Category: 旅 / Travel

Recent trip to Kumano left me somewhat dissatisfied. It was because I gave up my plan to visit Biei and Furano because I had relied on weather forecast too much. However, I could not just give up for travels although I tennded doing so for anything else.

By the summer, COVID-19 outbreak was worsen again. Because of wide spread of the outbreak, people were canceling their summer trips. Indeed, I was infected the COVID-19 and had to cancel my trip in early August. This brought back bitter memories of Kumano. I might be able to find someone’s cancellation slot.

Checking availabilities of the hotels in Biei and Furano, where I gave up last time. After checking hotel vacancies almost every day, I finally found availabilities on the days I wanted.

The gateway to Biei and Furano area was Asahikawa, there was a frequent flyer free seat available on the outbound flight from Tokyo Haneda to Asahikawa even though it was last minute in summer. On the return trip, there was a seat available on the last flight from Sapporo Shin-Chitose to Tokyo Haneda on award ticket. Asahikawa to Shin-Chitose Airport was three-hour train ride but should not be a bad plan considering air tickets were free in August weekend, peak season of Hokkaido. Moreover, three days before departure, frequent flyer award ticket became available on the last direct flight from Asahikawa to Tokyo Haneda, so I was able to rebook it.

It seemed almost a miracle. As same as Rebun Island visit in the past, the gods of Hokkaido must have told me to come.

A lesson from the Kumano trip was that “too much scheming will be the schemer’s downfall.” I thought not to be too concerned on the weekly weather forecast, and not to waste my time re-planning the trip because of it. I should enjoy the weather as it is.

Despite my own thoughts, I became curious about the weather forecast a few days before my departure. I cannot behave as I should have learned.

The forecast for the day of arrival was sunny or cloudy, and it would rain on the second day, then the last day would be sunny again. It looked like it would be sunny at least one whole day during my stay in Biei, where would give me a typical farmland scenery of Hokkaido. I flew out of Tokyo on a sunny day with a rather relaxed mind.

When I arrived at Asahikawa Airport, it was unfortunately cloudy. Although the lavender flower season was over, I first headed to Furano to see the flower fields. The forecast said clear skies expected in the afternoon, so I decided to postpone visiting my main destination, Biei, until later of the day.

As expected, it cleared up as time passed. I drove around Biei by rental car. I was able to visit all the places I wished to see in a half day. When I drove around, I found that both Biei and Furano were far more crowded than I had imagined. Since I was already satisfied with Biei on the first day, I decided to look for other places after the second day.

The next day was cloudy with light rain. I gave up on landscape photography and decided to visit Asahiyama Zoo. As expected on a summer weekend, the zoo was crowded, but seemingly not as bad as typical Sunday during the non-COVID time.

On the third day, the weather cleared up as predicted. First, I took the ropeway to Mt. Asahidake. After that, I returned to Biei again and headed for a sunset spot called Shin-ei Hill Observation Park.

I had read somewhere that the sunset view of Shin-ei Hill is the best sunset view in Japan although I knew many places claimed so. The condition was rather tough for photography due to higher position of the sun by surrounding mountains. It caused bright sunlight coming into the lenses, but I was able to capture a beautiful moment. This may not be “the best” sunset place in Japan, but it is certainly a wonderful view. If I had to fly back to Tokyo via Sapporo Shin-Chitose Airport, I would have to miss this place due to time constraint.

In this summer, northern Japan experienced heavy rains, and the weather in Hokkaido seemed to be unstable. Nevertheless, I was able to make an efficient visit and enjoy the beautiful scenery of Hokkaido.

When I messed up my visit to Kumano, I thought that too much scheming would be the schemer’s downfall. Despite the old saying, I always wonder if a real schemer could somehow sticking where he was.

Yet I am a man of small caliber, so I would never be able to act like a ninja. Therefore, I could not help myself into downfall. I must rely on external power to save me.

In the end, I am sure that the gods of Hokkaido gave me a second chance.

I took a bus from Croatia to Montenegro. Contrary to the weather forecast, the last day in Croatia was sunny, and I headed for Montenegro with high expectations. However, this summer vacation was not easy for me. The clouds began to show up when I boarded the bus at Dubrovnik, and by the time the bus reached the Croatia – Montenegro border, it started to rain.

On the previous day, I was able to pass Croatia and Bosnia-Herzegovina border without getting off the tour bus, probably because there were only one-day tour guests onboard. On the other hand, at the border of Croatia and Montenegro, not only two countries had checkpoints that were far apart, the bus passengers had to get off the bus twice to go through passport control for both countries. Furthermore, the checkpoint in the Montenegro was not well equipped, there was a little space to avoid the rain. Maybe because it was on a weekend, the border crossing took more than one and a half hours, and I got wet.

