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The finish... Sapporo

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The final week of riding in Japan on Hokkaido, the northernmost of Japan's four major islands... the final five days on the bikes to Sapporo. We arrived in Sapporo a week ago  - just didn't get around to telling you about it until now.  Leaving Hakodate, we followed the shoreline for about 40 km, first passing the Kakodate docks and ferry port, then a number of small fishing villages, then going inland (a climb of course). There's a fair amount of logging in Japan's forests with all the logs being cut to a precise length (not as long as what's on BC logging trucks) before leaving where they were cut. Judging from the Hakodate harbour, they move as ship's cargo rather than being floated. The coast here had steep hills and rocky shores - not much in the way of sandy beaches. After 40 km, we crossed the peninsula - hills to climb of course adding up to about 600 m vertical - to the Sea of Japan shore 750 km across the water from Vladivostok. Still fishing villages
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Sunday June 12th - our last rest day of this trip ahead of five riding days into Sapporo this coming Friday. A very restful day, actually, with the greatest excitement just before 7 p.m. at dinner in a restaurant when everybody's cell phones sounded an earthquake warning. Sure enough, a minute or two later, the ground shook for maybe a minute. It was a 6.2 quake off-shore. From the reaction of the local people around us, this is part of normal life and within a minute, everything was back to normal. The morning had started with the buffet breakfast at the hotel where we found more than the usual variety of juices just before the omelette station. We felt obliged to see how well it went with the corn flakes. Interesting things around town in no particular sequence - the fish market a few hundred metres away from our hotel.. Pillar boxes... Manhole covers... The Moomoo taxi and its immaculate driver with matching tie... The waterfront with its renovated warehouses from Hakodate's
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