Another day in pictures!

Insect count: not too many bugs - but there was one on my sunglasses that almost caused me to drop my phone in the lake!

T5B: 1) This hotel has SPECTACULAR internet. 2) We made the train with plenty of time. (The train didn't make good time because it hit a deer. :( But I'm thankful that we, the passengers, weren't hurt in some way. It caused about a 30 minute delay though.) 3) I learned my lesson from yesterday (the girls don't want to waste time stopping for food) and brought food in my purse for throughout the day. 4) I had a GREAT dinner (cabbage salad, grapefruit juice, umeboshi (sour plum) onigiri (rice ball) ~ they're my favorite! ~, and a chocolate roll). 5) We made it to the Ainu museum today.

Here are the pictures: I will add captions later. :) (I got SO many pictures today!)

Abbey gets to drive on the road

Here is an Oni (demon) in Noribetsu Higashi

Here is the full view - he's huge! (Check out the scale with that car) - He was welcoming us. :)

We can see the ocean! (This was on the drive to Shiraoi to that Ainu museum. Ok, so last night, I packed up my stuff so though I got out of bed last ~ exhausted and got way too little sleep ~ I was ready first. Abbey suggested to Tara that she go get the car and pick us up. I was glad to save the bus fare. So she did so. Since the girls were unable to book a hotel room as the site would only show in Japanese, the people at our hotel were nice enough to help us book a room in Hakodate. After that we checked out and were on our way to see the Ainu museum.)

AHAHAHA! That's a restaurant! The bear is the symbol of the north and the Ainu. However, as the other things they are showing are eaten it leads one to believe you can eat bear.

A picture of the map for the Ainu museum. The girls are so good at reading the road maps here! I've been in the back seat the whole time and haven't really paid attention to what is where. I've focused on seeing the sites and not getting too car sick. I may also have complained about my phone dying (taking all those pictures) and my cramps. :/

First stop in the museum grounds: the chief and me!

Now you can see the scale - huge Ainu chief statue

These are the Hokkaido dogs (as the sign says) - the Ainu used them for hunting dogs... actually you can read the sign :)

This bear was eating treats a little boy bought and sent down that tube. He was REALLY hungry. After the kid walked away, he stuck his gigantic paw partially out of the cage to move another treat closer then used his long tongue to pick it up!

I think this one got treats dropped on his head. LOL There were treats just lying in the cage.

The other two sleepy brown bears. We were hoping they have a much bigger enclosure elsewhere. These cages were TINY!

This funny bear started stretching out - check out the size of his paws!!

A sample of Ainu ceremonial dress

The Ainu and their beliefs

About the Ainu

This is an Ainu religious scene (ceremonial)

This was supposed to be a reproduction of a village scene. (Sorry it's so dark - the lighting was very low)

The information board to the side - with Engrish! ;)

Fishing and canoeing - with a small scale model shown

Two Ainu hunters capturing a bear - the Ainu believed that a bear was a god in animal form. They would catch the cubs and keep them locked up until they were grown. At that point, they would kill them (releasing the god's spirit) and use all the parts of the bear. They would do a special dance to send the bear's (god's) spirit home.

Bounty of the mountains

Ainu fishing for swordfish

Ainu tools and a hand carved boat

Ainu women weaving

Does that woman have a goatee!? Yes, yes she does. When the women would come of age they would be tattooed. They received intricate hand and wrist tattoos and then this mustache/beard combo.

Jewelry, weapons, traditional clothing

Ainu marriage ceremony

Small scale replica of the village. The cage in the bottom right corner is the bear cage.

Ceremonial headdresses

They would carve these from wood and use them for ceremonies

Ainu bear releasing dance

Releasing the spirit of the bear and sending it home

Bear dance

Woman singing to us - I got video of this one!

Clothing woven from tree bark

The last two steps in turning tree bark to clothing

Lake Porotokan (Porotokan is an Ainu word that means "Big Lake Village.")

Tara and Abbey and some of the houses

Abbey and the village

Me and a Japanese Maple (at least that's what I was told it was) - and an Ainu building

This is my scared face: Aah! A bear!

Other bear carving - we're stoic.