It was a dark and stormy night. Outside the window was the jet-black Kotor Bay, and I gradually began to feel gloomy.

Eventually, the bus arrived in Kotor, Montenegro, about an hour late. On this trip, I booked for a rental apartment in Kotor Old Town. It was an old house on a back alley.

When I woke up the next morning, it was strangely dark. Since the house was faced a narrow alley, the wooden door attached to the window was closed. When I opened the window, I found that it was still raining lightly, and windows of the neighborhood building were just in front of me. Since it was Sunday, I did not expect that I would be able to visit the churches in the morning, so I closed the door, went back to bed and slept until late.

When I finally went out in the afternoon, the rain was stopped and cloudy. Even worse, the town was surprisingly crowded.

My relationship with gods were very limited in my daily life, such as gods of Yakushima or gods of Steam Locomotive. Even so, I visit many religious sites when I travel.

Visiting to Kotor was the main purpose of this summer trip. Last time I was in this town, I was fascinated by an Orthodox Church. It was an old and small cathedral of the Montenegrin Orthodox Church called Church of St. Luke. I was particularly fascinated by the simple cathedral, while the neighboring St. Nicholas Church was larger and more grandiose. The St. Luke must had given quite impressions to me, because this led me to visit an Orthodox monastery in Bulgaria few years later.

The Old Town of Kotor is small but has an intricate network of alleys. It is easier to find places by wandering around or by follow other tourist groups rather than by looking at a map. Yet, there were too many people during the daytime, all I could barely do was just browsing the stores.

In the late afternoon, when the number of people had finally decreased, I started to visit the churches. I sat in the corner of the churches and gazed chapels. From time to time, there came moments of silence without any tourists at all. I was able to take my time to visit about five churches. Finally, I came across the Sunday evening service at St. Nicholas Church, and I stood in a corner of the Orthodox Church.

The next day was practically the last day of summer vacation, and it was finally sunny again. There are mountains outside the Kotor City Walls, where you can look down the old town. I could not trust the weather on this trip, so I decided to leave early in the morning. I climbed up to a viewpoint along the way, but the Old Town was still in the shade of the mountains. I sat on a bench to kill some time and helped about four groups taking their photos, and finally the Old Town got the light. Kotor Old Town itself was smaller than the Dubrovnik’s, but Kotor was surrounded by mountains which gave magnificent views.

I then made to the top of the mountain, which my iPhone said about 80 floors up. The return trip was going down the same way, but the damages to my legs and knees felt more than the way up.

When I returned to the rental apartment, it was already around the noon. There was a popular pizza place nearby, and I bought a few slices and a bottle of beer for lunch. As expected, I was exhausted and took a nap.

In the evening, I went out for one last walk around the Old Town, but my knees ached. I felt too tired to walk, so I sat on a bench at the harbor and watched Kotor at dusk. It was an impressive town, with mountains spreading out around, and clear water from them pouring into the calm surface of the Bay of Kotor. The Bay had been jet black when I arrived, was filled with blue water then.

Although Kotor is a town where tourists generally spend only a few hours by a short visit from cruise ships or an one-day tour from Dubrovnik, I was able to spend two full days there and thoroughly enjoy the town.

I initially thought that this summer vacation would be refreshing and full of dazzling sun of Adriatic Sea. In the end, this summer vacation was not easy one owing continuous bad weather and many unexpected events. In the end, I got two sunny days in both Dubrovnik and Kotor. I should have been satisfied and concluded that all’s well that ends well.

I have reached such a positive conclusion only when I go on a trip.

During the COVID-19 outbreak, I began to travel more frequently in Japan, but I had not been able to visit Okinawa. The last visit to Okinawa was a business trip to Naha, just before the travel restrictions implemented.

It is not that I am not interested in visiting Okinawa. However, the timings of my plans coincided with peaks of COVID-19 infection in Okinawa. I hesitated the visits because I had planned going to remote islands, where medical resources were limited even for locals.

This year, there were two three-day weekends in September. I had thought of not going anywhere during the longer weekends because they would be too crowded. At the same time, it would not be a good idea to spend them idly lounging at home. Thinking about it for a while, I recalled that I was just infected with COVID-19 and acquired antibodies, so the risk of infection was low for the time being. Therefore, the risk of pressurizing medical resources on remote islands were also low. As long as the usual infection control measures were taken, all should be ok.

