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More from Hokkaido, National Ainu Museum - August 27th, 2023
More from Hokkaido, National Ainu Museum
Hello!
Last time, I wrote about visiting Hokkaido and hiking at Asahidake.
Earlier in the trip, while I was making my way to Asahikawa (the town near the mountain), I came across a flyer advertising bus tours in the area.
A lot of people recommend renting a car while visiting Hokkaido. But, I do not have a Japanese driver's license and since it was a busy travel season, renting a vehicle would be expensive. Foreigners can get an "international" license in their home country before coming to Japan - these usually last about a year until expiration.
The advertised bus tour ended up not occurring on the day that I wanted to go, so I found another one that allowed me to make a reservation the day before.
This was a one day tour that took me to several different tourist areas in central Hokkaido. The main stop was at a place called "Farm Tomita." This is a flower farm that specializes in lavender but that flower was out of season when I visited. Despite that, they had a lot of lavender themed food and products - ice cream, cheese cake, lemonade and more.
We also stopped at the "blue pond" - this is an artificially created lake that gets its color from minerals nearby. Similar to Farm Tomita, this place had a lot of products that went along with the pond's blue shade.
The day following the bus tour, I stopped at the National Ainu Museum. This museum provides information about the Ainu people, which are the main indigenous group of Northern Japan and Hokkaido. These people lived in those areas before the Japanese arrived.
You can read a bit more about the Ainu people on this wikipedia page - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ainu_people
Overall, I thought the museum was interesting and had a lot of information. There was also many different types of cultural demonstrations scheduled throughout the day. I saw a 20 minute musical performance.
I will write more about the return from Hokkaido next week.
Until then,
Tom McGuire
I write about and share photos of my classroom, travel and cultural experiences through my weekly newsletter. Enter your email below to receive it.
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