Hokkaido 2015 Day 3: Off to Lake Toya

Here is a summary of our journey. In order to get to Lake Toya from Noboribetsu, we took the Limited Express Hokuto to Toya Station. From there, which was the other side of the mountain from Lake Toya, we had to take a bus to Higashimachi via Toyako Bus terminal. Finally from Higashimachi, we had to walk a little to get to our hotel, the Kawanami.

Since the bus that goes to Higashimachi doesn’t come often (most of the buses stop at Toyako Bus Terminal and don’t continue to Higashimachi), we had about 45 minutes wait at the Toya Station. The station was located only about two or three blocks from the shoreline, so we decided to take a walk to the beach to kill some time.

We passed by little houses near the beach… all those houses have planters with flowers… it’s like a tiny garden for each house. And of course, Aina couldn’t get enough of it. And finding soooo many dandelions along the shore totally made her day. She didn’t know that she’ll get to see a whole field of dandelions tomorrow.

 

The route going to the Lake Toya required the bus to drive up the mountain through a winding road. I was amazed on how the bus driver maneuvered around the tight turns on the steep inclines… it was a bit nerve-wrecking. But then, once we got over the peak, it was all worth it…  On the other side of the mountain, there was a deep blue lake surrounded with lush greenery, with an uninhabited island in the middle. That’s Lake Toya.

 

 

The hotel Kawanami was only a short walk away from the bus stop. Right next to the hotel, there was a konbini, so it was very convenient. We did some shopping and got our dinner there, before going to the room.

When we came back to the hotel, there were a few busses parked in front. It turned out that most of the rooms in the hotel had been booked for a company outing tonight. So, we thought, the hotel will be crowded. But surprisingly, the hotel remained quiet and peaceful. We actually almost never saw the crowd. yay!

We were quite amused with our hotel room. it’s BIG! and the view was very pretty… it was the lake and the island, right in front of our window.

 

We actually took a lot of pictures of the room, but we lost them! There were pictures of Aina dancing around in that big room… blah. I’m really bummed about that, so I need to sulk on it for a while. Meanwhile, this was the only picture I got of the room, showing our big window and the seating area.

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… (after 4 hours and 1 bowl of rice with furikake)

Anyways…

One of the reasons why we picked this hotel, other than it was affordable, was that we wanted to try the Japanese onsen. I had been to an onsen a few years ago, back when Ari and I went to Kyushu, but it was a private onsen. I have never tried the more public ones. Noushka, Ditha and Aina have never been to an onsen at all. So we were all excited and nervous at the same time.

Kawanami had a pretty large onsen area. They have both indoor and outdoor onsens for both genders. And they also had a small private onsen that we could rent for an extra charge. Since we were all mostly newbies, the girls decided to use the private onsen for tonight. Ari went straight for the large male onsen. He’s more experienced anyway, having lived in Japan during his childhood.

So we, the girls, took a late bath… at 10PM. The private bath was rather small… we could only squeeze 3 people at a time in there, so one person was taking pictures while waiting for her turn. Thankfully, the onsen was very hot, so it didn’t take long for us to feel all boiled up. The turns came rather quickly.

 

So, just like in the regular onsen, we followed the rules:

1. We sat on those little stools in front of the showerhead, and washed ourselves clean from head to toe. Here, the hotel had provided soap, shampoo and conditioner at the shower area. But we brought our own stuff anyway.
2. Then we took a little bit of the onsen water using the water pile, and dump it on ourselves to get used to the hot water.
3. Once we acclimated with the water, slowly we immersed ourselves in the water.
4. Do not dip our washcloth into the onsen… I guess it’s considered rude.

I was originally worried that Aina would be cooked easily, since she’s very skinny. But it she seemed okay… The temperature of the private bath was bearable for her.

After the bath, we were all warmed up and sleepy. It was late anyway, so we went to bed straight away.

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All three days of Lake Toya photos are in its Flickr album.

Other entries of this trip is at Hokkaido Trip Summer 2015.