Day 11: (50 km) Shikotsu - Shiraoi
(08/09/06)

Yesterday's ride revived my discomfort with densely forested wilderness. I left Sapporo around three, but still spent two uncomfortable hours pedaling on unlit mountain roads after dark, tired and hungry, searching for anywhere to sleep. After being turned away from a posh onsen-hotel and a campsite that locked its gates at six, I came down out of the woods to see the yellow moon reflected by a vast mountain-basin lake. Surrounded by peaks, you can see the far shore, but only because the far shore is a mountain. It's the kind of lake that you can imagine people seeing creatures in--vast and mysterious.

In the distance I could make out a few yellowish lights that I hoped marked a town, but the winding road made the town seem to advance or recede at each turn. Seven kilometers later, I pulled into the most welcoming sight of the day--a tiny fire station with one light in the window. This being a town where even the ramen shop closes at eight, the fireman on duty was surprised to see a gaijin roll up on a bicycle well after nine. My friendly neighborhood fireman refilled my water, gave me a town map, and tried to help me find a room. It might have been easier if he hadn't used the phrase "foreigner on a bicycle." The local inns were scared, and the youth hostel full. One hotel offered me curry rice, a full breakfast, and a room for just 6000 yen, but by then I had already decided to camp.

Fortunately, the town had more flat green space per capita than anywhere I have seen in Japan. Ignoring the no camping signs, I pitched my tent under an oni-gurumi (ogre/devil chestnut) tree and polished off the last of my lentils and bread. I was sad and lonely, but I had a full belly, and was out of the woods.

. . . And on to today. . .

After a chilly night in the mountains, I arrived Tomakomai around eight in the morning, warm and ready for some food. As it was the only shop open at eight AM, I found myself visiting my good buddy Mister Donut. Sitting next to me were two largish women in their mid-thirties, chain smoking and passing a baby back and forth. They reminded me of small town, farm and factory America in a way that few people in Japan have.

Visiting Misudo (add some vowels, squish the name together, and say it three times fast) shops around Japan is a cultural study similar to going to Dunkin Donuts in the U.S. Depending on the location, each shop has its own distinct clientele. In Matsuyama, the city station Misudo is full of salarymen, office ladies, and high school students, each in their respective uniforms. A few kilometers away, next to a shopping center, one finds families, noisy children, and nosier children at tables arranged around a mock merry-go-round. The Tomakomai shop reminds me of nothing so much as western Illinois.

Wandering Tomakomai, I made a strange discovery--the MIR Space station. Of all the places for it to turn up, I couldn't figure out what a famous space station was doing in small town Hokkaido. I'd never been inside a space station before, and it was well worth the visit. The only thing I can compare it to is going in the submarine at thee Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago. It feels like being inside a piece of history, and in this case, a part of history I'm old enough to remember.


After the MIR, I planned to stay in one of Tomakomai's many parks, but a look at the sky convinced me otherwise. It looked as if a cloud of gray smoke was closing in on town, enveloping the buildings in a nasty smog. Knowing nothing about the town, but seeing factories on the coast, I decided it was best to make an escape as quickly as I could. Heading down highway 36, I finally escaped the clouds and found a nice campground in Shiraoi. As far as I can tell, the clouds weren't smog at all, just a very strange coastal fog that moved in out of nowhere. It was definitely the strangest weather of the trip.