On this Sunday evening, there was a carnival atmosphere, even though it wasn't a holiday, and the entire park-turned-beer-garden was filled with an amazing number of people, all in high energy mode. My theory is that, in a cold region with such a brief period of warm weather, people jump at the chance to spend time outdoors - something I also noticed on a trip to Norway and Sweden. (The joke about Norway is that it has two seasons: winter and July. Sapporo can't be much different.)

Although slightly reluctant to leave the energy of Sapporo, I set off on what was to be the longest cycling day of the trip: 135 km to Mashike up the coast. Rather than take the main highway, I cycled west almost to the port, then east on route 44. Almost immediately, I sighted one of the farms that are Hokkaido's claim to fame, some of them looking like scenes from a century earlier.