Part 2
When there isn’t a festival going on, it’s always a good idea to throw one yourself! This year was the 3rd Annual Queens of the Drift Ice (here's what happened last year), a time to showcase Eastern Hokkaido’s famous 流氷 (ryuuhyou), or drift ice. It’s a good reason, and usually the best time of year, for those who live in other parts of the island make the long trek out and explore Abashiri for a weekend. Surprisingly, a record number of people made the half-day journey out to Abashiri in what was probably their first, and last, time to the far east. Unfortunately, due to a sudden Chinook just mere days before the weekend, all of the drift ice retreated back to Siberia and the drift ice cruise we had booked was cancelled. But there was still a lot of winter fun to be had, including snowmobiling on frozen Lake Abashiri, onsening, eating Nepalese food for lunch (nothing like keeping warm with curry!), and visiting Abashiri's Drift Ice museum (it's not quite the same..) or many other museums. That night saw a football-sized team of us, over 55 in total, taking over the Abashiri Beer Gardens for two hours of all-you-can-yakiniku. After eating our body weight's worth in meat, we headed to Tokoro to party the night away in Caroline’s ‘mansion’.