{"id":3630,"date":"2009-09-27T20:17:45","date_gmt":"2009-09-28T00:17:45","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/?p=3630"},"modified":"2009-09-27T20:17:45","modified_gmt":"2009-09-28T00:17:45","slug":"train-ride-through-hokkaido","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/2009\/09\/27\/train-ride-through-hokkaido\/","title":{"rendered":"Train Ride through Hokkaido"},"content":{"rendered":"

(Sept 10) Views from a train, cornfields and fast food.<\/p>\n

Hokkaido is sometimes compared to the American West, and it does present similar views of flat, open farmland stretching out into the distance with mountains in the background.<\/p>\n


\n\"High<\/p>\n

To make the comparison even more tempting, the places have a similar history of being settled in the 19th century, to the great annoyance of the original inhabitants.<\/p>\n

Still the comparison should not be taken too far. Hokkaido is a wet country, drenched by heavy summer rains and crossed by many rivers, some deep and some fast-moving. The farmland was carved out of dense forests, not prairies. <\/p>\n

\"Mountain<\/p>\n

Numerous cornfields testify to the influence of those 19th century American agricultural advisers. <\/p>\n

\"Cornfields\"<\/p>\n

Some of the cornfields are ringed by a picket line of scarecrows. (Unfortunately they went by too fast for me to get a picture.) I can easily believe the scarecrows are necessary. Hokkaido is full of the biggest, meanest-looking crows you ever saw, and the ones in the cities and towns seem totally unafraid of humans.<\/p>\n

\"Evil<\/p>\n

Sukiya is the name of a chain of fast-food restaurants. They have been called the “McDonalds of Japan.”<\/p>\n

\"Sukiya\"<\/p>\n

They specialize in cheap, fast donburi<\/em> (rice bowls with various toppings) which can be ordered in a setto<\/em> (value meal) with your choice of miso soup, pickled vegetables and\/or a raw egg. Conveniently they have an English menu so you can avoid ordering the raw egg if you don’t want it.<\/p>\n

All posts from this trip.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

(Sept 10) Views from a train, cornfields and fast food. Hokkaido is sometimes compared to the American West, and it does present similar views of flat, open farmland stretching out… Read more »<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[13,174],"tags":[308],"class_list":["post-3630","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-japan-vacation","category-photos","tag-hokkaido-trip"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3630"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3641,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3630\/revisions\/3641"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3630"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3630"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bugfox.net\/fun\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3630"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}