Golden Week

Golden Week starts, and the weather is continuing it's warm streak, we all were up at 8:00 am and had breakfast, I am not sure where we are going today, but I am sure Yasuko will figure out something, until then the kids are headed outside to play.

We departed Shibinai about 9:00 am to go driving in the country and mountains, we ended up at a tourist information center in Biei, which is a town adjacent to Shibinai, Yasuko talked with the lady working there for almost an hour, while the kids and I roamed all over the grounds, there was a beware of bears sign up, but there was way too many people for a bear to come wandering into the area where we were at, bears tend to stay away from people.

After that we took a scenic drive to the mountains that was the most beautiful that I had ever seen, we stopped at the side of the road and took a lot of pictures, Yasuko started yelling and we heard the echo, just like in the movies, so all of us took our turns saying things and hearing it echo back to us.

We continued our trip up the mountain to a place that Yasuko said was going to be a surprise, we finally arrived at a group of hotels and parking area and she said this is it. We parked our car and walked to this bridge and was amazed at the most beautiful water falls I had ever seen, even on TV. The bridge was real high, and Yasuko said it made her legs shaky. After taking a lot of pictures there was a staircase that consisted of 283 steps up the mountain to the volcano information center, so up we went. Wow you really find out how out of shape you are when you walk up those steps, not to mention it was covered in Plexiglas, which contained the heat and made it real steamy as you walked up. We were glad to make it to the top and made our way to the information center.

We watched a movie in 3D about volcanoes, and learned some information about the volcano that we were standing on. They had all kinds of interactive displays that the kids had fun playing around with. The last time the volcano that we were standing on had erupted was in 1988, and was expected to have another major eruption within the next 30 years.

After the mountain visit we went to a nearby organic restaurant and ate, the owners were real nice and we talked with them for at least an hour after we finished eating, we exchanged phone numbers, and discussed some future business opportunities that we might be able to do together. This place is so beautiful, there is no way I can describe it in words.

After the cafe we drove to a nearby ostrich farm and surprised the boys, you should have seen their faces when they saw the ostriches for the first time. There was a cafe attached to the ostrich farm that made cookies and cakes out of the ostrich eggs, but we didn't buy anything.

After the ostrich farm we drove to a couple of other places to look at flowers and scenic views, to end up at a roadside stop, that every town has here, and eat some ice cream. While we were at the roadstop, we bought this booklet that has all of the roadstops in Hokkaido, and you can put each roadstops rubber stamp in your booklet, it will be fun trying to collect all of the stamps, and visit all of the roadstops in each town in Hokkaido, One down and many more to go.

After the roadstop we came home and watched TV for a bit until bedtime.