Lake Toya, Hokkaido Trip (Day 10)

20th May 2019, Monday

A sunny new day for us today and we decided to drive down to a nearby gelato place named Lake Hill Farm. Luckily for us, the place is just 3 minutes drive from our hotel. It was already having some customers when we arrived there. The place was selling dairy products such as ice-cream, cheese and jams in one of the houses and selling main course meals in the other house. However, we went straight to the dairy house and bought their ice-cream to try. Behind the houses, was a greenland with an amazing view of a mountain which was having snow on the submit. The ice-cream was very smooth and creamy. There was also a big cage full of rabbits of different sizes and colours and there was a small basket filled with packets of carrots. Beside it, there was a small tin for the payment of buying the carrots to feed the rabbits. We bought one packet for 100 yen to feed the rabbits. The rabbits were so cute, the smaller ones will come near to the cage and try to fight for the carrots. Some of the rabbits stole the carrots from the weaker ones which can't hold on the carrots. But the rabbits were like so hungry. There was also a horse nearby the rabbits' cage and there was a goat named Mr Yuki (very popular with the guests) in the grassland. It even has a house of its own. It was really relaxing there.....^_^.....(Also found an attractions map there with all the public hand-baths and foot-baths in Lake Toya.

Lake Hill Farm

Hand & Foot Baths around Lake Toya

Outside of the Gelato House

Rabbits

Mr Yuki

After that, we drove to Nishiyama Crater. However, we ended up to Kimbira Crater instead and we parked our car at the bottom of the crater. We had to walk a long distance (about 30 mins) up to the crater, we also had to pay the entrance fee of 1000 yen to go in the private observatory in order to view the crater.  At the top, you can see Lake Toya on the left side and the crater on the right side. After spending some time there, we decided to make our way down the mountain to go to Nishiyama Crater. We ate the corn we bought from Hakodate market as our snack while walking down, the corn was still very sweet. Once back down, we walked to the opposite side and ended up at Nishiyama Crater walking trail. We looked at the map and the whole walking distance to the other side of the crater (to the south gate) required 1 hour plus. So we decided we will stop around half the distance and walk back as our car is parked here. Then we started our walking trail and the first landscape we saw was the remains of a partial road which was covered by water during the creation of new craters in year 2000. As we walked further in, we could see a damaged car left in the pond too.

Kimbira Crater

Landscape view of Lake Toya & Kimbira Crater

Main road covered by water after the eruption

We walked some distance in and we saw an uncle cooking eggs using hot stones. It caught our curiosity and we bought 2 eggs to try it out. It wasn't amazing, just tasted like boiled eggs but it's brown in colour. But still, we enjoyed the eggs and the uncle even gave us cold water as we sat there to eat..hahaha...We thanked the uncle and continued on our walking trail. Along the way, we saw the roads that were cracked open, collapsed buildings, damaged cars, tunnel and street lamp posts as a results of the year 2000 eruption. There were also 2 level lookout to see the craters, however, the view was blocked by the tall unmanaged grasses and we can't really see the craters fully. After that, we walked back down to the car park to pick up our car. We drove back to the town centre and went to Boyotei for our lunch.

Cooking Eggs

Damaged Roads

Crater

Collapsed Kindergarden

Our Yummy Lunch

After lunch, we headed out with a mission to look for the hand-baths and foot-baths. It appeared the hand-bath and foot-bath have different blessing to one who "bath" in it. First stop, we found a hand-bath with a dragon statue at a petrol station. It was a hand-bath for marriage blessing, however, it was not in operation. So we walked further down the street and found another hand & foot bath of Yakushi Nyorai, Buddha of healing. We checked out the bath area and the water looked yellow and the water wasn't hot, so we decided not to join in...kekeke...Then we walked further down and saw another small hand-bath. It was a hand-bath for health, so we washed our hands with it for the blessing to have good health. Once done, we went down to the lake and walked to find foot-baths. As we walked along the lake, we saw a foot-bath in front of a hotel with the lake in front of it. So we decided to soak our feet in the foot-bath for our relaxation. Ahhh...the water feels sooo warm and nice...We soaked our feet for 20 mins before heading back to the hotel. We found a cake shop (didn't take photo of the shop name) and we bought a cake and creme brulee back.

Hand-Bath of Marriage

Foot-Bath of Healing

Hand-Bath of Health

Foot-Bath for our relaxation..^_^

Cake & Creme Brulee

After that, we drove back to the hotel to rest and i over passed the entrance of our hotel as i was increasing speed to drive up-slope...hahaa..always missed the entrance...Then we had our cake and creme brulee once we got back the room. I was surprised that the creme brulee came with the ceramic bowl instead of plastic. So i happily washed the bowl to bring back home...hahaha...Then we watched tv while waiting for the fireworks to start....We can still see the fireworks from our windows but it was very small. After that, we went to bed as we will be heading to our last destination, Sapporo the next day.

Places visited:
Lake Hill Farm (Address: 127 Hanawa, Toyako, Abuta District, Hokkaido 049-5724, Japan)
Kimbira Crater
Nishiyama Crater
Boyotei (Address: 049-5721 Hokkaido, Abuta District, Toyako, Toyako Onsen 36-12)

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Cocoa