Livin' the McDream: My Parents' Visit - Part 6

Another day, another adventure! Today I drove my parents north into the Shimokita Peninsula, also known to many as The Hatchet. It was an all day adventure with lots of time in the car and a few stops along the way. We searched the beach for coveted glass fishing floats, got a view from above, soaked our feet in a natural hot spring, checked out some cool rock formations and saw a couple wild monkeys, all in all a pretty neat day.

Our drive took us about 360 km (225 miles) and without stops is about an 8 1/2 hour drive, yeah, it's slow and was definitely a full day. There's a lot of winding mountain roads.

Mom took a picture of the stop sign
and child crossing sign.

Road to the beach where we stopped.

Our first stop was at the beach to look for treasures. I frequently wander looking for glass fishing floats that have washed up. The beaches here are covered in trash, tons of plastic and glass. The fishing floats were used to hold up the ends of fishing nets, sometimes they broke loose and were set free into the waves of the ocean. Eventually some make their way to the beach. Not very many fishermen use the glass floats anymore, plastic floats have replaced them, but they do still occasionally wash up one the beaches. We did not find a float today, which isn't unusual at all. I've been pretty dedicated to searching over the past year, spending a couple hundred hours walking the beaches and have found 17. I'm ecstatic about that number and I feel like I've earned every single one. Still hope I'll get lucky some day and find a whole pile of them tangled up in a net, haha.

Our next stop was the Mount Kamabuse Observatory just outside of Mutsu.

Mom thought these man made walls all along the roads in
the mountains were interesting. They have built in drainage
pipes everywhere too. This is pretty common along most
mountain roads in northern Japan.

Looking northwest from the observatory toward Lake Usori.

View east toward Mutsu. Can see the entire "back" of
The Hatchet, Pacific Ocean and Mutsu Bay.

These little bugs were everywhere on the observatory. Gross.

Map showing some of the major sites
on the east side of Shimokita Peninsula.

From the observatory we drove to Lake Usori. It's a stinky drive, the hot springs in the area smell like sulfur. The lake is right by Osorezan which is a famous Buddhist temple area. We didn't stop at the temple area but did check out the lake. The water is a beautiful light blue color and very clear.

I think I read that these guys protect the entrance of Osorezan.

Mom on the bridge at Lake Usori.

Yagen Valley was the next stop on our drive though the peninsula. We stopped at a little onsen area to soak our feet in the foot bath. Onsens are hot springs and there are thousands of them in Japan since it's a volcanic island. Probably 99% of onsens are meant for whole body naked soaking (no clothing or bathing suits allowed + a bunch of other etiquette), but there are also some scattered around the country meant just for feet.

Feeling relaxed from our foot soak we headed toward Oma, the northern most point of Japan's main island, Honshu. We passed through lots of little fishing villages and enjoyed some scenic coastline.

Monkey! Japanese macaques (snow monkeys) are the most northern living monkeys in the world, it's fun to see them in the wild!

Hotokegaura Cliffs, beautiful rocks along the coast.

Do not feed the wild monkeys!

Definitely don't want to drive off the edge of the road...

More monkeys!

Funny bathroom at a remote, scenic overlook parking lot.

Blue means go for the unattended stretch of
one lane road.

Another version of a countdown traffic signal.

Whale island in Wakinosawa.

After a long day of adventuring we met Keenan for sushi at Kappa Sushi. It's a conveyer belt sushi restaurant. As things went by our table we could just grab whatever we wanted. If we wanted something specific, such as more duck pastrami, we could order on a touchscreen and it would be delivered to us on a train within minutes! And it's cheap! Around $1-2 for each plate. It's not our favorite sushi place, but it's fun and fast!

And yes, Mom and Dad tried a few of the raw fish items too.