Kushiro city, Hokkaido Island – Our First Stop on Cruise on August 14, 2014

Kushiro1The harbor and fishing port of Kushiro is inviting us with lots of multi-colored masts on the fishing boats, embankment along the city, never freezing waters make the Kushiro port to be Kushiro3desirable for trading and the fishing industries.

We arrived by bus early in the morning on August 14, 2014. We saw fishermen preparing their boats around the wharf, we heard the sounds of the sea-gulls and the call of the Mom-bird (it’s a sort of crow).

By the way, I noticed this Mom-bird back in Tokyo, near our Prince Tower Hotel. The birds were hiding in the bushes, I heard the only sound “Mom”. I looked around in curiosity: “Who is calling me?” I thought to myself and answered: ” It’s only Larisa? my daughter, can call me in this way.”

“Mom”, “Mom”, “Mom”, was echoed from everywhere. I started to worry: “Where is Larisa?”, “Where is she?” I bugged Janko who was beside me. “I don’t know”, answered he in amazement. “What’s happened?”, “Why are you worrying?”.

“Do you hear the word “Mom”? She is calling me.” I explained to him.

Kushiro2“It seems to be a Mom-bird”, he answered.

“Ah”, I understood this bird fooling me around. It was on one island, Honshu, where Tokyo prefecture was, and now we are on the other island, Hokkaido, in Kushiro.

But the sound of Mom-bird, calling “Mom” was the same.This time she wouldn’t deceive me as I know for sure where my daughter was. I just ignored the bird. Later i told the story about Mom-bird to  Larisa and she asked Gleb : ‘Does my  voice really sound so ugly as that stupid Mom-bird ?” He responded: ‘Of, course, Mother. It does.” So, that is the case.

We dropped by the town hall with the attached green house for the tired people to have a rest.

In the big mall we stopped by the kimono store where there were many volunteers trying the traditional Japanese wear and taking pictures in kimono.. Mostly people did not purchase them, they were expensive 120-140 dollars per piece. The feeling of wearing kimono was different as if you really for some while belong to this fascinating culture and tradition. Here is the photo of that moment in the Kushiro mall. I decided to buy this kimono as a souvenir from Japan. The owners of the store did not have credit card machines, it needed to be paid in cash, in Japanese yens.

This was a dilemma what we will do. At that moment a Japanese gentleman and a Japanese lady who spoke English and worked here, at the same mall, holding the travel agency, came to help. While in waiting I was entertaining myself wearing kimono and watching the different stores’ products around, Janko was taken by those two young people to the one bank, then to the other, ending up in Seven Eleven Store to get foreign currency in yens. What an adventure!

The Kimono was purchaseed and now is decorating one of the rooms of our Calgary modest home.

By this plain example we underline the main character of Japanese people as polite, honorable , ready to come to the immediate help to foreigners who showed interest in their culture. Good for them!

Listen to: “Relaxing Japanese Music”

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