Roadtrip to Nemuro

Last weekend, a friend and I thought we'd go for a little road trip to the Nemuro - Japan's easternmost city. And by little I mean 10 hours.
We set off around 2 p.m.. This is what the area around Niseko (SW Hokkaido) looks like in spring:

We took a well-known route towards New Chitose airport, passing Lake Shikotsu on the way. It was a beautiful day.

Then we drove past Tomakomai in the south-east. The terrain was getting flatter and we were driving on an expressway, but there were some interesting sights including wildlife:

These jump in front of trains a lot

Interesting place names:

And remarkable architecture:

Hokkaido is a really big place and it's fascinating how often the landscape changes. We drove past lush rice paddies:

And crossed a mountain pass:

On the way there was a huge bear statue reminding us to wear our seat belts. Because we all know what happens to little bears that forget to wear their seat belts, right? Or do we?

We stopped for dinner in the eastern town of Obihiro after a five hour drive. At 7 p.m. we were only at the half-way point! Obihiro is famous for buta-don - rice topped with pork - so of course we had to try it!

Obihiro turned out to be quite a pleasant city. Very clean and well taken care of with plenty of entertainment opportunities. But it was getting dark and we had another five hours to go, so we decided to leave for Nemuro ASAP. The rest of the way we covered in darkness, so I passed my time taking pictures of everyone's favourite convenience store - Seicomart. I think we passed a good 20 between Obihiro and Nemuro, but I'll give you only a sample picture.

We reached our destination around 00:30 a.m. and fell straight into bed. Even though I hadn't been driving, my brain was pretty much melted.

The next day we set out to explore Nemuro, guided by the two friendly local ALTs.

Pretty much all of Japan is very mountainous, but as soon as you enter the peninsula on which Nemuro lies, it's as if the mountains are deflating - it's completely flat. The peninsula is covered in dwarf bamboo with the occasional forest of wind-beaten trees in between and there is a lot of flat marsh land. 

We had the most delicious sushi at Hanamaru - a famous conveyor belt style sushi restaurants and then headed out to see the main attraction of Nemuro - the Northern Territories. These are a chain of four islands that used to belong to Japan, but fell to Russia. Ever since, the movement to claim them back for Japan has been alive and well - there even is a national "Give Us Back the Northern Territories" day on which demonstrations and rallies are held. But in Nemuro, every 100 metres or so signs remind you of the eternal injustice:

Since there are lots of Russians in eastern Hokkaido, a lot of traffic signs are in Russian. However, the protest signs are only in Japanese. How are the Russians supposed to get the hint?

 There is a monument and even a museum dedicated to the Northern Territories and the reasons why they should be given back to Japan.

This is the monument:

And this the museum

Amazing wildlife on the Northern Territories

Unfortunately you couldn't see the islands that day because they were hidden in the fog, but there is a map painted on the asphalt which shows you were they're supposed to be (the closest one is only 13 km from mainland Hokkaido)

Afterwards, we headed to Cape Nosappo, the easternmost publicly accessible point of Hokkaido. (Theoretically, the political islands would be the easternmost, but you can't enter them without a Russian visa, so I guess it's close enough).

After coffee and cake at a lovely Canadian-themed cafe, we headed towards Kuruma Ishi ("Wheel rock"), an interesting rock formation off the coast of Nemuro. There's also a lighthouse there:

Kuruma Ishi. It's called "Wheel Rock" because it's shaped like a wheel. The shape is entirely natural.

The sea was wild that day and there was some pretty dramatic cliff scenery there as well that eerily reminded me of Scotland. Pity the cliffs didn't have any sheep on them.

We spent a fun evening with good food, friends and karaoke and headed out early the next day to catch one in a series of four trains back to Niseko. The train journey didn't differ much from the road journey in terms of duration - both take approximately ten hours including stopovers and all. 

Since Nemuro is the easternmost stop in Hokkaido, there is only one train line and one platform.  The local train had a colourful Lupin III design, because the creator of the series was born in the area.

This is one of the smaller train stations on the peninsula:

We had a one-hour stopover in Kushiro - a large-ish fishing town in eastern Hokkaido, which is most famous for being the gateway to Lake Akan and Kushiro-shitsugen national park. Unfortunately we didn't have time to look at either of these places, but we took two steps outside the station building, just to be driven back in by the rain and the cold.

This touristy train with wood-finish goes to the national park though:

And this is the Kushiro station area

Eight hours later and after two more stopovers in Sapporo and Otaru we were finally back home in Niseko. I bet the station attendant hasn't seen such an epic train ticket in a long time:

Nemuro to Niseko - hell yeah

As a souvenir I brought back my very own "Give Us Back The Northern Territories" coffee mug. It'll be added to my ever-growing selection of the weirdest gifts from around the world ;)