Nagayama 14-jo

Aha! I knew there had to be one somewhere! A true, proper squat toilet. Were we in a National Park far from the visitor's centres and city centres? Yes, but still....I've seen the top-of-the-line Toto Washlet toilets on the side of random rural-as-heck roads. I was beginning to think Japan had removed all of the traditional squat style. It was like seeing a unicorn.

But, believe it or not, we did more than find toilets.

We tooled around Sapporo, which was a city with sidewalks and sunny skies. Nothing particularly interesting about the city itself other than it hosted the Winter Olympics some time ago and is the site of the famous Japanese Sapporo beer brewery.

The sites on Hokkaido island are more natural in their wonder. We sought out the infamous lavender fields in the Fukano area northeast of Sapporo with our sweet teeny tiny Toyota Vitz--fits approximately 2 normal size humans and their purses or satchel. Ta-da!

We suspect that this year was not a stellar year for whatever weather the lavender fields needed because they were, um, underwhelming. We kept looking at the guide books and then up to the actual fields trying to make the images reconcile. They did not. The fields in Washington State that I got to see were much more impressive than what we saw and granted what I saw in Washington looked like the Furano guide book pictures so we think the flowers/plants weren't doing so hot. We were there in peak season...supposedly.

We quickly abandoned our "lavender" tour since there wasn't much to tour and we headed to Daisetsuzan National Park. This park is one of Japan's most revered national treasures with active volcanos, high alpine meadows and snow covered peaks. Even more exciting was that the Hokkaido brown bear (same species as a North American brown bear--grizzly) lives in the Park! So, you're telling me we can walk to the caldera of an active volcano and maybe see bears?!!? SOLD! Jonathan I think was less excited given his enjoyment of sweating and while Hokkaido is higher elevation and cooler than the other Japanese archipelago islands, it still wasn't dry and cool.

We hiked into the park, which was conveniently and nicely free, enjoying the otherworldly vistas created by the toxic eruptions from the volcano. The trail was well marked up to the sulphur field. Then, it seemed to end and we realized we were dead in the caldera with plumes of hot steam, stinking strongly of sulphur, all around us. The ground was strangely and freakily squishy. The smell was suffocating when the wind would push the air toward us. Then, new plumes would pop up and you'd be gagging on the rotten eggs regardless of the wind. Jonathan quickly decided he was done with it all. There was no way he was going to abide both sweating AND shit smells no matter the mountain views. With my partner tapping out and being unsure if the trail continued, we called it quits and made our way back. We were the only people in the caldera and the dense clouds cleared as we were in there avoiding the stench providing some amazing views.Read more