12th May 2019, Sunday
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| Simple Breakfast |
We woke up around 6 plus (the sun was actually out around 4 plus) and got ready for our adventures today. Firstly we went down to the hotel's canteen to have our breakfast. It was a normal Japanese style buffet, where there were eggs, mini sausages, rice, udon, corns and salads. The clock in the canteen was playing a musical animation whenever the hour mark was reached. It was very cute and pleasant to watch. After we had our fill, we headed out to our main attraction, Jigokudani.
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| Sengen Park Square |
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| Hot Spring Mist |
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| Explanation of the 8 cudgels |
We went down to Sengen Park (just beside our hotel), where there were 8 giants cudgels with different colours. And the 8 cudgels represented 8 different natural elements. And interestingly,you could see the natural hot spring stream coming out from the open stones. Next, we headed up to Jigokudani. It was just a 5 mins walk up from the hotel and there were two giant demon statues greeting the tourists at the entrance. We arrived at the visitor information centre and enquired with the staff on the park area. There were a few tour groups around the park today and it was quite crowded.
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| Red Demon Statue |
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| Blue Demon Statue |
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| Welcome to Hell Valley! |
There were steam blowing around the hell valley and we could hear the boiling sound of water. There was also a long queue to get a photo with the attraction's signboard. So i just climbed up the stairs and found there was a smaller version of the signboard and i took with it...hahaha... We decided to head back to continue the rest of the trail after the sun sets to see the valley in the dark. After that, we went on a 20-mins hike to Oyunuma. We were greeted with strong sulphur smell and sound of hot boiling water. It was mentioned the water in Oyunuma Lake was boiling at 130 degrees and there was a lot of smoke around. But guess who, there was only a few people around the area...no tour groups around...hehehe...We can also see Mount Hiyori behind the boiling lake. We walked further down to a smaller lake named Oku no Yu. There was a lot of smoke and the water was also boiling. After that, we walked up to Oyunuma Lookout and we can see the lake and Mount Hiyori from a higher angle.
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| Oyunuma Lake |
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| Boiling hot water |
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| Oyunuma natural footbath |
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| Soaking our feet...lol |
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| Small Waterfall @ the river |
After the nice view, we tried to find the Oyunuma natural footbath. We had to walk along detour as we missed the direction sign to the footbath (it was just at a side road on the way up to Oyunuma lake)..hohoho...So we headed down to the side road and followed the track to reach the footbath area. There were a couple of people soaking their feet in the natural river. So we also found a good spot for both of us and removed our shoes. Ahh...the water was sooo warm when you put your feet in and the weather was chilling. It definitely feels good!! The sand in the river was black in colour and it was very soft. When you walk on it, your feet will sink into it. We had our little Jagebee potato sticks snack while enjoying the footbath and the nature around us. Later there was a young father who had brought his little daughter (probably 3 or 4 years old) to have a soak. But the little girl was scared to put her feet into the water and was clinging onto her dad's legs tightly. My friend who was siting there just encouraged the girl to try to put her feet into the water. The girl eventually put her feet into the water and we thought she was enjoying after that. Cos she was pulling the dad to walk in the water and she was so kawaii.
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| Father & Son Demons Statue |
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| Sakura Trees |
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| Hot Soba with Fried Ebi |
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| Hot Soba with Duck |
After our footbath, we decided to go find lunch. So we dried our feet and put on our shoes. The feet did feel refreshing...hahaha... We said bye bye to the little girl and her parents and she kept saying goodbye to us. We walked back to gokuraku street where the shops are located using a different route and we saw a few sakura trees. There was a couple of hotels too and there was a father-son demon statue standing beside the main road. We saw a few more demon statues along the gokuraku street and we headed to Sobadokoro Fukuan for our lunch. It was a cozy place and we had to remove our shoes before seated. We ordered hot soba with duck and hot soba with ebi. Both came with hot soups and it was quite nice. Except i would prefer the fried ebi were put on a separate plate than to soak in the soup cos they got really soggy. After finished our lunch, we thanked for the food and went to the visitor information centre. We bought 2 entrance tickets ($4400 yen) for 2 theme parks of our choice as we had planned to go to the Edo Wonderland tomorrow. Hence, we decided to go to the bear park as the 2nd theme park to visit. After purchasing the tickets, we headed to the ropeway station of the bear park. It was a few minutes walk away, so it was a good idea to digest our lunch...hahaha...We had to climb a high staircase to get up to the station. Along the way, we saw a deserted and rusty ropeway and we thought it was abandoned and closed. But we continued to climb further up and there was a newer station and we saw the operational ropeway.
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| Cable Car |
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| Duck Race |
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| Resting Ducks |
Then we went up to take to the ropeway and we saw some giant dry fishes hanging in the station. The staff on duty was telling us to sit on the left side of the car as we will have a better view of the scenery. But i think i was scared to even change sides when the car was moving up to the peak. The scenery was really beautiful and we could see the whole town below and the sea. But the cable car ride felt very long to reach the peak. We did saw some cars with big teddy bears inside and my friend said she wanted to sit with the bears later when we return. When we alighted at the peak, we saw a group of people gathering at a corner. There was a banner saying "Duck Race", so i dragged my friend over and we tried to have a peek. Luckily the race was just about to start and one of the staffs was collecting bets from the audiences. Once done, one staff opened the lock to a box and out came running of the duck racers. They were having different colours ribbon tied to their necks. The ducks ran out and dived into the water and started to paddle to the other side. And everyone was cheering for the ducks to go faster. Hohohoho...the duck with black color ribbon had won the race. It ended like a few minutes but was quite entertaining to everyone. After that, everyone headed to the bears' areas. There were 2 levels of enclosure to separate the adult and young bears.
