Golden Week, Post Mortem

Despite having seven days off between April 29^th and May 5^th for Golden Week (Japan's version of March Break...sort of), I didn’t get up to any great adventuring as the cost of my plane tickets home this summer convinced me to stay closer to home.

I did manage to make it out to Heather’s neck of the Inaka for a couple of excellent days inside (thanks to the rain).

I also put up a fellow Canadian JET/ALT who what biking roughly 600km across Hokkaido in 8 or 9 days, and I took him out to see Kamui Misaki, one of the prettiest (and on that Monday, windiest) parts of my corner of Hokkaido.

On the Tuesday, I went on to bike from Furubira to Lindsay’s town of Ishikari, on the outskirts of Sapporo, with him. We did the 65 kilometer ride in one day, and it was easily the furthest I’ve ever biked. There were also a fair few more mountains between here and there than we’d both expected, which was…fun. The weather was good to us, though, and I wound up with my first sunburn of the season at the end of the day.

Despite the burn, there is still snow on Teine, and Heather's friends from the UK proved that Niseko was still skiable on that same day that we were biking and getting sunburnt.

The following day was spent biking around Sapporo for the first time with Heather, talking in the mad people in Maruyama park who were drinking and barbequing to celebrate the as-of-yet non-existant sakura (cherry blossoms).

This girl was my hero.

Also, there was spontaneous madness afoot.