Yesterday at noon, I arrived at the village of Toro on the edge of Kushiro Shitsugen National Park, a vast area of wetlands in the south east of Hokkaido. Of course, the landlady of Toro Youth Hostel failed to inform me that the hostel would only be open at 4:00 in the afternoon owing to a combination of her inadequate English and my non-existant Japanese. This information was happily volunteered to me by the train station attendant - it was more like a hut than a train station - and he advised me to return two stops back where I could find some observation points overlooking the park.
So, with rucksacks mounted, I made my way back two stops, slowly climbed up the steps from the station, and set out for a short trek to see some views. The trek of a few hundred metres felt more like a few kilometers with all my luggage strapped to me (if only they'd recruited me to the Israeli Army), but if was well worth the effort, presenting panoramic views of the vastness of this ruggedly beautiful landscape.
Having had my fair share of vistas, I made my way to the visitor center back down the hill to take my load off and find something to eat. Up till now, ordering something from a Japanese menu had been quite straight forward with the help of pictures and pointing. Here again was a limited menu which consisted of only four pictures, so I went for the safe option - the potato cakes. I pointed at the picture and lifted two fingers, as if to say I want 2 potato cakes as shown in the photo. I assumed that the higher price listed was for 2 cakes and the lower for 1, so I pointed to the higher price. This clearly caused no end of confusion and resulted in me and the two kiosk ladies repeating ourselves several times with gestures, but clearly not understanding each other one little bit (a bit like the tatoo scene in the film "Dude where's my car"). The grey area was, that one portion consisted of 2 pancakes, which is what they were trying to communicate to me. After a few rounds of Anglo-Japanese exchanges, I finally understood, and we all just started laughing, the 2 ladies continuing for a while afterwards. I tell you this is what travelling is all about. The universal language of laughter is a beautiful thing.
The next morning, after of course checking in to my hostal at the suitable hour the previous day, I got up at 5:30 a.m. to go for a longer trek in the park, binoculars at hand, in the hope of spotting some wildlife. I must admit, I wasn't very hopeful as animals in the wild seem to be all the scarser these days; at least I'd see some nice views. As I walked up through a forested hill to another observation point, nature seemed to be teasing me with the distinctive sound of the woodpecker, which there was no chance of me seeing amongst the trees. As I reached the summit, however, the stunning view made up for it.
All hope was not lost, however, as from a nearby observation tower I managed to spot a surprising large number of eagles and cranes flying in the distance, which was better than nothing I suppose. As I made my way down the hill a couple of hours later, I decided to take a look down a road that lead through the wetlands, as i had a little time before breakfast. That's when it happened! I noticed some bird landing on the side of the road in the distance. As I cautiously approached, all my hopes were realised; not far from me a pair of large cranes were crossing the road, as they do. I didn't realise how much of a thrill I can get from taking a good photo of wildlife.
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