Thursday, June 5 – Culture and Birding

 

I met the others for breakfast, an enormous buffet, before we piled into two vans that took us a short way to the Hokkaido Museum of Northern Indigenous Peoples.  Mark introduced us to a few features and then let us explore on our own. 

It is a quite marvelous museum with a great collection of the many cultures that inhabited the northern parts of our planet.   Each cultural group is color-coded so one can easily pick out the items one wants to concentrate on.  In my case I wanted to photograph all the Ainu-made items and simply had a glance at a navy tag to know I had what I 

Color coding the different groups

 wanted.

Mark showing the area covered by the museum

There were film clips, dioramas, displays of tools, clothing, etc.  Really attractively displayed and very informative.

Ainu Elm-fiber robe

Robe detail with appique and embroidery

  

Ainu Fish Skin Parka

We had been scheduled for a boat trip this afternoon, but the wind was so fierce yesterday that it was canceled, but of course, now it was quite calm.  Mark and Mayumi planned for several cruises figuring that the weather would cancel some so we have tomorrow to try again.

Our drivers took us to the coast 

Notoro Misaki Lighthouse

and the wharf area where we had lunch at a restaurant with the choice of scallops, oysters & squid, or venison.  I had scallops and got four large sea scallops in rice that were delicious.  Bob had venison, and cleaned up the meat juices with some of his rice which is considered bad manners (“cat food”), but irresistible!  We birded along the shore, stopping for more soft serve, and then drove to a lighthouse high on a grassy cliff at Cape Notoro and birded a while before returning to our hotel for another fancy dinner.

Statue to Lost Fishermen