Date

2022-10-26, Wednesday

Distance

48.39 km (877.18 km in total)

We tarried in Abashiri because of some last minute purchases and a bike adjustment. The bike shop we went to is operated by its sole owner, who, despite speaking barely English, is very friendly and helpful. He served us coffee, let us wait in the heated room, and charged only 500 yen for spending more than an hour in removing a dead screw on my rear rack.

Abashiri is a strange city. It feels more like a town rather than a city. I am saying this not because of its number of population, but of its dynamics. I saw barely any car or pedestrian on the street on a weekday morning. About 1/3 of stores in the main shopping district was closed at the time of our visit (1 pm). It feels empty and lifeless. There seems to be not very much going on here. Maybe that’s why most of the cars’ plates are issued by Kitami, which may be a more animated city with appropriate government agency.

National Route 244 that we took along the shore offers smooth pavement and wide shoulders, perfect for cycling. Moreover, it's absolutely scenic. The sky was so clear that the snow-covered mountain ranges in the distant background were astoundingly visible. This part of the country is dominated by flat surface that stretches far and wide, populated by pampas grass that shine in golden colour under the sunlight; biking in it feels like reaching eternity.

Japan never ceases to surprise me. Not only does it have a Montbell store located in the middle of nowhere (within the boundary of Koshimizu), it also offers me opportunity to discover things that I didn’t expect. Today’s moment of serendipity is seeing for the first time in Japan horses standing in the field next to the country road (as well as cows, but the latter was significantly more common in this part of Hokkaido). The addition of these creatures to the whole scene suddenly made me feel as if pedalling straight into a movie set, maybe Forrest Gump. At Montbell’s store I purchased a down sleeping bag in preparation of the colder weather. My old one was rated at only 10°C, which is no sufficiently warm for these night with single-digit temperature.

By the sunset, we arrived in Shari, at the entrance of which stood a 8-storey modern hotel, signalling the unexpected prosperity of this little known town. The roadside station is impressively decorated and cleaned. There we learned that as part of the economic revival project, a certain number of participating shops offered special (rubber) stamps featuring the town’s mascot Shiretoko in the shape of a polar bear. Since both of us love collecting (rubber) stamps and we were looking for a restaurant to dine, we gladly accept the challenge and tried to add as much (rubber) stamps as possible to our collections.

We were only back to the roadside station to discretely set up our tent after dinner and a bath in the nearby onsen. The onsen is more like a public bath: its old-styled building with Showa-era decoration and complete with retro Japanese pop hits appears to have certain history. The water, smelling a bit like rust, smooth to the touch but didn’t leave a sticky feeling, and its reddish-brown hue was unique. It was also hotter than any other’s. Post-bath, my friend treated herself to a bottle of cold milk in a glass bottle — and drank it in the classic, almost iconic pose of standing with a hand on hip like a proper onsen veteran. It doesn’t get more onsen than that!

The entire bathhouse offered a nice nostalgic vibe to local people's evening gathering. Communal bathing seems to be comfortably embedded in the Japanese custom; many locals come at night to take a bath with their families, friends and/or acquaintances. That the staff knows every regular customer makes us feeling like intruders to their ritual of socialisation.

The full take — 27 more photographs from this day