One story I must tell about my first experience in Hokkaido which made me think positive about the whole place. My friend Naru and I arrived into Hakodate via ferry from Aomori (located at the northern tip of Honshu, which is the main island where most of the major cities are situated: Tokyo, Osaka, Nagoya, Kobe, etc.) and after riding a while stopped at local yakitori restaurant, and by then it was getting a bit dark. We stopped to ask a guy who was coming out of this yakitori (grilled chicken/vegetables on a skewer) place for directions to a campsite located nearby. The guy convinced us to go in and then decided to go back inside after he found out I was a foreigner, as I kept my helmet on during my friend's conversation with this gentleman (pictured to the right of me, below).

  

But the thing which really impressed me regarding the hospitality was the next day, when the master's wife brought us a delicious breakfast! I felt so happy to have been a part of this great hospitality, to know it existed in Japan (my guess is that it does in every country, but it was my first experience to been privy to it in Japan), that I washed all his dishes from what was left the previous night and had my mom send him a letter afterwards thanking him and his wife.

  

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