Hokkaido Countryside

We left Sapporo and after a 1.5 hour bus ride we arrived in Kimbetsu to meet our friend Natsumi. We have not seen Natsumi for 25 years and have never met any of her family. It was interesting as the bus stopped to let these two Canadians off in this small farm community all the older ladies on the bus came to our side to see what the heck would we be stopping in a non-tourist area for.  Natsumi and her daughter, Aoi met us at the bus stop, and when Natsumi hugged us both some of the bus passengers clapped. It was so nice to see Natsumi and meet her family after so many years.

Natsumi and family

The family lives in the country on a small acreage, where they grow vegetables and have about 20 chickens for eggs and sell them when they have extra. The area is mountainous and heavily forested.  There are dairy farms and acres of vegetables grown in this area. When we were there pumpkins, potatoes, cabbage, sugar beets, etc were being harvested. The home is heated by wood fire as well as the hot water system for bathing. It took me back to growing up on the farm and I had fun chopping wood, (hated it when I was 14 but enjoy it now!)

Country Home

Natsumi's husband Takashi picks mushrooms in the mountains around their home - he picks mornings and evenings after work. We went out one morning to help him, but we're not the best of mushroom pickers. I think most of the mushrooms we picked were non-edible!

Mushroom Hunting

We spent a day sightseeing and hiking in the mountains. There are many nice trails with boardwalks around the wet areas and signs explaining the trees and plants. As the signs are in Japanese, we had to ask Natsumi or Takashi what the plants were.

Natsumi, Loreen and Takashi

Fall in Hokkaido is beautiful as the leaves turn the autumn colours.

Fall colors

Natsumi told her family that when she lived with us we owned horses and that I roped. The boys were very interested in that and brought me about sixty feet of nylon rope so I could teach them how to rope. It was quite a performance, I did manage to rope the youngest two and got one the boys to be able to rope a stick in the ground. A lot of fun. The whole family was excited to know that there were professional rodeo cowboys in the USA of Japanese heritage.

Learning to rope!

Hokkaido is such an agricultural island and they are so proud of what they produce and are able to export to the rest of Japan. There are lots of shops that just sell local food products.  In all the different areas or maybe prefectures they will have maps like this on the road side and they show the agriculture products that they specialize in. This area specializes in melons, potatoes, corn and rice.

Area produce map.

They have wonderful markets that sell direct from the farmer but instead of the farmer being there with a table they have a section in the shop with their picture, where they are from and what they specialize in is posted.

Farm market with the farmers name under the produce.

We have enjoyed Japan and are now off to Beijing. We overnighted at the airport hotel in Chitose. There is a shopping area, complete with 25 restaurants, in the terminal that is as large as many malls in Canada and sells most everything. We heard that Hello Kitty was no longer that popular, but seems she is still doing well here.