Shikotsu-Toya National Park, Ryokan, and Tourist Traps

This last weekend I took a trip to Noboribetsu's Hell Valley (地獄谷 Jigokudani) and Shikotsu-Toya National Park (支笏洞爺国立公園 Shikotsu Tōya Kokuritsu Kōen). Having a car in Hokkaido makes amazing weekend trips possible. 

The trip began in Noboribetsu, found on the Japanese Ministry of Environment`s list of the top 100 areas of fragrance and scenery! I stayed at Dai-Ichi Takimotokan, the largest spa in Asia. This was by far the most luxurious stay I have ever had at a hotel. 

I greatly enjoyed staying in a Japanese style room for the first time. The tatami mat floor is delicate and it smells very earthy, both refreshing and sort of like a pet store at the same time. While I had been hesitant to book a room without Western style beds, futons turned out to be a lovely experience! It felt like a sleep over, and the staff set them out for us in the evening. I honestly enjoyed them so much, I slept so soundly and comfortably, that I would consider sleeping on a futon back in America.

Hell Valley (地獄谷 Jigokudani) is a 450-meter-diameter mouth of a volcano, which produces 3,000 liters of hot water per minute. The fragrance I mentioned above? That would be the sulfur rotting egg fart smell that seemed initially vile, but ended up growing on me by the end of the trip. If you can't get over that smell, you won't enjoy the hot springs very much, as they contain sulfur too. The hot springs feed the baths at local ryokan, and as the springs boast 11 different types of water, each with different chemical properties that supposedly have different health benefits .

Every year around late August, the Hell Festival takes place here, so demons are a local motif. There are even red and blue beers, which looked cool but tasted like soapy carbonated water.

I enjoyed wearing my first yukata, using the instructions provided by the hotel website:

The main drag in Noboribetsu is full of souvenir shops, and some all-you-can-drink bars at night. One amazing thing about this town is that at any time, you can see the hotel guests walking about in their yukata and sandals!

Dinner was a huge, all-you-can-eat buffet with seriously high quality food, a large selection of fresh seafood, and a huge table of desserts including four kinds of hard-serve ice cream. Breakfast the next morning was also impressive, but I didn't have much room in my stomach after dinner the night before! It's probably best to choose either the dinner OR breakfast buffet.

The next day, I took a cable car/gondola up a rope way to reach the summit of Mt. Usu (有珠山 Usu-zan). This volcano had a massive eruption in 1977, wiping out all the surrounding buildings. People who reside near volcanoes (which accounts for many residents in Japan) have a unique appreciation for the destructive power of nature, and a unique resilience for overcoming that destruction. There was a volcano simulation room and museum, and plenty more tourist traps. My visit coincided with a group of tour buses from the Princess Cruise lines, and I hadn't seen so many white people in awhile!

Here's the crater at the top:

Below is a view of Showa-shinzan (昭和新山), a lava dome that mysteriously emerged from the ground between 1944-1945. A local postman kept notes about the rapid growth of this mountain, which remain the best record of its growth. The Japanese government tried to keep it's emergence secret at first, as it seemed an unlucky omen during wartime. It is listed as one of Japan's "Special Natural Monuments" - there seem to be about a million different lists like this in Japan, presenting every location as superlative.

My next ryokan stay was in Toyako resort town (Tōyako Onsen 洞爺湖温泉), which lies on the shore of Lake Toya (洞爺湖 Tōya-ko). Lake Toya is a caldera lake, formed when land around the volcano collapsed during an eruption. I took a cruise on a castle-themed ferry, and again, encountered many tourists. I saw one lady with skull pants that I had seen earlier that morning at the breakfast buffet. Also, a good bit of advice is that where tourist areas are concerned, sometimes it's better to speak English than Japanese to other tourists. I walked up behind an Asian couple that spoke only English to buy tickets for the ferry (while us white folk purchased tickets using only Japanese), and another Asian man asked us to take his picture and we spoke a bit of Japanese to him before we realized the text on his camera was in Korean. It can be confusing. Anyway, here are some photos from the cruise:

The ferry stopped at Nakano-shima, an island in the middle of the lake, that houses the Tōya Lake Forest Museum, a shrine, some tame deer, and a little ice cream stand. I think it is possible to explore the forested area that is fenced off, but the sign stated that during the deer mating season (Sep-Oct) they can be quite aggressive, so it seemed in our best interest to steer clear.

 I stayed at Kawanami Hotel, a small but affordable place, with excellent meals, and hot baths that aren't as crowded as other places. I enjoyed a relaxing 10pm bath without another soul in sight, and had all three baths to myself! I really recommend visiting the bath right before bed...I have never slept better in my life. And remarkably, every summer, Toyako shoots off fireworks every night about 8:40pm over the lake. If you're as lucky as I am, you can see them right from your window! 

The last leg of the trip was a stop at a sandwich and cheesecake place in Niseko that came recommended by one of my Japanese coworkers called Graubunden. The sandwiches, on soft and delicious French bread, are made with some hard to find ingredients from around the world! I had the ALT (avocado, lettuce, tomato, not assistant language teacher), with chicken, and it came with cheddar cheese and dill pickles, YUM! However, I recommend against the pumpkin pie, which tastes nothing like its American counterpart, and pales in comparison to their other choices: cheesecake, or gigantic slices of layer cake, the likes of which international bakeries have never seen.

If I could do this trip again, I would spent less time visiting tourist traps and more time hiking and exploring off-the-beaten-path locales. I truly enjoyed the ryokan experience and the natural sights!