Lavender Farms

Hokkaido is famous for its lavender farms, and we set out to view them since this was the season (late July) when they were most in bloom. In fact we found three, and I'll divide my photos among two posts since the fields of flowers (not just lavender) were so artistic and photogenic. They drew big crowds (we were there on a weekend) and selfie-takers were abundant.

Manabe Garden

Manabe Garden, the second garden we visited this day, is the first conifer garden in Japan. It is large and impressively well groomed, with remarkable diversity of color and structure within this large group of plants.

Shichiku Garden

Hokkaido is famous for its flower gardens and farms, and we visited several. The first was Shichiku Garden in Obihiro, founded many years ago by a "flower-blooming grandma", now 83 years old. The garden is very colorful, but somewhat untidy and overgrown. In that respect it's reminiscent of Monet's garden at Giverny.

Bear Research Center

Near the Sahoro Resort Hotel is Bear Mountain, with its Bear Research Center. This Center is devoted to the study, care, and conservation of Hokkaido brown bears, which are related to Siberian brown bears and grizzlies. One can view the bears from an overhead walkway and from a glass enclosure as they enjoy a pool. They're very large!

Tokachi Sahoro Resort

After the Ainu Museum we drove to our next hotel, the Tokachi Sahoro Resort. There's both a regular hotel, at which we stayed, and (somewhat to our surprise) a Club Med. This is a skiing and snowboarding area during the winter. In summer, it was pleasant to walk the scenic, forested grounds.

Ainu Museum Displays

The artistic crafts on display in the performance hall were even more in evidence in the adjoining museum, where they were shown as used in everyday life.

Ainu Performance Hall Decorations

Once the singing and dancing had ended and the performers left the hall, we were free to examine the artifacts and decorations on the walls and ceiling, which portrayed the impressive craftsmanship of traditional Ainu life.

Ainu Museum

After finding our hotel and getting dinner and a good sleep, we spent most of the next day at the Ainu Museum Poroto Kotan, Shiraoi District in Hokkaido Prefecture. A formidable title for an engaging and interesting folk museum! We were greeted by this impressive statue, probably about 30 feet tall, of an Ainu elder.

We were just in time for a lively presentation by this fellow, accompanied by folk dancing and singing by his colleagues. The program was in Japanese, with translation into Chinese (there were many Chinese tourists throughout our Japan trip), but we got the gist thanks to Haruko, our daughter-in-law's mother, who whispered explanations. 

Monsters on Hokkaido

Virtually the first thing we noticed after arriving at the Noboribetsu train station in Hokkaido was this status of a demon on the edge of the parking lot. The second statue was at the entry drive of our hotel at Noboribetsu Hot Springs. A search of Google and Wikipedia reveals that they are called "Oni", and are found throughout traditional Japanese folklore, not just in Hokkaido.