Tara's grumpy face

The canoe launching area (and Tara)

The entrance to the museum. I put the small videos I took on facebook. We got to see some cool performances. The emcee was pretty funny too. He offered us dried fish for 150 yen. He also asked about from where people had come and we won the furthest away award. :) He teased this little boy in the front a lot too. Not sure what he said since it was all in Japanese.

Look at me! I'm on a boat!

This is the back of our hotel in Toyako Onsen. We really wanted to take this boat ride and stop at the island in the middle. However as we had stayed at the museum for so long, we BARELY caught the last boat. It was 50 minutes long (technically 47) and we went out to Nakajima (which means: middle island) and picked up people who were there. On the island there is a trail you can hike (I'm not sorry to have missed that), a museum (love those), and deer you can feed (aww! I wanna see deer!).

Abbey, Tara and the shore

Abbey, Tara and the castle boat (that was our other sad thing - we didn't get to go on the castle boat :/)

Me and the shore

Another view of the far shore and the beautiful blue water

Me and Usuzan :)

I have a map somewhere that shows the name of each of these islands in the middle. They sprang up as the result of  a volcanic eruption not too long ago.

Me and the islands

The island vegetation grows right down to the shore

Us again!

I was getting ready to take a picture and that bug almost made me drop my phone in the water. It was right by my eye! Plus I don't like bugs anyway! I got a picture of it though before I started clawing at my face to make it go away.

More islands and the volcanos in the background

Islands!

me and Abbey

Me and Tara

Another shot of the shores of the islands

The far shore ~ Misty Mountains :)

The biggest island and the one with the museum and hiking trails

Going away - after we picked up some people

Me and Nakajima (the biggest island)

Me and the flag

The flag and the islands

Tara and Shouwa-Shinzan

All the islands from the boat - they look ethereal!

Me inside the boat

The boat's engine :)

After our boat ride, we went to return the car. I had brought food with me (I learned my lesson) and I was nice and shared with the girls. They kept saying they weren't hungry then when we were going back to the station, they wanted McDonalds. So we went searching for a little while but had to turn back as we had to turn in our rental car. At that point, my phone was dead. Luckily I found a plug in the bathroom in the station and was able to charge it up to 10% before they locked it up. Then the girls went to buy some food and souvenirs while I watched our luggage. As we were waiting for the train, my phone was dying again so I took my laptop out of my suitcase. When we got on the train, I charged my phone and moved and labeled all my pictures while I waited. About 3/4 of the way to Hakodate suddenly our train car (we were in the second car) started kicking up rocks ~ well there were loud clanks from under us and the train braked. They made a long announcement and I turned to the woman next to me. "Wakarimasen." "Shika." "Shika? Deer?" (I'd heard that in the announcement but wasn't sure that was actually the case.) I put up hands as antlers and she nodded. :/ It seems our train hit a deer. I hope the noises we heard weren't antlers. I wanted to ask if we'd actually hit the deer or if they stopped because a bunch were crossing but I thought it would be too morbid and shocking to mime that to this woman. So we got into Hakodate 30 minutes late. And actually since we decided to do the boat ride and we stayed at the museum so long we already told our hotel we would be 2 hours late. So at this point we were 2.5 hours late. *wince* I'm just glad they didn't give away our room! When we got into Hakodate, there was a huge fireworks show. Since we were late checking in we hurried to our hotel to check in and then go back and watch. But they ended in the meantime. Then on a search we went for food. Most of the places were so dark and small and shady we didn't dare enter them. Also many were closed. So I suggested we look for a conbini (convenience store). I asked a shop owner and he directed us to 7-11. This building above was kitty corner to it. LOL It looks like a church converted to a beer hall. We call it the church of beer.

Me showing our very small doorway. I had to duck to go in!

Our room - I folded back my futon so people wouldn't walk on it

Our bathroom

The best thing about this hotel was the internet. The place was kind of small and dark and all the floors were smoking, but the internet redeemed the whole place for me. I was able to quickly load all my pictures (yay). It's the fastest internet I've had in Japan yet! I miss is already. Aww. Abbey passed out pretty quickly. Then soon Tara crashed. It took me forever to fall asleep (I had a hard time sleeping the whole trip.) Hope you enjoyed! XOXO, A