Boat, Bike, Hike, Bread, Train

So after we arrived at Wakkanai we walked to our hostel called Midori-yu and checked in. The old man that ran the place was extremely friendly and helpful. We met a number of kind Japanese people (as usual) and one German named Klaus. We told him we were heading the Rebun the next morning and he said he would take the ferry with us. The old man who ran the hostel offered to drive us to the harbor free of charge which was very kind. Furthermore, he let us keep our luggage there while we took a day and a half tour of Rebun, a small island off the northermost point of Japan.

When we got up the next morning, the old man actually walked us in and explained the timetables and everything to us before the ferry departed. The ferry ride was extremely beautiful and really put Wakkanai's beauty into a picturesque view. We eventually all fell asleep on the ferry; I slept next to a vending machine on the floor. Somehow that is totally normal in Japan.

After we arrived we asked for the timetables of buses and other options for getting to our campsite, which was on the opposite side of the island. Unfortunately, we found out that it was 10 dollars each way for a bus ride and it wouldn't come for another two and a half hours. So we told them we were going to walk it, and they immediately gave us an ohhhhhh shit look. They suggested we take a taxi and split the cost, which was a little more expensive but faster. We refused and started our walk. After talking to a shopkeeper for a few minutes, the information desk lady chased after us and begged us to rent bikes so that we wouldn't die on our way across the island. We agreed and rented really tight three-speeders with big pimpin' bells on them.

We rode about half way to the campsite and decided to do an 8 kilometer hike to the highest point of the island. That seemed difficult at the time, but in retrospect was not. The wind up there was incredible and I found it hilarious that a Japanese man was smoking a cigarette at the top, not only because it seems contradictory to hiking, but the wind was so hard, I couldn't imagine how he could light it.

Then onto the campsite... We arrived and found Klaus and asked him if he wanted to split the cost of a bungalow for the night -- $11 each if he was in. He agreed and we set up shop then rode around town on our pimpcycles to find food and hopefully a hotspring. We only found a public bathhouse, which we didn't need because we could just wash ourselves in the sink of our campsite.

We watched the sunset and went to bed early, preparing for our return to the ferry early the next morning. We also woke up a little extra early so that we could watch the sunrise and take pictures of that, which was less awesome than our previous nights' sunset. So we fought the wind all the way back to the ferry, really exhausted and really tired. In total, that 24 hour stretch had 40 kilometers of biking and 8 kilometers of hiking.

Then we took the ferry back which we slept the entirety of and walked about an hour and a half back to our hostel to get our luggage. We used the hostel as a home for the next hour and a half while we ate a bunch of ramen to catch up on our nutrition from the previous day and that morning.

Then we rode the train to Furano, where we spent the night. We were in a really nice rider-house style hostel with a lot of kind people there as well. This is where I tried wasabi cheese for the first time -- mmmmhmmm delicious. We did laundry for the first time at this point. The next day we headed up to a small town of under 1000 to do a hike called ashibetsudake, supposedly a 16 km two day hike. We did the first day in about 4 or so hours and rested at beautiful on the outside crappy on the inside cabin after making a fire and eating some snacks of pretty much just bread all night.

The next day was not so relaxing. We woke up at about 5:30, got ready by and left by 6 and hiked until 4 in the afternoon, only resting as much as necessary. However, when we got to the peak of the tallest mountain in the area, it was absolutely gorgeous. We were about 1700 meters up, a tremendous gain from the initial elevation (probably more than the gain of a 14er). The descent was not so great... we were all really tired and I was hurting a lot from the tendonitis in my left leg coming back with vengeance. However, when we made it, it was truly a prideful accomplishment. We had left our luggage the base of the trail at a nice hostel (one we didn't stay at even) and the woman who we had left it with was extremely happy to see us come back and fed us some canteloupe as a little reward for finishing, as well as gave us a picture of the hike. We rode a taxi to the train station (out of necessity since we only had about 1 more kilometer of flat walking left in us before we couldn't walk anymore) and got a lot of food at the nearby convenience store and pigged out.

We then rode to Sapporo to stay for the night at a hotel. The next morning we found ourselves on trains for 13 hours (7am-8pm) but man was it nice to not walk very much. Then, at the end of the day, we checked into a hotel just 100 meters from the train station that was decently comparable to a hostel (way to go Garrett, I couldn't have walked much more) and we went to a very close, very reasonably priced yakisoba place. The waitress was really funny because she took my order and then left so we were confused if she thought we were all splitting it or what; our Japanese is only good enough to ask certain things and confusion is an often occurrence. After eating we hung out and went to bed after talking to Casey for a bit and previewing Japanese porn (the only channels our hotel has if you hit the channel up/down button, although you can manually click numbers to get regular TV).

Today we slept in and didn't get ready until about 2:30 and only went to one place, the Fushimi Inari Shrine, a beautiful area with 1000s of torii (gates) all lined up to make walkways. Now, we're back at the hotel and are planning on going to the Gion district to view the river at night, as well as spot some Geisha (Geiko in Kyoto) if there are any ceremonies or events going on tonight. I've heard that area is really beautiful.

It sure was nice to rest the past few days after all that hiking but I still feel really sore and can't walk very fast at all... So tonight I'm sure I'll sleep quite a long time as well :-)