Day #3: Tomakomai

Tired as I was, jet lag woke me up at 2:00 AM and then at 3:00.  I was surprised to see that it was already getting lighted in Hokkaido.  Hokkaido is the northernmost island of Japan.  We finally gave up on sleeping at 4:30 and went down to the lobby to use their wifi.  There wasn't wifi in most of the rooms while we were in Hokkaido.

The buffet breakfast was OK.

While waiting in the lobby for the tour bus, we met a tour member who is a cousin of our daughter's neighbor in Chicago.  Small world!

Our first tour stop was the Shiraoi Ainu Museum Porotokotan.  There was a huge statue of an Ainu chief at the entrance.  The Ainu were the indigenous people of Hokkaido.

The Ainu people were thought to have Caucasian features and it's believed they may have originated from Russia.  However with intermarriage, it's hard to know how many pure Ainu there are anymore.

I got this from Wikipedia:

Recent research suggests that the historical Ainu culture originated in a merger of the Okhotsk culture with the Satsumon, one of the ancient archaeological cultures that are considered to have derived from the Jōmon period cultures of the
cultures of the Japanese Archipelago.


Porotokotan is a reproduction of an early Ainu village.

Michael (our tour guide from Hawaii) called Porotokotan Japan's Polynesian Cultural Center.

The Ainu had only an oral history and no written language.

Ainu means people or human.  They believed that everything contains spirits.

"Irankarakute" is the Ainu greeting.

Poro means big.  To is Lake and kotan is village.

This girl is playing a mukkuri. 

The following information is from Wikipedia:

Mukkuri is a traditional Japanese plucked idiophone indigenous to the Ainu. The Mukkuri is made from bamboo and is 10 cm long and 1.5 cm wide. Similar to a jaw harp, sound is made by pulling the string and vibrating the inside.

The other instrument is a tonkori.  

Art decided to support the museum by buying some smoked fish.

We enjoyed the view of Showa Shinzan while we ate our hot pot lunch.  Showa Shinzan was a mountain created by volcanic and earthquake activity from Mt. Usu.

We learned that Hokkaido is famous for its brown bears.  We also saw some beautiful flowers that we had to stop to admire.

840,000 Ezo deer are also overpopulating the island.   Wolves used to keep the population down, but when they were eradicated, the deer multiplied and are now eating the bark off trees and killing them.

We enjoyed watching the adorable bears at the Bear Park, but felt sad that there were too many confined to the small space.

The bears had learned to beg for food.

Lake Toya is a volcanic caldera lake and has four islands in it.  Here I am with Art, Mom and my brother, Dennis.

We tried a slice of Yubari Melon which tasted like a cross between a very sweet honeydew and a cantaloupe.

It cost 380 yen (about $3.80) for a slice.  We were told that the first, most perfect Yubari melon was bought for $20,000 at auction.

The melons were a little softer than I expected, but incredibly sweet and utterly delicious!

Our next hotel was the Toya Sun Palace.  There was a huge buffet which we enjoyed.  The view from our table was spectacular.

In the evening, we boarded a large boat to watch fireworks on Lake Toya.  We went to bed hoping not to wake up at 3:00 again.