Dec 2022
Travelling or touring Hokkaido is quite different from touring the other parts of Japan.
Hokkaido was only developed quite late - within the last 200 years. At which point, western advisers (consultants?) helped to plan the towns. Which is why if you go to cities like Sapporo and Asahikawa, you will find that the streets and avenues are laid out in a grid pattern, and the cities have a "North American" flavour to them. And the roads are quite well planned.
Whereas the roads in, say, Tokyo, or Kyoto are often very "organic" - roads were built over customary paths and trails created by people and carts taking the most convenient routes, buildings sprout where they will, and roads intersect to create junctions and mega-junctions.
 |
| Narrow Tokyo street. |
