Over the past month or so our weekends, weather permitting, have found us visiting various lakes here in south-west Hokkaido. I am not too sure why that is, but I think the beatific calm of these large bodies of water have helped soothe our stressed out souls.
I am going to begin with our most recent visit, to Lake Shikotsu. I haven't been there in almost 12 years even though it is only a leisurely 90 minute drive from our house. The last time I was there, I was quite drunk, so I don't remember too much about it. I do recall participating in an alcohol fueled competition to see how far you could ride a mountain bike into the lake. This seemed like a really funny idea at the time.
Man, was I ever wasted.
So 12 years on, older, sober, with no mountain bike but rather a wife and son in tow (a fair swap I think you'll agree), I returned. The occasion was the Montbell Experience. (Montbell are the homegrown Japanese, 100% organically natural, version of the North Face.) The experience in question was paddling around the lake on a foldable kayak.
And it was great, I will have to say. Serenely great; languidly slipping through the burnished grey water, mists shrouding the hills, and with each easy stroke, a slow sloughing off of the anxious everyday.
It was only with immense reluctance that I turned the kayak around and paddled back to my waiting family who, to be honest, were too busy fishing the lake to the edge of aquatic extinction (Cian caught 7 fish!!), that they never missed me at all.
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