Saturday 26th May
We had a bit of fun with the regional name, Date ("what's the name of the local cinema? Movie Date?") as we turned off to Lake Toya. The main attractions are the lakeside and cruises, as well as Mt Usu, but we turned to the walking trails that toured around the year 2000 mudslides, past buildings that had been inundated with mud, or impacted with flying boulders, and past roadways that had warped and subsided. Nature had definitely made a huge impact at the time, and was continuing to gradually consume the ruins. After crossing out from the lake side of the hill, there was a small tourist village which appeared deserted, but turned out to just be exceedingly quiet - the soft serve machine at the cafe still was running, thankfully! We noted the bus schedule in case we ran out of energy again (very infrequent) and declined the roast potatoes. We didn't consider climbing the path from the car park - it looks like this would've given us some great views of the lake and back to the sea, as would the Mt Usu summit. Next time. We had some fantastic views regardless. We saw the ruined kindergarten and I really felt sorry for the kids that missed out on going there, especially since they'd had a cookie factory almost next door.
On the return loop we passed an elderly Japanese man mowing his lawn. He called out, "What country?" and I replied "Ostoraria!" resulting in a small cheer from both sides of the brief conversation. We finished our walk with a bathroom break in the Visitor Centre, and I was happy to see that we had covered 5 out of the 6 major national parks in Hokkaido - we'll have to get to Rishiri-Rebun-Sarobetsu National Park next time.
Mariko suggested that I drive, so she wouldn't have to follow instructions in Japanese when we arrived at our hotel. We started on the regular roads, but it was starting to get a little late for our recommended check-in time so we turned to the expressway. At first I attempted to drive the wrong way through the toll gate, but frantic waving from the attendant sorted me out. When we arrived, I dropped Mariko off at the reception area and was then directed to a carpark a couple of hundred metres further up through town. Not a big distance, and I was leisurely preparing to walk back collecting some items from the car, when a shuttle bus driver hurried me along to join some other drivers being transferred back. We checked in and I realised that my wallet had gone missing since our first arrival. I went back to the car, then up to the room, then to the front driveway. I was trying to remember the phrases from the particular episode of Learn Japanese Pod but made do with a bit of pantomime. The driveway attendants directed me to the front desk who had my wallet - humble thanks! It had fallen out of my handful of belongings as I got out of the shuttle minibus.
Much relieved, I joined Mariko for our in-room dinner, exquisitely presented and served by our young attendant who delivered the dishes with great flair, ceremony and explanations, kneeling and bowing each time as she entered and left the room. We weren't sure what many of the dishes were, but they were delicious, plentiful, and involved just the right amount of DIY to extract the edible parts, or to cook particular dishes. It was delightful - just a bit hard on my knees and hips to sit so low for the whole meal.
Dinner finished just in time for us to catch the hotel's taiko performance - a very high-energy and skillful show by the quintet. Then on to try the main feature of the hotel, the onsen. It's separate bathing, apart from the (clothed) swimming pool area. And the male changeroom attendants were female - mostly keeping a distance from all the naked men, but I did manage to commit a couple of faux pas that were picked up on: forgetting to take off my sandals when walking on the tatami, and using the wrong towel. I tried as many pools as I could, and even had one go on the waterslide into the bathers-zone swimming pool.
Sunday
We drove on to have a stroll along Itanki Beach. It was a bit cool but there were a few others out enjoying the sun and the amazing coastal views, and even a couple of swimmers and surfers. There were some fantastic coastal hills that would make a terrific hike - another time. We drove on towards Muroran, a large industrial town, though we took the coastal road and got to enjoy some stunning scenery - much of it at 15km/h as the roads were so narrow and windy. We stopped at a lookout and took in the glorious view out to sea - I also did a quick dash up to the nearby summit where I could take in views back across Muroran Bay, the port and industrial areas, the suburbs and mountains behind. We drove on to the Cape Chikyu Lighthouse for a similar breathtaking panorama; at least this time there were some other tourists enjoying it as well.
The drive to Muroran wasn't part of our plan but it turned out great. Like the Notsuke Peninsula, I only had an interest in it from having seen its shape in Google Maps; in particular, I wondered why they needed a large suspension bridge when it looked like a short distance to drive around. I'm sure the economics of the port plays a big part. We got to drive across the bridge - in fact, due to roadworks, we were directed to drive up the wrong side as the seaward lanes were being attended to.
Back at the hotel we soothed our muscles in the onsen, before another delicious dinner in our room. I did have to resort to a double-layer futon; it was just a bit too firm on a single.
Monday
I had a final dip in the onsen before we steeled ourselves for another assault on the breakfast buffet, but finally it was time to say goodbye to the ridiculously undersized slippers. We took the advice from the sign in our room which recommended which check-out times would be smoothest, and drove the hour or so (via the expressway) back to the airport car rental depot. Our Impreza wasn't too fancy but had been great over around 2300km, we'd come to a begrudging sort of working arrangement with the GPS unit, and it had been good to keep some of our bulkier items in it rather than squeezed into our suitcases.
We were shuttled back to the terminal, and put our bags in the vaporizing machine again. The connections had all gone very smoothly and we had quite a bit of time before our flight, so we had a wander through the Smile Road retail section (Mariko managed to restrain herself from going crazy in the Hello Kitty outlet), I had a go at the crane machine and was so close to winning a Godzilla; another couple had just won a bag of snacks and shared them with us. We took in a couple of landings from the observation deck, and then had a moment of panic when we found that the security queue was quite lengthy, but it was just a short delay. Boarded, and with deep bows from the ground crew, we were away. Thanks Hokkaido for a fantastic trip, we'll miss you, your fantastic nature, food and Seicomarts!
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