insights from frontier Japan

To commemorate the milestone of 70 years since commercial aircraft service resumed between Haneda and Chitose after WWII, on October 26 Chitose City spearheaded a sightseeing flight service taking off from and landing at the runway of the old Chitose airfield that predates the modern New Chitose Airport. The day was temporarily beset by poor sky conditions including heavy rainfall, but the approximately 40-minute commemoration flight proved to be immense fun for the 93 Chitose parents, children, and other passengers who won the invite drawing, and who had been looking forward to the opportunity.

Elementary school students in Chitose on the Hokkaido northern main island got some hands-on experience in traditional salmon fishing of Japan's indigenous Ainu people in class in mid-October.

Mystical scenery – including sunsets that make the lake surface look like its burning – are enthralling locals and tourists alike as autumn arrives in earnest at Lake Shikotsu (Chitose, central Hokkaido). At just after 5 p.m. on September 30, with Mt. Eniwa (1,320 m) hidden amid the clouds, the blue lake surface was illuminated by the setting sun, turning it vivid shades of orange and red. As the sun gradually set, the light disappeared after approximately 40 minutes.

All Nippon Airways Co., Ltd.’s Airbus A380 (520 seats), the world’s largest double-decker passenger aircraft took-off and landed at New Chitose Airport for the first time on September 19, during a sightseeing flight. The livery of the aircraft, which is approx. 73 m long and 80 m wide, is designed in the image of a sea turtle, and is known fondly as ‘Flying Honu’ (flying sea turtle). Approximately 370 passengers enjoyed the one-and-a-half-hour flight over Hokkaido, while many aircraft enthusiasts gathered at the airport to see it.

Adult Sockeye salmon – which turn a bright crimson color for breeding during the season in which they return up the rivers in autumn – as well as pink salmon, chum salmon and the like, are being displayed at the ‘Salmon Hometown Chitose Aquarium’ in the city of Chitose.

A spacious-windowed café in the suburbs of Central Hokkaido's Chitose City has a wild bird feeder in its garden, and customers can enjoy watching the flying birds while eating and drinking. Hokkaido red squirrels sometimes come from the neighboring forest to try to get at the nuts in the bird feeder.

Work to lay electricity cables underground, which the Ministry of the Environment began in the Shikotsuko Onsen (Lake Shikotsku Hot Spring) district last May, has been completed, improving the scenery by removing visible electricity cables and utility poles.

Mt. Fuppushi (1,102 m), one of the peaks that surround Lake Shikotsu in the city of Chitose in central Hokkaido was blessed with fine weather on March 7, resulting in a clash of the deep blues of the sky and lake surface.

It was revealed on March 4 that the Shikotsuko Youth Hostel in the city of Chitose, which closes at the end of this month, will be purchased by Tsuruga Kanko Kaihatsu (Kushiro), a subsidiary of the major Hokkaido hotelier Tsuruga Holdings (Kushiro). The sales contract will be signed within the month. It is undecided as to whether the building will be reconstructed or refurbished, but the policy is to utilize it as an accommodation facility.

Daiichi-gomu, a long-established rubber boot manufacturer in the city of Otaru has marketed a plastic portable mask case featuring an image of ‘Snow Miku,’ the winter version of Hantsune Miku, the virtual idol singer that originated in Sapporo.