A mosaic of farmlands on the flight into Chitose evoked visions of fresh melons, strawberries, cherries, wines, cheese, and Hokkaido’s famous beef.
Although the city of Chitose, which lies just south of Sapporo, is generally seen as merely an airport stop, it’s a charming city in its own right. We found it to be the perfect place to stage and prepare for our trek around Hokkaido. The local Homac store sells butane camping stove fuel, there’s a beautiful green belt, and – as just about everywhere in Hokkaido – excellent restaurants.
A depiction of the Sapporo Beer Brewery paves the sidewalk outside the Chitose airport.
We quickly discovered that convenience stores such as 7/11 and Lawson are not only convenient (they all have restrooms… clean restrooms), but they feature very good coffee and a variety of tasty prepared foods to quickly fuel up hungry bicyclists.
Bob!? Is that you? We hadn’t seen this character since we were kids… Either we were a lot smaller or he was a lot bigger back then. American-style hamburgers have not been on our menu… and I really didn’t care for the way he was looking at Barbra.
A passerby who works with one of the international airlines that frequents Chitose stopped to talk with us as we assembled our bicycles outside the hotel. He recommended the restaurant Ramai, which specializes in curry soup. Chock full of chicken and vegetables and exceptionally flavorful, we enthusiastically pass along the recommendation.
Keen to check out Hokkaido’s young and growing wine industry, we found Grace Winery open for tasting…
…in addition to haskap berry wine (also known as honeysuckle berry), the winery features whites and reds of German origin as well as Pinot Noir. The grapes at this winery were grown in the Yoichi area, which provided all the incentive we needed to make sure that Yoichi would be a stop on our trek!
At the the Chitose Aquarium (well worth a visit) we had our first encounter with Ainu culture. The Ainu are indigenous to Hokkaido and northern Japan, sharing many traditions in common with the indigenous people of the Pacific Northwest. Here salmon skin footwear is displayed.
Rare and endangered, Itou (Japanese Huchen) are a close relative of taimen – the world’s largest salmonid species. Growing to over a meter in length, there are still fishable populations in some of Hokkaido’s waters, though catch and release is strongly encouraged if not the law of the land.
The Chitose River is remarkably clean and clear despite running through an urban area. It receives a strong run of Chum Salmon, which each fall are caprtured by this Pacific Northwest style fish wheel for the local hatchery. In late spring and early summer, visitors to the aquarium can participate by releasing a cup’s worth of salmon fry into the Chitose River, giving them a bit of ownership in maintaining healthy populations of salmon and a healthy river.
Caddisflies and May Flies were coming off the river the morning we walked its banks.
These angles caught a brown trout – right in the heart of the city!
While this colorful finch sang his heart out.
Although the cherry blossom were finished, Azeleas were still in glorious bloom – including colors we’d never before seen. Across the river, an aosagi (gray heron) is perched on a rock, no doubt anticipating making a meal of the many Japanese Dace that populate the river.
Although the Japanese express great concern regarding the several hundred higuma (brown bears) that inhabit the island, of far greater danger are the huge suzumebachi (Japanese Giant Hornet) which account for a number of deaths each year in Japan. We found this one beginning a nest and uneasily got this capture before backing off.
We enjoyed a wonderful, stress-free stay at the Ana Crowne Hotel in Chitose. Hotel staff were extremely accommodating to our unusual needs – even allowing us to store our large bicycle boxes with them until our return in August.
Just south of Sapporo, the beautiful city of Chitose was our entry point into Hokkaido.
Having lived in Japan both as a 7th Fleet sailor stationed in Yokosuka onboard USS Blue Ridge and as an English language teacher after that, I’m familiar with Japan – its ins and outs, the aspects of life here that make it fascinating and wonderful as well as – at times – puzzling and frustrating. In selling Barbra on the idea of doing our first bike tour in Hokkaido, I’d pretty much painted for her a picture of paradise. I described a land of exceptionally low crime, cleanliness, every modern convenience conceivable, incredibly kind people, great camping spots, and a culture different enough from our own to keep things interesting. There might even be some decent fishing, I offered. She already knew about the food – some of the best seafood, beef, pork and noodle dishes in the world. Given that Hokkaido is the least populated and least visited part of Japan, we probably wouldn’t even have to deal with the crowds that often plague other parts of the country. In fact, the only con I conceded was that Japan can be quite expensive; but even that deficit could be offset by the inexpensive (sometimes free) camping I anticipated.
