Hokkaido – the ‘new’ or ‘northern territories’ – was largely uninhabited by Japanese until the late 17th century and was annexed by Japan becoming an official ‘region’ about 150 years ago. It is the second largest island in Japan, about two thirds the size of England, with a population of 5 million, and is just off the Siberian peninsula – winters are long and hard with temperatures as low as minus 40 degrees Celsius. Internal migration has seen a move from the countryside to the cities and of younger people to the capital Sapporo. Asahikawa is the second largest city but the population has been declining, with the city centre being hit additionally by a shift of shopping to superstores in the suburbs.
From the station running north is ‘Kaimono Koen’, literally ‘shopping park’, a wide pedestrian only street – supposedly the first major vehicle-free zone in Japan – formerly a bustling area with major and minor shops, restaurants and bars on both sides and in nearby streets. Now it’s possible to walk from the station end to the far end almost entirely going through car parks on the sites of demolished buildings. Coronavirus was the killer blow for many shops.

Bars, izakaya, ‘snack’(Japanese final drinking places with chatty but generally old waitresses) and a few but exceptionally good western restaurants (especially Kimihiro, Italian, and Honnete, French) are now scattered. A few narrow streets with tiny charismatic bars remain but the winters have driven many into large tower blocks.

I often use colour film in the iiig but I had a couple of rolls of expired Delta 400 I wanted to use – not my favourite film because it is less forgiving of sunny 16 errors and I prefer the texture of traditional grain films. It was developed in a divided developer, D2D and, to my relief, there were no material exposure errors. I used the Sony for the night-time colour images, setting the aperture to f4, exposure to around 1/30, ASA to 400 and the colour for in-camera jpgs to neutral, to compare to earlier use of the iiig in articles I-IV. Necessarily depth of field is limited and this seems more obvious on the Sony images compared to earlier iiig colour film images. On balance I am pleased with the results from the Sony but not so much so that the Leica will become a shelf queen.
This time I used the iiig for dusk and daytime shots and the Sony for the night shots. For some scenes I took a daytime and a night-time shot – a few colourful lights and darkness hiding the less attractive aspects make a huge difference. Typically, although mid-April, temperatures had fallen to near zero and there was slight snow falling as I set out in the evening.










Footnote: the Leica caught a bad cold on this trip and will have to go to the doctors for surgery, so she’ll be away for a while.
Walter Jordan
Dentist
That’s what the sign says, at least.
Thanks Martin, see my answer to Christopher.
“Zahnarzt” means dentist in German – would be interesting to know what a German-sounding dentist is doing in Asahikawa…
Thanks Christoph. See my answer to Christopher.
“zahnarzt” = dentist
I suspect there may not be a German dentist behind the locked door!
Thanks Christopher. Yes the sign is clearly just a piece of memorabilia or junk used for decoration. Checks suggest there is no person of that name residing in Asahikawa – and a dentist would surely advertise. So the question remains – I’ll try a neighbouring door one day, I suspect they are connected.
MKes me want to go drinking there!
Another enjoyable one and with your trademark glow
Thanks Ibraar. I didn’t realise I had a trademark glow …. dirty lens maybe!
the glow from the signs and globes at night – you capture them perfectly and gives your images an instant recognisability
Thanks again Ibraar.
Another fantastic entry in your series. I really hope you’d consider collecting these into a photobook, this is first-rate material.
Don, thanks, your comments are much appreciated.
I have thoroughly enjoyed your images and words from your Japanese drinking areas. A fabulous picture is being built in my mind of the whole story. A brilliant journey, and with your wonderful images we get to go along also. Thank you for sharing.
Thanks Dean, but you’ll have to buy me a drink if you come along!
Geoff, no problems at all, but you’ll need to do the ordering 😄😂.
It’s simple, just say “すみません” to get the water/waitresses attention then “一本の高級赤ワインお願いします!”
Where did you get the half case for your leica? I have a Leica iiif that it would look great on.
Mr Zhou, ebay. No complaints at all though the M cases are rather tight.