Day 5 - Abashiri and Shiretoko 05 Feb 2012

When we arrived at Sounkyo yesterday, the sky was already getting dark so did not really get to enjoy the landscape scenery around Sounkyo. This morning after checkout, we were shuttled down the hill by the hotel in an MPV car. It was still early (about 8:25am) when we reached the bus stop, so i took the opportunity to snap many pictures of the scenery. In this snowy landscape, the view is simply beautiful. I would love to stay another day to enjoy the serene scenery but since we already pre-planned our itinerary and booked our onward rail journey, maybe next time. The bus left at 8:40am for Kamikawa JR Station (30 mins away). Its cost 800 yen for the short ride and since this is really a public bus (not a tour bus or coach) there is no special luggage storage space, most travelers just placed their bags on the aisle and we just placed ours right at the back behind our seats since we can only find a seat on the last row.

I like this sort of snow landscape.

The bus arrived at Kamikawa JR Station on time at 9:10am. This is a small train station.

The train will be leaving for Abashiri at 9:42am so we were still early. There are not that many seats within the station so we could only stand around waiting for the train.

The train arrived at Abashiri pretty punctually (at 12:46pm).

The bus stop for the bus heading to the Aurora Drift Ice Ferry Terminal.

Managed to catch the 1pm bus to the ferry terminal. It was just a short 10 mins bus ride.

As shown on the notice pasted on a flip chart in the building, there was no significant drift ice within the nearby sea so the ticketing counter actually asked if we still want to take the ferry out even if there is no drift ice. We decided not to take the ferry since there was no drift ice. so we will have about 1.5 hours to kill time here at the ferry terminal before the pre-reserved free hotel shuttle bus (from Shiretoko Grand Hotel) will arrive here to pick us up. We went up to the restaurant upstairs to take our lunch.

Very interesting green (or was it blue?) curry, isn't it? It was tasty, I like it!

The hotel shuttle bus arrived at about 3:55pm at the same bus stop where we alighted earlier. The bus passed by the Shiretoko-Shari JR Station on its way to the Shiretoko Grand Hotel in Utoro.

Nice room isn't it? The is the most expensive hotel room we paid for in this trip but i guess it is well worth the price considering it is so spacious, on a high floor and overlooking the Utoro bay.

The buffet spread for the dinner was quite good, befitting the price we are paying for a stay in this hotel.

I like the blue ice cream which tasted like soda or something like that.