Date

2022-11-03, Thursday

Distance

28.37 km (1364.59 km in total)

Travelling slowly by bike is all about making compromises and being open to all sorts of unexpected things. There are places where we simply cannot go and there are things that happen without us wanting them.

We have to give up our plan of visiting Naitai Highland Farm, Japan's largest public ranch located in a remote place (about 50 km to the north of the city of Obihiro) to where no shuttle bus operate, because with all our gears, it's well nigh unpractible for us to climb up to 740 m (elevation) on a steep hill. We also have to give up visiting the renown Japanese architect Tadao Ando's 'Chapel on the Water', located within the boundary of Risonare Tomamu (a skiing resort west of Obihiro owned by Hoshiro Resort), because of its proximity to the express highway that is quite inaccessible to cyclists.

Nevertheless, as a huge fan of Hiromu Arakawa's manga series Silver Spoon, there is no excuse for me to miss the 'Silver Spoon 10th Anniversary Exhibition' currently held in Obihiro where the story is set. This fiction relates the coming-of-age of a highschool boy who, without farming background, is enrolled in a farming school to learn how to raise livestock and grow vegetables. As a semi-vegetarian at home, I find that this work has a rather sympathetic approach when dealing with economical animals.

The exhibition showcases about 200 pieces of Hiromu Arakawa’s original drawings (原画), including manuscripts and promotional illustrations, that can be photographed, together with some supporting materials used at the series' pre-production stage that cannot be photographed. The drawings showcased are the originals, not reproductions, therefore contain visible stroke works and correction marks that I particularly like to observe.

We also visited the Obihiro shrine that appears briefly in the series as the shrine that offers horse-shaped ema, and the Obihiro Racecourse dedicated to a form of Japanese horse racing called 'Ban'ei' where we learned a great deal about horses. On my own, I also biked to see the farming school and university that serve as the prototypes of the teaching institutions in the manga. Of course, a Butadon is a must-eat for every (non-vegetarian) fan of Silver Spoon.

Pleasant things aside, today we were unfortunately hit by a major blow: both of us got sick with symptoms of common cold (coughing, sniffing, weariness but no fever). Maybe because the temperature at night dropped to sub-zero when we were sleeping in our tent, maybe because of other factors. We couldn't find any rapid test kits in local drug stores, so there is no way of knowing whether we got COVID-19 or not. At the end of the day, we got so drowsy that it appeared increasingly unfeasible for us to bike to our next destination. When we were looking for hotel to stay, to our surprise, none of the 7 hotels in Shimizu and Memuro — both situated outside of Obihiro — we called had a vacant room, so we were doomed to spend the night in Obihiro.

We went to bed as soon as we got into the smallest hotel room we have ever seen. I only remembered to feed myself when I woke up at 10:30 pm. Walking around Obihiro’s famous Kitanoyatai (北の屋台), some sort of night market with food stands that can accommodate only a small amount of clients, I found half of the food stands was closed, while another half was filled with people drinking, eating, chatting loudly. This contrast makes some part of Obihiro ‘a city that never sleeps’, and some other part nest of early birds.

The full take — 131 more photographs from this day