The Roving Ronin Report

I had to bear my beer aloft to see the bears at Noboribetsu Bear Park in the northern Japanese island of Hokkaido. At the park it certainly wasn't bare of bear but fortunately the bears weren't grizzly and found us humans bearable especially as we had treats to bring to bear. They could barely contain themselves shamelessly pandering to us with paws to the wall antics. When the cuteness became near unbearable, I took a pawse and went to the Ainu section where they had squirrels and tanuki - Japan's raccoon dog. Despite the legends, the tanuki did not have a ginormous scrotum that kind which smothered many hapless hunters in mythical tales of freudian overtones. They also have duck racing - I lost 200¥ on a lame duck. It costs about 2500¥ to visit the park and you get a gondola ride up the mountain which has some nice scenery. This is definitely a safer way to see Japanese brown bears rather than risking an encounter in the wild. There are still grizzly memor...

Fireworks and devils! Cool festival event in Noboribetsu in Hokkaido were Oni (Japanese devils) carry tubes that shoot fiery sparks high into the sky. The origin of the festival goes back to the misty past of a few years ago in an effort to drum up tourism. Works for me. Oni Hanabi goes on for about two months from June to the second week of August every Thursday and Friday starting at 8:30pm and lasting about 30 minutes.

Hokkaido’s Drift Ice: Nature’s Masterpiece In northern Japan, one can commune with nature and hungry sea gulls Japan’s northern island of Hokkaido offers winter-loving visitors not only incredible man-made structures of ice and snow — the most notably being at Sapporo’s internationally renowned Yuki Matsuri – but along the northern coast one can see nature’s own winter masterpiece in the form of drift ice. From mid-January to mid-April, the Sea of Okhotsk is choked with ice fragments drifting their way south to oblivion in warmer climates. The Hokkaido coast is the southernmost area in the Northern Hemisphere to experience drift ice. In ages past, drift ice would be a thing to be avoided at all cost by sea-farers. Though not as dangerous as icebergs, drift ice could catch unlucky vessels in its clutches and hold them for long stretches of time, sometimes till death took the crew. Nowadays, with the aid of modern ice-breaking ships, drift ice has become a tourist attraction. In the nort...