Return to Wakkanai. June 30.

My final Rebun breakfast...

View out the back window of the ryokan, across the street and the sea.

Some views of Kafuka Port...

The ferry that goes both to Rebun and Rishiri Islands. (Not mine.)

The crows in Japan have an idea of who is in charge...it is not us.

The seagulls are not so arrogant.

The cruise back to Wakkanai...

Farewell Rebun.

She was either very happy or very sad to see someone go. Finally a guy came out and waved to her.  

Rishiri Island. The sky was much more clear on this part of the cruise than on the way over...

but the sea was more rough. 

Wakkanai, on the other hand, was very overcast. The lighthouse in the distance is the tallest lighthouse in Hokkaido. 

One of the other ferries headed to Rishiri Island.

I love this seawall.

People who ride on buses. 

New ryokan and dinner...

I took a cab from the ferry terminal to the new ryokan in Wakkanai. I was very tired from the day before. Also, I had not ordered the dinner at the new ryokan, only the breakfast, so I needed someplace to eat. I was too tired to do my usual intense walk around town. On the way to the ryokan the taxi passed a place that I had noticed on my first stay…"Curry Pasta." During that first stay I was not the least bit interested. But now, being tired, having had enough very fine seafood to last me a while and this place being in walking distance, I decided after I settled into the new place, this is where I would eat. 

Praise the heavens, this new ryokan had a chair, a desk and a bed! I didn't have to sit or lie on the floor. I went to the curry pasta establishment. It was very typical Japanese in the sense that it was obviously ran by a person that was obsessed and it wasn't Japanese culture he was obsessed with. He was middle-aged guy, obviously kind-hearted. He didn't speak a lot of English. No pictures on the menu. After some "discussion," he fixed me the signature dish - curry pasta. As you can see, it is a dry curry, not what I expected, served with a smoked German sausage. It is his own spice mix. Delicious and hit the spot. There were other people there. It was obviously a bit of a hang spot. He spent a lot of time watching the weather report. This place was covered in posters of classical music artists, orchestra concerts, etc. By the time I finished everyone else had left. I hazarded a sentence in English, "You are a classical music fan, aren't you"? And thus it began…

He is a classical music fanatic. He has scrapbooks of music articles and reviews. I told him about the Sapporo Bruckner performance. He knows the orchestra and the hall well. He is especially impressed with their horn section. I told him I played the tuba and why I was there. Later, I asked him if he played an instrument. No longer, but…he used to be a tuba player. How out is that? So I told him that I would bring him a CD on the morrow. With that, I parted.