Day 12 Hokkaido-- Kushiro

We left the port in a shuttle bus to town. Not a booming metropolis but OK. Their main claim to fame are two national parks (Shitsugen wetlands and Lake Akan), the largest population of Japanese cranes and the fresh fish and crabs. We walked towards the Washo fish market and on the way we found the 100¥ store. Not as good as our dollar stores. The fish market had lots of fish and crabs. You could buy whole fish, fish fillets and also cut up pieces of sashimi. It was right after breakfast so we didn’t feel like eating. Then we walked to the bus station and took a bus to the crane preserve. The bus was very crowded and the ride took 50 minutes through unattractive suburban sprawl and the airport. The preserve was somewhat disappointing, but we did see several cranes. Since the returning city bus was not for 2 hours we did not know what to do. We bumped into our tablemates from NZ who were on a tour and told us their bus was about to leave and there was plenty of room. It was a Japanese tours, which our NZ friends took because all the English tours were sold out. We totally confused the poor Japanese guide who kept counting and recounting the number of people on the bus and always came up with two too many. Finally, she called for help and an English speaking guide came. We tried to explain to him that we were not part of the tour and just wanted a ride back to town, but his English was so bad that he couldn’t understand what we wanted. Finally he gave up and said OK so we managed to get a ride on the tour bus back to the fish market. Now it was lunch time so we (Bo) followed the local protocol – bought a bowl of rice for 100 yen and then picked 5 different kinds of raw seafood (sashimi). It was fresh and delicious. We also sampled some of the famous local crab. When we got back to the ship we had to go through Japanese immigration again in preparation for our visit to Korsakov in Russia.