insights from frontier Japan

‘Soranomori Café’ has opened in the Akanko Onsen hot-spring resort in the city of Kushiro in eastern Hokkaido. Enjoji Atsushi, who runs the Yamaguchi hot-spring guesthouse, has taken over the café in the premises that have been disused for approximately 4 years.　

Eastern Hokkaido's Lake Akan was covered with ice during the winter. Ice crushing work using a sightseeing boat began there on April 16.

On May 21, activity tourism provider Akan Adventure Tourism (Akan Town, Kushiro City) will begin offering "Kamuy Lumina, an Enchanted Night Walk at Lake Akan", a nighttime Lake Akan lakeside forest walk enhanced by lights and video with an Ainu myth theme. A multilingual guide app will heighten convenience for foreign tourists and the hearing impaired.

The "Akan Yukar Utasa Festival" displays the amazingness of the Ainu culture that exists in the Lake Akan area of eastern Hokkaido's Kushiro City. Starting on February 13, it was held for 2 days at the Lake Akan Ainu Kotan settlement. It was held without a physical audience to prevent the spread of novel coronavirus. Performances including prayer ceremonies to the gods and ancient Ainu ritual dances were broadcast online for free.

The movie "Ainu Mosir" focuses on Ainu culture, and was filmed in areas like Kushiro City's Lake Akan Ainu Kotan settlement. It won Best Picture in the International Feature Film category at the "23rd Guanajuato International Film Festival", Mexico's largest film festival.

“Prayers to Kamuy – Kamuy Kooripak,” the first event to pray for an end to covid-19 and express gratitude to medical workers, began in the Akanko Onsen area in Akan-cho, Kushiro City on August 1.