Lake Toya and Noboribetsu

We wanted to head back south to explore the area south of Sapporo (Lake Toya and Noboribetsu). We considered a few other stopping off points but decided that since it was Chris' birthday and that most of the stopping points we had visited on the way up, we had a long drive back down, including a failed stop at Asahikawa when Elli missed the turning off the IC and instead a very delightful lunch at a local street fair at the next town south in Taikkawa.

Glad to arrive at Lake Toya to the little house on the lake that we rented and we had a very peaceful and lovely couple of days. They have a nightly firework display on the lake, which is astonishingly good and all fired off a set of boats that move up the lake.

We also experienced our first case of going into a local izakaya and being completely blanked by the owners so that we were forced to leave. (To be fair to them, they were in their 80s, so perhaps they just couldn't be bothered dealing with us.)

We climbed Mount Usu, a live volcano that's erupted 4 times since 1900, on an almost completely deserted footpath covered in bear warning signs with a podcast blasting in lieu of a bear bell (no bears but some excellent views and gassy eruptions from the top).

We tried to go to what is apparently one of Hokkaido's best kaiten sushi restaurants on Chris' birthday to find it was closed for the day. We had a different sushi lunch which was still excellent, and then went back the next day to find that it really is as good as they say including a firework sushi cocktail if it's your birthday. We tried our best to have a blowout but even when we ate as much as we could and chose the fancy things it was still only £13 each. Must try harder.

Then a day in Noboribetsu, which is full of hot springs and volcanic craters. Lots of sulphur, gaseous belching (from the ground) and we had a nice hot foot bath.Read more