Tuesday, June 3 - A real Japanese inn

I got up early and joined the Six AM Bird Walk group.  We took a delightful walk through a summer campground area that within a month will be very lively with vacationers visiting this national park.  There were still patches of snow, some emerging plants, and many flowers, plus some good birds: Great Spotted Woodpecker and a Long-tailed Rose Finch, a bird I had particularly wanted to see.

We returned and went in for our last buffet breakfast here, packed the vans, and were off by nine retracing our route through the national park and heading toward the north coast of Hokkaido.

 We reached the rice paddy area. The houses here are colorful, often with elaborate Japanese gardens with artistically trimmed shrubs (can’t call them bonsai unless the plant is in dish on a tray) and seem more prosperous than many of the towns we have passed through which usually have quite uninspired architecture – although inside the houses they may be beautifully decorated?

We birded a suburban area with a park, a pen of sheep that dashed over to see us, and elementary nature school.  Over the sheep and rice paddies we could see tall buildings of the small city of Asahikawa. 

  We saw a nest of large crow nestlings and great views of the Grey-headed Woodpecker.  And I finally got onto the Narcissus

Grey-headed Woodpecker

Carrion Crow Nestlings

Flycatcher, a tiny black and white bird with a yellow rump and bright orange breast.

We picked up lunch again from the 7-11 (rice ball filled with mutton and onions and a white peach puree ice bar – yummy).   Mark stopped at the last rest stop on our route which happened to be next to the “world’s largest cuckoo clock” which struck two as we arrived!  Mark also walked us over to yet another soft serve stand where we could get flavors such as Bamboo, Corn or chocolate!

Our drivers took us to a dam and we birded for a mile and a half without seeing too much, and as it was five, drove into Shiobetsu and found our authentic Japanese hotel, Tsuru-Tsuru Onsen.

  Here we had to take off our shoes before entering the hotel and were given lockers for them and put on slippers. We got our keys and found our rooms with sheet of paper with our names on them – they obviously get very few western visitors!   Our room is a ten-tatami room – one tatami mat is the size of a twin bed – and rooms are measured by the number of mats needed to fill it.  Our futons were already spread out; we have a low table to the side with “floor chairs”- no legs - and fortunately two very low but barely sittable chairs!  There is a tiny bureau with mirror – to kneel in front of while putting on one’s makeup??

The slipper problem: we have to leave our hall slippers in the tiny foyer of our room and put on others or walk barefoot on the bedroom tatami mats.  The foyer has a sink and a toilet room attached with Another pair of slippers for use in there! We’re constantly making errors in slipper etiquette!

I put on my cotton house kimono (there’s another name for this, but I don’t recall it) and we put on our hall slippers and went to dinner in a private screened room!  We had to take off our slippers before entering – Mayumi is kept very busy keeping us in line!

Dinner was fabulous.  We started off with the usual myriad of appetizers, along with a pot on a burner filled with a milky sauce into which we put slices of pork and green onions.  A covered bowl of soup filled with little clams (very similar to Little Neck clams of my youth!) was delivered with rice, and then a small dessert.

Mayumi explaining dinner and Mark

I was determined to experience Onsen here and grabbed my hand and bath towels and went down to the onsen area.  No one else was around so I had to figure which room to go into and remembered blue for men and red for women.  Every onsen is different, so I had to figure out how this one worked.  I stripped in the outer room and with my hand towel for modesty went into the steaming onsen.  This one has the stools where you sit and soap and spray yourself off right next to the pool. I finished and slipped into the pool which was very hot and alkaline which made everything feel very slippery.  I put my modesty towel on top of my head as is the custom as everything in the room is wet, and it promptly fell into the water!  I lounged for a while but realized I had just had dinner and beer and should be Very careful as I was alone!  So, I got out, dried, and returned to the room where Bob was trying to get comfortable in his low chair!