cherry blossoms at their best

5th May

cherry blossoms started to come out in a residential area.

cherry blossoms are a symbol of Japanese.

we feel so good as spring really has come.

11th May

cherry blossoms are at their best at the top of Mt.Mombetsu(Mt.Ooyama:334m).

a white tower is Sky Tower.  you can see the whole city from here.

a lady was taking some pictures by her cell phone.

a wooden house is a cafe which opened in January.

I heard that dishes cooked from local stuffs.

I'll try to have a lunch someday.

cafe's name is " yAmA café "（https://www.facebook.com/yamacafe2014）.

" yAmA " means mountain.

a cherry blossom front has come

winter is over, it's spring now.

spring is late coming in this part of Japan.

many spring flowers have started to come out.

a cherry blossom front has come in Mombetsu.

many people realize the spring as most popular spring flower.

the time for flowering is later than Tokyo(the capital of Japan).

it's more than one month.

the cherry blossoms will be at their best in a few days.

the rising sun

the sun rised in sea of okhotsk.

there were some pieces of drift ice.

the drift ice arrived in 2014

mombetsu met with a blizzard from Sunday to Monday.

snowfall was more than 60cm on Monday morning.

i was very tired to shovel snow for about 6 hours.

the north wind of this low pressure contributed to move drift ice.

Monday, city hall announced the drift ice arrived to Mombetsu in 2014.

this picture was taken at mombetsu park hill today (Tuesday).

cloud and drift ice were same white,

but i coud see drift ice arrived to the coastline of mombetsu.

i met with a fox (Ezo red fox) at park by chance.

japanese name is Kitakitsune.

drift ice is getting closer

i went to mombetsu park hill in the afternoon.

i could see drift ice like thick white line on the horizon.

i thought it was getting closer than before.

yesterday, low pressure went through near mombetsu, and north wind blew.

that's why it was getting closer.

drift ice was about 5km from the coastline of mombetsu.

i could see Garinko-go boat was clusing into drift ice.

i think a lot of tourist  got a thrill of ice-breaking by drills with boat.

city hall hasn't announced that drift ice arrived yet.

becouse drift ice area of sea near mombetsu is not enough.

Garinko-go 2

this orange boat is Garinko-go 2 which is second ice breaking boat for tourist.

the drift ice crusing by this boat is famus as winter activity in Okhotsk.

it has two big silver color drills.

they are used to break thick ice as going into drift ice sea.

this action is the characteristics of this boat.

the reason it is called garinko-go,  because "gari-gari" means the sound of carving ice.

today,  drift ice is about 30km from coastline of mombetsu.

it's too far to reach drift ice zone by garinko-go.

i think a commercial clusing is within about 10km from it's port.

in this cace,  garinko-go cruse around port.

Mombetsu port is one of the big port in Hokkaido.


< General characteristics :Garinko-go 2 >

Maiden: 20  January 1997

Tonnage: 150 G/t

Length: 35.0m

Beam: 7.00m

Engine: Mercedes-Benz  Diesel

Power: 735kw

Speed: 11 knots

Capacity: 195 passengers

the first sight of drift ice in 2014

the mombetsu city hall announced that the first sight of drift ice from mombetsu in 2014.

it means the staff could watch drift ice first at Okhotsk Tower.

not Sky Tower !

Okhotsk Tower is on the sea.

Sky tower is on the top of Mt.Ooyama (Mt.Mombetsu,334m).

when i went to Mombetsu Park hill,  i took this picture.

i could see a white line near the horizon.

it's drift ice.

we are waiting for the drift ice arrive to the coastline in mombetsu !