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| Adult Bears |
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| Bear trying to catch attention |
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| Waving its paw @ the crowd |
As we saw the young bears enclosure crowded with visitors, we headed up to the adult bear compartment. The bears were lying on the ground, lazing around. There were tourists throwing bear snacks to catch their attention. The crows were also very big, flying around to snatch the snack from the bear. And, they were not afraid of humans at all. Some of the bears did waved its paws to try to have the visitors to throw them the snacks and they can really catch the snacks. But when the snacks fell to the ground, they don't even bother to pick it up and the crows will take them. There was a closed enclosure whereby visitors can get real close to the bears but with a hose or something, the visitors were able to feed the bears too. We had fun watching the bears catching the snacks and how they amused the visitors.
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| Junior Bears |
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| Junior Bears Enclosure |
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| More cubs |
After that, we headed down to the young bears enclosure and there was a young staff explaining on the bears. Of course, it was in Japanese which we don't really understand, so we just watched. The staff did hold up a snack towards one of the bear, the bear stood up. Next, the staff waved his hand in circles, the bear actually turned around. And after that, the staff threw the snack to him to reward him. The staff had the bear to do a few more tricks. He even purposely closed the gate of a small cage which was placed inside the enclosure. And then, he threw a snack into the gate. I think he probably explained to the crowd that the bears will open the gate and went into the cage to have the snack, which one of the bears really did.
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| Baby cub |
After the introduction, the visitors continued to throw the snacks to get the bears' attention. Then we walked around to see if there is anything interesting. We saw a queue was forming beside the bear cubs enclosure and was wondering what was it. The staff explained to us that if we get lucky we could take a photo with one of the bear cubs. Apparently, they only allowed 20 people to have a photo with the cubs and there was a time limit for the queue. At first my friend was not interested but changed her mind, so we queued for it. When the time was up, the staff explained something and was handed out the queue number. We got lucky as we were number 16. So we waited for our turn to have a photo with the cubs. But we could see the cubs were not really enjoying on the photoshoot, they were making a lot of crying noises. One cub even got 'scolded' by the staff (i think) as the staff placed the cub in a corner and was raising his index finger like scolding a little kid...hahaha....Eventually we got our shot and was happy about it. Later we saw the last person to have the shoot was lucky to have a photo with 2 cubs...should be their lucky day...hahahaha....
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| Village Hut |
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| Clothing from the past |
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| Old kettle |
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| Lake Kuttara |
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| Melon-flavoured Ice-cream |
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| Cable Cars |
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| Teddy bears which companied us in the cable |
After that, we walked down to a tiny village and saw of the items left behind from the older days. Then we went up to the viewing deck and saw a huge lake called Lake Kuttara distance away. The water was very blue and then we bought a melon flavoured ice cream to try. We sat down to take a break and rested while having the ice cream. After that, we went to the bear museum to take a look and there were filled with information regarding the bears. By then, it was already 4 plus and the park was about to close. So we headed back to the cable car station and waited for the car. And my friend insisted she wants a car with teddy bear in it. When the cable car with teddy bear came, it was the lady in front of us who had it. But she probably heard us when my friend was making a lot of noise to have the car. She turned to us and offered us the car. Of course, my friend was damn happy and we thanked the lady for the offer. We jumped onto the car happily and we had to take photos with the teddy bear during the ride....hahaha....After that, we headed back to the hotel and had a short nap till 6 pm.
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| Lighted walkway |
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| Boiling water |
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| Hell Valley in the dark |
We headed out to find dinner and we wanted to try Toyiki but it was not opened for dinner. So we decided to go back to Onsen ichiba for seafood. After the dinner, we went back to the hell valley to continue the fire demon trail in the dark. It was a lot quieter as compared in the day time. There was lanterns to light out the walking trail but it was super dark in the hell valley direction. At the end of the trail, we could still hear sound of boiling water. After some time, we decided to head back and we went to Dai-ichi Takimotokan (sister hotel of Takimoto Inn). It was newly built in the recent years and they do have a bigger onsen bath area. When you walk up to Hell Valley, you can actually see the onsen area of the hotel from outside. But i think it was much crowded there and they allow visitors to come in just to onsen for a fixed price. We went down to their shopping levels and shopped for a while. After that, we walked to Enma Shrine which was beside Onsen ichiba and waited for the performance to start. Everyone started to gather around the shrine and waited for the performance. When it starts, it was playing some music for about 3 mins and then we could see the hands of the Enma statue started to move up to cover the face. When the hands moved down, the face of Enma had changed from a smiling expression to an angry demonic expression. It was playing with some dialogue too, in Japanese. After roughly 1 min, the hands moved again to cover the face and it changed back to the smiling expression when the hands moved back now. After the show, we went back to our hotel where i had my pudding and my friend headed down for onsen. Oh wait, did i mention Noboribetsu was also famous for their onsen, other than the demons?? Every hotel there provide onsen services with different onsen types. Takimoto Inn has 3 different onsen baths available whereas the sister hotel has about 5 or 6 onsen baths.
Places visited:
Sengen Park
Jigokudani
Oyunuma Lake
Oyunuma Lookout
Oyunuma Natural Footbath
Oku no Yu
Bear Park
Enma Shrine
Gokuraku street
Dai-ichi Takimotokan
Hotel Stayed:
Takimoto Inn
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