Kushiro will be the last stop on next year’s painting tour of Hokkaido and we spent the last night here on this year’s research trip (shitami or 下見 in Japanese).

The city has a beautiful harbour with lots of working fishing boats, great robatayaki restaurants and a grand hotel that

should satisfy our guests.  But the highlight of this part of Hokkaido on the south-east coast are the 28,000 hectare wetlands and the chance to see Japan’s emblematic red-crested cranes.

We left Kushiro on Friday afternoon on JAL (their logo is the crane) for Tokyo’s Haneda Airport and a weekend of rain while we put the finishing plans in place for this year’s painting tour, which begins tomorrow evening, Monday, October 30.

New blogs  will begin on Tuesday.