Cape Notoro, Hokkaido: Cow Spotting // 能取岬, 北海道

I love taking photos and tend to capture them in RAW format only. For me, part of the fun and challenge in photography is processing the images (albeit digitally). Only problem is that it takes me ages to do so as I have to sieve through the files and label them properly before I start editing them. I’m not sure which part of this process is more time-consuming… often, in my bid to name the photos correctly, I end up surfing the Internet and learning new things about the place, food, culture, etc. – which is great – I just wish I have more time to do this!

I was going through some photos that my mum had taken with her camera during our family vacation last August in Japan where we spent most our time in Hokkaido, and was reminded of an endearing image of a cow that I had photographed.

Even though it was almost mid-day when we arrived at Cape Notoro 能取岬 in Abashiri 網走, it felt like it was still early in the morning as it was misty and very peaceful. It seemed a little surreal and almost too picture-perfect to be true: On one side, there were horses and cows grazing idly with green rolling hills in the background. The other side, the expansive Okhotsk Sea that was shrouded in mist and seemed to bear untold secrets. Here’s a photo of my folks – with my mum trying to keep dry under a flimsy raincoat – and you can just about see the water horizon in the distance. I wasn’t sure if Cape Notoro is a popular tourist spot in Hokkaido, especially since several scenes in a Chinese movie “非诚勿扰” (If you are the one) were shot here. The Japan National Tourism Organisation had highlighted Cape Notoro in a “pilgrimage” to the movie and apparently the number of Chinese visitors increased by 20% after the movie was screened in 2008. Here’s a snippet (go to the 6.30 mark) of what Cape Notoro feels like – there are no English subtitles but some things don’t need to be put down in words to get its meaning : )

I wanted to stop by at Cape Notoro anyway as I thought that it’d be cool to see the Shiretoko mountain range from afar. But because it was so misty, we couldn’t actually spot the mountains, which didn’t bother us. Maybe because it was drizzling, hence there weren’t many visitors when we arrived – just us and another car. Which made it even nicer as we got to enjoy all that space, tranquility and beauty to ourselves for a few precious minutes!Here’s a dipytch featuring the photo of the cow I took up close and another that my mum took of me as I tried to get friendly with the cattle : )