let’s zip by several weeks to the actual day of the trip (すごい飛んじゃった）.
This was going to be a two night, three day trip. We would stay at a small town, just a bit south of Wakkanai and then the second night would be in the city of Haboro. I had looked briefly at E’s itinerary for our trip to Wakkanai but it meant very little. All I could think of was... north.
I met up with E. at nine in the morning. He was going to be a few minutes late so I decided to scoot on over to the 7-11 that was down the street from where I was staying. What would I buy? Beef jerky, cashew nuts and a 2-liter bottle of mineral water.
After about 3 minutes of shopping at the 7-11, E pulled into the parking lot. What an amazing car... I never expected him to be driving a Ferra... I mean, a Toyoto Celica. The one unique thing about this car was its color. Very close to indigo blue. It’s fairly sporty but not a muscle car. And, the basket seats were comfortable for the entire trip.
Well, I should break this blog up into a few parts...
