Wednesday, June 16, 2010

Post #419: Lakes, snow-tiped mountains, and pork!

I am thinking of starting every post with Hokkaido is breathtakingly beautiful! There are an amazing number of lakes nested between snow-tipped mountains. This is one of my favorite lakes on this trip because of its temperamental color-changing qualities. On this sunny day, we arrived to find turquoise water in the deep and dark green patches near the shore.

It's hard not to feel that life is worth living if only to see this kind of sights another day.

Of course there is also the grilled pork to live for. Shiretoko is famous for these pork rice bowls besides the lakes. The tiny restaurant we were recommended to go to had seats for about ten. Being so popular, we all had to eat with another ten watching from the door. But it's hard to care when the entire room is permeated with the smell of searing pork fat on the grill in an open kitchen that took up more than half of the room. Much less aggressively seasoned than the color may suggest, these slices were examples of balance, between fat and lean that is. Really quite perfectly salty sweet over rice. It was even more exceptional with a side of fresh daikon salad.

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