Karuizawa and Hokkaido

A cloudy morning in Kyoto is giving Alice and I the chance to catch up on our to-do lists. We spent last night with Kevin and Yuki, exploring izakayas and making memories in a six-seat, second-story sake and whiskey bar, run by a theology grad from Nagasaki.

Tucked between our time in Tokyo and Kansai, we spent a week in parts of Japan that gave us a sense of breathing room. It was easy to see how Karuizawa is a favorite summer escape for Tokyoites, and Hokkaido’s expansive landscapes felt like an escape from the usual idea of Japan itself. In these places, the air was crisp, life moved a little slower, and the sky was always wide open.

Going slow

Karuizawa is a resort town in the mountains north of Tokyo, a refuge from the city’s summer heat. Our first glimpses of Japanese foliage as we stepped off the shinkansen were almost jarring after a week of neon, glass, and concrete. We spent an evening in a cozy soba shop to shelter from the heavy rain that night, and the next day walking the back roads from Naka-karuizawa to Kyu-Karuizawa instead of taking the train. It felt like a real privilege to be able to do a walk like that, one we almost certainly wouldn’t have done if we were on a shorter trip.

Junren / Sumire

Miso ramen traces its history back to the 1950s, through multiple generations of Sapporo ramen-ya. It was invented at Aji no Sanpei, which still serves bowls today, and brought towards the more well-known, fattier, saltier iteration by Sumire in the ‘60s. The kanji for Sumire can be read either as sumire or junren, and after the original Sumire closed up shop in the ‘80s, the founder’s sons split the restaurant off into Sumire and Junren. Today, alumni of Sumire and Junren have taken miso ramen into its third generation at shops like Menya Saimi, where Alice, a long-time ramen skeptic, had a bowl of ramen that she said was unlike any other she’s had.

Sapporo Classic

Sapporo felt very much like a frontier city. It was simply whisked into existence by the Hokkaido Development Corporation, often known as Kaitakushi, on an unusually large plain in the otherwise mountainous geography of the island in the late 1800s to serve as a capital for the developing prefecture. The shrines and temples that are scattered throughout most Japanese cities were nowhere to be found; in their place we found television towers, chocolate factories, and beer museums. Kaitakushi’s most famous contribution to Japanese culture might be developing what is known today as Sapporo Breweries.

A moment of riverbank sun

We took a daytrip from Sapporo to Jozankei, an onsen town on the banks of the Toyohira river, about an hour away from the city center. It was raining most of the time we were there, but the late-afternoon sun came out just for a few minutes as we walked along the river, lighting up the last remnants of the fall foliage.

Hell Valley

As we made our way to the southern edge of Hokkaido, we stayed overnight in a ryokan in Noboribetsu, the island’s most famous onsen town. Jigokudani—Hell Valley—is the source of the town’s hot spring water, and was as if Death Valley had been dropped into the middle of New England. In Noboribetsu, I discovered just how much of a luxury a morning onsen session was; there’s really nothing that sharpens your senses like walking, totally naked, through the early morning fall air and slipping into a 100F hot spring before you’re fully awake.

Towards the cape

Our last stop in Hokkaido was Hakodate, a port city where Japan first opened its borders to foreign trade by sea. We spent an afternoon walking out to the cape to watch the sun set, and a morning exploring the town’s morning seafood market. Matt Goulding sums it up in Rice, Noodle, Fish: “Over the next few days, I eat nothing but donburi. At 7:00 a.m., when the sun still sleeps with the fishes. At 2:00 p.m., as the local workforce is mustering up the strength to see the day through. At 11:00 p.m., with the staff looking on nervously, trying to determine if I might finally be full. If I had to travel to just one part of Japan to eat one type of food, it would be seafood donburi in Hakodate.”