Weekend 55: November 19 – 20, 2022
Day 383: November 19, 2022
Saturday – Tomamae Road Trip
After several rainy weekends spent at home, we were finally blessed with beautiful weather. We would have been on the road again early today had it been for the package that my wife ordered that was scheduled to be delivered today.
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| I managed to save over 3000 yen with this haircut. |
While waiting for the package, we were able to do a lot of household chores. Aside from that, my wife was also able to give me a haircut.
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| Vietnamese mangoes, anyone? |
Just as we were about to finish the haircut, the delivery came. It was a box full of mangoes from Vietnam. With the package delivered, it was a "Go signal" for us to hit the road. Since I didn’t prepare an itinerary for today, I told my wife that we’d just go to an onsen.
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| Scenic drive along the Ororon Line |
The plan was for us to drive to Asahi Onsen in Embetsu. While driving to our destination. I told my wife that I wanted to make a quick stop at Tomamae Roadside Station to get the roadside station stamp for the Hokkaido Roadside Station Stamp Rally.
I was astonished to discover that the newly renovated roadside station has an onsen. I immediately pitched the idea that we just bathe here instead of going to Asahi Onsen. She was ok with it.
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| After taking a dip, we tried the caramel soft cream. It was delicious |
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| Route 1049 to Sankebetsu Brown Bear Incident site |
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| Sankebetsu Brown Bear Incident site is closed during the winter season |
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| Kotanbetsu Shrine |
After the onsen dip, we tried the soft cream before leaving the Tomamae Roadside Station to visit the Sankebetsu Brown Bear Incident location. Sadly, it was closed so we just drove back to town and visited the Kotanbetsu Shrine instead.
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| Before leaving Tomamae, we made a brief stop near the Candle Rock formation |
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| Nishinbunka Historical Park |
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| Obira Roadside Station |
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| Waiting for sunset |
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| Historical and Cultural Preservation Exhibition Hall |
From there, we drove to Obira to eat dinner at Rest House Rio (レストハウス理尾). However, the restaurant still opens at 5 PM. That means we have to wait about an hour outside the restaurant. To burn time, we made a stop at Nishinbunka Historical Park and then at the Obira Roadside Station. There, we were able to check out the exhibit on the Historical and Cultural Preservation Exhibition Hall located on the second floor of the building. It was very informative and in a way, it would pass as a small museum.
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| Kare Taisho / Curry Taisho |
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| Dinner time! 😄 |
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| Of course, it's curry for dinner 😏 |
We left a little after 5 PM. However, when we got to Rest House Rio (レストハウス理尾), we were disappointed to discover that it was closed for the day so we just drove back to Rumoi City. Since we were all hungry, we chose to eat at Kare Taisho / Curry Taisho in Rumoi City. This is the second time we have had to dine here and just like the first, we were satisfied with what we ordered.
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| Grocery shopping at COOP |
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| KitKat Melting Caramel |
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| KitKat Sachertorte |
Our last stop for the day was COOP to buy groceries. I was happy to see that there were two new flavors of KitKat on the shelves which are the Sachertorte and the Melting Caramel Flavors. It was a great discovery to end the day.
Day 384: November 20, 2022
Sunday – Asahikawa Road Trip
It’s another beautiful day here in Rumoi City, that’s why we didn't waste the opportunity to go on another road trip. For our adventure today, we drove east to revisit Asahikawa City.
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| A foggy drive through Route 233 |
Although it was sunny in Rumoi City, we were surprised to see that it was foggy at the Hokuryu to Numata area of Route 233.
These are the places that we visited in Asahikawa City:
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| Asahiyama Zoo |
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| We ordered ramen from the food court of Asahiyama Zoo |
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| Asahikawa Shrine |
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| AEON Mall Asahikawa West |
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| It's surprising to see Christmas decorations this early |
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| We first went to Kaldi to look for Filipino ingredients |
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| We went to KFC to buy takeout dinner |
Before driving back home, we first went to the AEON Mall Asahikawa West in the Midorimachi district of Asahikawa City to buy a bucket meal chicken from KFC in its food court.
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| Itadakimasu! |
We got home a little after 6 PM. We ate dinner before calling it a day. The KFC meal was so satisfying. We last had one during our visit to Tomakomai on October 8, 2022. It was a perfect meal to end the day.
Overall, we weren’t able to visit any new municipalities in Hokkaido this week, but we did manage to see new destinations in the places we revisited. See you guys on our next adventure.
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