However, as the trip got closer I began to have a tiny, nagging doubt. Maybe I’d oversold Japan. After all, it had been awhile since I’d lived there. In the interim, Japan had experienced a bubble economy collapse, a disastrous nuclear energy plant melt down, and the passing of time along with the challenges an ever changing world presents to all of us. And then there are the tricks our own memories play on us. What if it turned out to not be as good as I remembered it?
Anchorage to Seattle to San Francisco marked the first leg of our flight schedule, and it wasn’t until the final stop on that leg, San Francisco, that we realized we had not allowed enough time between landing at Haneda Airport, Tokyo and our connecting flight to Chitose, Hokkaido. An optimistic Japan Airlines ticketing agent in San Francisco assured us we’d make our connection – but I was fairly certain we’d made a mistake.
Upon arriving in Haneda we scurried to baggage claim where I had my first opportunity to dust off my never-was-very-good Japanese and explain our situation. Incredibly – and impressively – the baggage handler at the luggage carousel already knew about us and our bikes. He smiled and nodded in their direction as a baggage handler approached pushing a handtruck loaded with three boxes – our two bikes and our bike trailer. Almost simultaneously, our two “luggage” boxes with their brilliant orange duck tape emerged onto the carousel. Phew! Next…
A woman in a JAL uniform seemed to materialize out of thin air. While Yamamoto-San (Ms. Yamamoto) explained to us that we needed to get over to the domestic flights air terminal as quickly as possible. Meanwhile, two baggage handlers helped us load our luggage onto two smaller hand carts – which, by the way, are free in Japan. The race was on.
We followed Yamamoto-San to the baggage check-in counter where she consulted with other JAL agents, and then she made what appeared to be a “command decision” to circumvent normal baggage check-in procedures and get us and our luggage directly over to the boarding gate. With the perfectly quaffed, calm Yamamoto-San alternately leading the way and helping to load these huge boxes onto the elevator to the train shuttle platform, we were all perspiring a little. Arriving on the shuttle deck it looked like we just might make it. Yamamoto-San was on a radio, talking urgently and quickly enough that I could understand almost nothing…
…until she mentioned Murray. Murray… Murray… The word sounded so familiar and yet I couldn’t quite recall its meaning. And then, with what sounded like disappointment in her voice, she said the word again. Muri.
Muri! As language sometimes does, the meaning suddenly came back to me. Muri means impossible.
We were not going to make our connecting flight. Despite our assurances that we weren’t really bothered by this turn of events, Yamamoto-San seemed truly disappointed. Back at the baggage check-in counter, she offered to book us into a hotel. I explained that the glitch was really our fault for not allowing sufficient time between flights, but she insisted that, no, it was her airline’s responsibility. In all of my glowing descriptions to Barbra regarding Japan, I had probably not payed sufficient homage to the legendary customer service the Japanese people are known for.
In the end, we declined the hotel, reasoning it would be simpler to spend the night stretched out on the comfortable seats in the waiting area, grab a cup of coffee in the morning and board a flight that would get us into Chitose at a time coinciding with check-in at our hotel. Our hotel in Chitose, by the way, did not charge us for the cancelled reservation.
Udon & Iced Coffee – our first breakfast in Japan!
And so, rather than arriving in Chitose on the night of May 29 as planned, we spent the night in Haneda Airport, sleeping relatively soundly in the seating area. The floors were so clean they gleamed. The restrooms were spotless. The coffee and bowl of udon we had for breakfast were excellent. And when we finally arrived at our modestly-priced hotel in Chitose, our room, though perhaps a bit small by American standards, was utterly immaculate, appointed with an excellent bathroom (including a nice, deep tub and more features on the toilet than either one of us is likely to ever use), a comfortable bed and truly plush bathrobes.
Welcome to Japan.
CutterLight 