“Everything good, everything magical happens between the months of June and August.” -Jenny Han, (The Summer I Turned Pretty)
Hokkaido, one of the four major islands of Japan, is widely known for its snowfall and winter festivals. However we do have summer in Hokkaido. It is short lived from July to August but the temperature is high enough to leave you sweating. Less hot than other parts of Japan, Hokkaido has summer of its own kind.
This year as well, to bask ourselves in short summer, HUISA organized summer trip to Shimamui beach, Nikka Whisky Distillery and Cape Kamui.
On 14th July, along with 150 international students and their families, we set our trip to these three beautiful destinations. The weather was perfect and our students got wonderful chance to see the majestic view of Hokkaido during the trip.
Our first destination was Shimamui beach. Shimamui means “Rocky inlet” in Ainu language. It is located at the western end of Hokkaido. Less known to international travelers, this place offers gorgeous shade of blue water and rocky beach. As we descended to the beach below through a moderately constructed tunnel, we got to see a different world. Words were not enough to describe the majestic view one could see there.
The second destination was Nikka Whisky Distillery located near to Yoichi station. The history of Nikka Whisky Distillery started with Mr. Masataka Takutsuru, who was “Father of Whisky” in Japan, as well as the pioneer of Nikka Whisky brand in Japan. We could understand the deep history and well-presented story of the founder and his wife. Not only that we could see the whisky-making process too. After completion of the trip, our participants got inside the tasting room where they could taste different products of Nikka distillery including whisky, wine, scotch, and apple juices.
After Nikka Whisky Distillery, we traveled to Cape Kamui / Kamui Misaki. Kamui means a god in Ainu language. Cape Kamui is a cape with steep cliff jutting out into the Sea of Japan from Shakotan Peninsula in Hokkaido, and is one of 3 major tourist attractions together with Cape Ogorn and Shimamui Coast in the Shakotan Peninsula. The distance is around 1.5 km away from a traffic gate along National Route to the end of a road. Cape Kamui has been very popular as a place to enjoy the breathtaking blue oceanic view. Most of the students managed to walk till the end of the road enjoying the sunshine and cool breeze.
Through this trip, we hope international students were able to make good summer memories. A lot of participants were exchange students, summer school students, who were in Hokudai for less than a month. We hope they had good time with their friends and family in this trip.
Just a day trip and our participants managed to mark three different beautiful territories in Hokkaido. Thank you so much for joining and making this trip successful.
We hope to see you soon again in our upcoming events. Till then stay blessed!! 🙂
