Hokkaido

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北海道 or "northern sea street", is Japans most northern island with Sapporo (winter olympics 1972) as the main capital. The flight from Fukuoka takes about two hours. The domestic flights in Japan are operated on a no-frills-system but unfortunately with normal fares; in this case 250 euro for a round trip. So just coffee or tea, juice and water is for free and the rest you have to purchase.
Bernard and Majella were there to pick me up and after lunch at the airport we set out to Noribetsu, a place known for its sulfur geysers and Japanese onsen.
We stayed in a smallish Ryokan where dinner and breakfast were included. It is served in your room. All Japanese fare so lotsa dishes and since you sometimes don't know what it is you just try it and either love it or hate it. Apart from the geysers and nature trails there is not much else to do.
An extremely dull shopping street with shops that sell all the same carved stuff. But we didn't care since the weather was great, the people in the Ryokan extremely friendly, the food very tasty, the onsen small but inviting and of course just hanging out together was the main goal.

Coming back from our small hike on Saturday afternoon we saw a big black limousine parked in front of the Ryokan and plenty of guys in black suits. After changing into our Yukatas we went down to the onsen. And there was a real life Capo di capi Yakusa. An elderly man completely covered in blueish tattoos. Apart from his head, hands and feet everything else was covered by irezumi 入れ墨 as it's called here. He wasn't all that friendly, grumbling a bit but for us it was quite a sight.
Here is an example of this kind of tattoo.

We also made a very interesting visit to a museum dealing with the indigenous people of Japan called the Ainu. Most Japanese wrongly so think of their country as a mono-ethnic society and the Ainu, having been treated rather badly through processes of assimilation etc. are now down to about 24.000.

On Sunday Majella & Bernard flew back down to Tokyo and I had to fly back to Fukuoka and then take the train to Nagasaki. Alex and Saul were waiting for me at Urakami station and from there we went to have a great Italian dinner with superb coffee and cake for afters.
Sauls treat..!!

If you like Opera, Lieder or Oratoria then here is the site for you... Viva la Voce.
It's a Washington DC based internet radio station and has two Opera performances per day plus lots of other interesting things to listen to. You will also find the listings for the day itself plus a monthly schedule for the Operas.