Toya

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Toya Shikotsu National park

Laurie: Shoko from Supporo drove us to Lake Shikotsu (about a 40 minute drive as she lives on the south side of Supporo) where we had lunch at a beautiful onsen on the shores of the lake. It was just what I was looking for. An onsen based on a natural hot spring with a rotemburo, an outdoor natural rock pool and it looked out over the lake. We spent a good hour there relaxing and preening. We stayed at the youth hostel that night where we had this amazing grilled dinner and we met a Japanese man who is an expert on pufferfish.

The next day, Friday, was a disaster (relatively speaking). Pouring with rain so no go with a walk to the local mountain top. We were given the wrong times by 2 people (they read the weekend timetable but it was a Friday!) so we had to wait another 2 hours. Lucky we found a nice warm coffee shop with internet and a great host. Then when we got to the station we got the wrong information about the trains so we went up and down platforms trying to work out which train to get. THis might have been due to our lack of Japanese. Anyway we eventually got to Toya at 6ish. A whole day just to go about 50 k. It was a miserable day anyway. Taking the bus to the youth hostel there we met a young Korean woman, Sohyon. We chatted for ages; she is reassessing her direction and thought maybe we had worked out ours ... I had to say that I was travelling to reassess career direction as well again age 50 -- (just in case you are wondering, no conclusions yet!) She also chatted with Kym about pop music and put some of her Korean pop on his Ipod so he was happy.

Saturday: Lynsey, an English woman we had met in Tokyo, gave us the contact for Shiro, a friend of hers in Toya. He was fantastic and took us around Toya to the volcano sites and the museum and the lake. It is a very beautiful area though a touch scary. Mt Usu erupted in 2000 and they have left the damaged buildings where they were to show the power of the volcanos. Shiro was shocked that we did not have active volcanos in Australia. We were shocked that he works so often on the weekend; he is a banker so perhaps this time is more full-on than normal (but we suspect he often works this hard).

The mountain near the youth hostel/hotel was still steaming, and then we went to where the land was uplifted 80m. It was hard to understand how different it was; but it had been a soya bean farm. Alas, no longer! We had corn to eat - both roasted and raw. Both were oishi! and the local mineral water was great! Then we went to a wonderful restaurant overlooking the lake; elegant and food was great. Racing for the train, off to Hakadate, life of travellers. THANK YOU SHIRO!

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