I tend to make thoughtless actions especially for traveling. Based on my (un)scientific conclusion, I checked on Taketomi Island, where I had been interested in for a long time, and found that there were hotels available despite the three-day weekend.

Gateway to Taketomi Island is Ishigaki Island. Of course, there were no seats available on the frequent flyer award ticket to Ishigaki Island on the three-day weekends. I tried to find an inexpensive way to get there. I liked to make travel plans, so this kind of tweaking was rather fun for me.

I firstly found an inexpensive ticket for Shimoji Island using Jetstar leaving Tokyo Narita early in the morning. There seemed to be no flight from Shimoji Island to Ishigaki Island, but the Shimoji Island was connected to Miyako Island by a bridge, and buses were operated according to the flight schedule. From Miyako Island to Ishigaki Island, Ryukyu Air Commuter operated at high frequency. From Ishigaki Island, it was a 20-minute ferry ride to Taketomi Island. It would be possible to reach Taketomi Island by the evening.

This first day seemed troublesome, but looked like island hopping and would be fun.

On the way back from Taketomi Island, I could take advantage of the discount ticket from Ishigaki Island to Tokyo Haneda via Naha. I had to spend about 5 hours in Naha to adjust lower-cost flight, but I thought I could kill time in town for sightseeing or shopping.

I was able to get tickets with satisfactory cost and schedule. At the last minute, a frequent flyer award ticket from Naha to Tokyo Haneda became available, so I re-book for a return ticket. Then all I had to do was going to Okinawa.

However, it was not that simple indeed. I booked an early morning flight from Tokyo Narita to Shimoji Island but taking that flight that was not as easy as I thought because I lived in Yokohama, west of downtown Tokyo.

I could not miss the flight to Shimoji Island due to train delays etc., besides Jetstar is leaving from LCC’s Terminal 3 at Narita Airport, a long walk from the airport station. In the end, I had to wake up at 3:00 a.m. and took a cab to Sakuragicho Station. From Sakuragicho, I took the first train on the Keihin Tohoku Line leaving at 4:18 a.m., which was said to be the earliest first train in Japan. I also boarded another first train from Shinagawa Station to Narita Airport. By the time I boarded the plane, I was exhausted.

Thanks to this, I was able to sleep on board and had no time to complain about the cramped seats in a packed LCC airplane. From Shimoji Island, I took a bus to Miyako Island via Irabu Island. The ocean in this area was perfect blue.

Since I had slight time at Miyako Airport to wait my 2nd flight, I got off the bus and walked around the public market of Miyako Island. It was very hot and humid.

It was already autumn in Tokyo area, and the summer heat had passed. The weather of Miyako Island felt like a harsh climate to me even in late September.

I decided to have lunch at the public market. When you come to Okinawa, you should eat Okinawa soba (Okinawa’s local noodles). Since this is Miyako Island, they call it Miyako soba.

There were several Miyako soba restaurants in the public market. The store facing the courtyard had beers, but I had to eat outside. On the other hand, an indoor store did not seem to have beer, but they were air-conditioned. After some hesitation, I decided to go to the indoor restaurant.

When I approached the lady at the store, she was somewhat surprised. She seemed to have given up business on that day. The restaurant’s specialty is “mozuku tempura” (tempura of seaweed). As she decided to close early on that day, she gave me some leftover tempura.

After receiving the mozuku tempura in a paper bag, I took a cab to Miyako Airport. As I had some more time to kill before boarding, I had a can of local Orion beer in one hand, and the paper bag of mozuku tempura in another. It was quite nice time.

The propeller plane from Miyako Airport arrived at Ishigaki Island in about 20 minutes. From the airport, I took a bus to the ferry terminal. I decided to take a later boat to Taketomi Island and went to a restaurant near the port to eat Okinawa soba again. Ishigaki Island is a part of the area called Yaeyama Islands, so they call it Yaeyama soba. And, I finally got local Orion beer on draft.

Finally, I arrived at Taketomi Island around 4:30 pm. It was a long trip, more than 12 hours after I left home. I put the luggage at the hotel and went out to explore the town. I had another Yaeyama soba on Taketomi Island for dinner. Three bowls of Okinawa soba, five islands, and countless beers on this day alone.

Taketomi Island still maintains an old-fashion Okinawan countryside. I walked around the town in the early morning and evening when the crowds were small. While the island was busy with tourists in hot and humid daytime, I was idly lounging and drank beers. After all, I acted almost as same as I stayed home.

In the end, the only difference was the place where I was idly lounging and had beers, changed from my home to Okinawa. Still, the weather was fine, and it was a wonderful three-day weekend.