insights from frontier Japan

Dawn begins to break in the eastern sky. As the light pierces the dark scenery below, slowly the colors emerge. Tsubetsu Pass, on the border between the Kushiro and Okhotsk regions, is a magnificent point from which to view Lake Kussharo. It is possible to view the lake covered with a sea of clouds, or the keyhole shaped Wakoto Peninsula, Nakajima and the surrounding mountains.

We talked to Yamagami Yuichiro (37) – managing director of Yamagami Mokko, a furniture maker in the town of Tsubetsu in the Okhotsk region of eastern Hokkaido – as he reflects on what was involved in the making of 5,400 wooden medal cases to be presented to athletes at the Tokyo Olympics.

‘Chimikepp’, a restaurant in the Chimikepp Hotel accommodation facility in the town of Tsubetsu in eastern Hokkaido, which acquired a 1-star rating in the ‘Michelin Guide Hokkaido 2017 Special Edition’ ranking book, has been selected as the only Hokkaido restaurant among 10 from around Japan in 2021, by three gourmets with extensive knowledge of cuisine throughout the world.

Sakota Takashi (44) and Sakota Satoru (36) are brothers and producers of "Tsubetsu Wagyu" in Okhotsk region's Tsubetsu Town. They won the top prize at a national competition over black hair wagyu meat quality: the Minister of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries Award.

Yamagami Mokko, a furniture manufacturer in eastern Hokkaido’s Tsubetsu Town, dispatched 5,000 medal cases for the Tokyo Olympic/Paralympic Games to the Games Organizing Committee (Tokyo) on July 24.

Comet NEOWISE, discovered in late March this year, was visible to the naked eye above eastern Hokkaido’s Tsubetsu Pass in the early hours of July 10. It was shining dimply with the brightness of a first-class star. The comet was discovered by the Near-Earth Object Wide-field Explorer (NEOWISE) of the U.S. National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). It approached the sun on July 4 and showed signs of activity.