Toya Day 68: The Northernmost Point in Japan

This was it. Wakkanai. The place we’d been anticipating for so long, and it had now all come to fruition. The place we’d come to see – the Northernmost point at Cape Soya – was only hours off.

The day was a cold one – quite in line with the weather reports from the internet. We headed to JR Wakkanai Station, where the bus terminal to Cape Soya is located, and we ate breakfast in the bakery in the station – some very nice varieties of bread and some wonderful coffee – nice, heavy food for the cold of the day!

The completely frozen road just outside our hotel!

The bus to Cape Soya arrived, and we boarded it with anticipation. The bus goes along the coast of the very cold-looking Sea of Okhotsk, and past several beaches that you really wouldn’t want to sunbathe on! It was a long, forty-minute wait to reach the Cape, but it was exciting.

Still better than Blackpool, though, I think 😉

We arrived just past midday. The bus stop is just next to the northernmost point monument, so we headed over immediately.

It was a very satisfying feeling. At 12:25PM Japan Standard Time on the 24th of November 2012, I was the Northernmost person in Japan.

Me and Brendan as the Northernmost people in Japan, stood on the Cape Soya Monument in Soyamisaki!

One could even see the Sakhalin Islands from the Cape – these are disputed territory between Japan and Russia, and the weather needs to be clear to see them. It was good to be able to do so, especially as the weather took a rapid turn for the worse! The snow picked up along with the wind, and the temperature according to a gauge on the souvenir shop was -11°! It was very cold in Soyamisaki.

The distant, disputed Sakhalins.

We began searching for a cafe, but to no avail. Much of Soyamisaki was closed for whatever reason, with only the gift shop being open. So we headed in and loaded up on Northernmost souvenirs 😉

The main street in Soyamisaki – a very bleak place!

We then headed up the hill to the observation point, from where you could see the entire town as well as the Monument to Peace – commemorating a Korean Airlines Plane which was accidentally shot down over disputed Soviet Airspace – essentially 300 people killed for political stupidity.

The view over the town from the Observation Point – Soyamisaki is a fishing port, and as such has a large dock.

Anyway, the bus back to Wakkanai wasn’t due for a while, so we flicked through the visitor books in the bus shelter – not many foreigners seem to come here, with perhaps five or six entries in English. We wrote our own messages, of course, mine wishing luck to those that had come in November. It really was very cold!

The Monument to Peace.

On our return to Wakkanai we headed into a department store for some quick shopping and a bite to eat, and then we headed to our next Wakkanai Adventure – getting lost on the Russo-Japanese Industrial Docks!

We were trying to find something called the Riyu Harbour Onsen, and our instructions said to follow straight down the docks. So we did. Literally. We ended up on a dark, kilometer-long wharf which, no joking, was the kind of place that hostage exchanges take place 😉 The Onsen was visible on the other side of the harbour, and it was literally less than 50 meters away, but we couldn’t reach it! We had to walk all the way back around the dark, bleak docks to get to it.

It was worth it though. It was a truly wonderful Onsen – one of the best I’ve been to. The water was slightly yellow in colour and had a slight oily texture to it. The baths were spacious and luxurious, and outdoor baths in the snow are so fantastic it’s untrue. It also gave me my first taste of a coldwater bath – two attempts to enter failed me, but the third, with Brendan’s encouragement, gave me an intensely wonderful Onsen experience. The coldwater bath is made all the better by heading to a hot Onsen afterwards, where a tingling sensation erupts across your body as your pores expand. I used ‘Shiro-tastic’ to describe the Yakiniku place yesterday – that sums up this as well.

Our final act in Wakkanai was to get dinner. We went to a small Iizakaya specialising in seafood which was recommended on Wikitravel. Of course, the menu was all in Japanese, and there were no pictures to speak of! A kind man from the next table offered a little help – recommending clams and fried tofu – both of which were delicious, and then we made a game out of the rest of the meal 🙂

Basically, I ran my finger across the menu, and Brendan said when to stop. It actually worked out rather well – we ended up with some lovely cracker-esque things, some fried chicken, some rolled omelettes, and – best of all – a whole fried squid! All of it was quite delicious, and it was a very enjoyable adventure of a meal. I also got a lemon sorbet after simply asking for ‘dessert’, which was also tasty!

Wakkanai had been great, but we had an early train in the morning, so we then headed back to our hotel and, in an odd moment of being sensible, headed to bed 🙂