July, 2009: Souya Misaki, Wakkanai, Hokkaido

This is it. If you are travelling north in Japan, this is the furthest you will get. Any further, and you will be in the sea. And judging by the rain, the wind (one guy has the whole plastic part of his umbrella blown away, leaving the 'skeleton) and the temperature, it wouldn't be a pleasant little dip.

Surprising, the monument that mark this northernmost point wasn't really grand. Beside it, there was a statue of Mamiya Rinzou, an explorer.

The only other buildings around the cape were a Jinja shrine, some restaurants, souvenir shops and a public toilet. Of course, each of these establishments proudly proclaim themselves as the northernmost....
Shrine.....

restaurant....

souvenir shop.....
Although the toilet did not claim as such, I guess other than pissing right into the sea, it would have to be the northernmost spot in Japan to do one's pissing. And did I do the pissing? Mochiron, for obvious symbolic reason....
Across the road from the northernmost-point monuments is a little hill where you can find more monuments. But this time round, monuments for world peace. Further down the road is a restaurant in a wind mill (making me feel like Don Quixote) which dishes out the supposedly-famous Souya Misaki Black Bull beef. When I was there, sheltering from the rain, drying my windbreaker and eating my lunch, the restaurant was playing a enka-style song about Souya Misaki. And it was looping on and on and on, such that every 2 minutes or so, the singer was going "....Souuuya...Miiiisaaaaaki...."
The visitor shelter next to the bus-stop has a little notebook for visitors to note down their thoughts about their visit. It seems quite a number of visitors come here as some sort of pilgremage.
There are those who came by walking all the way from some other part of Hokkaido, others who did the trip entirely on a trusty bicycle, and some more who did it to complete their Easternmost+Westernmost+Southernmost+Northernmost-points-of-Japan grand slam. Surprisely, quite a number of Hong-Kongers made their way here.