Day 2 - Lake Shikotsu

According to our Tour Manual, we were to collect our car at Chitose Airport at 10.00am and drive to and arrive at Lake Shikotsu 31 km away at 10.45 am. After the 10 minute familiarisation with the car, that's leisurely holiday driving at 53 kmh on country roads.

We found that real slow; but it couldn't be helped, that was already exceeding the speed limit of 50 kmh.

But hey, everybody drives within the speed limit. We found ourselves often stuck in a convoy of vehicles all following a leader doing just under the speed limit. No one breaks line to pass which is the norm on two-lane roads in Singapore and Malaysia. And no one flashed their headlights or blew their horns, or give the finger or dirty looks.

It was a wonderful, enlightening and humbling experience.



No big deal, this Lake Shikotsu; just another nice calm and relaxing place. There were however, some interesting shops selling interesting stuff; besides a few coffee joints and beer joints.

There were also some interesting park construction details like using fancy manhole covers, and turfing an almost vertical slope!






And this interesting flat flower.








Freshly steamed corn and the aroma of barbequed squid couldn't be resisted, but the sauce was a trifle salty and required follow-up with Japanese tea.



Ah, here's another of the construction details I referred to earlier.

Here's a path cum service road that slopes from top to bottom of photo.

Notice the flat grating of the very narrow cut-off drain? Elsewhere, the drain would have been left open. But not here in Japan.






Please click here to continue driving in Hokkaido.