Lake Toya, Hokkaido Trip (Day 9)

19th May 2019, Sunday

Sunday Flea Market

Today we were leaving Hakodate and going to the next destination, Lake Toya. We woke up early and packed our bags. My friend also cooked some of the sausages we bought yesterday as our breakfast. After we were done with everything, we checked out from the hotel. However, we loaded our luggage onto the car and walked back to Lucky Pierrot and Misuzu Coffee cafe to have our last meal in Hakodate. This time, we walked past a Sunday flea market where there were people selling off their own stuffs for a cheap price. I bought a Mickey Mouse towel from one of the stalls for 50 yen and it looked new. Also, it was made in Japan.

Lucky Pierrot Clown

Curry Rice

 After that, we continued walking to Lucky Pierrot place but it was not opened for business yet. There was already a short queue outside the entrance, so we just queued and waited for the store to open. Everyone looked so excited when the store opened. After some while, there was a elderly couple came in the store and the elderly man kept thanking everyone in the queue. Then we saw them walked into the store and the elderly lady walked into the counter and to the kitchen. It looked like she was giving her thanks to the staffs for their hard work. When the couple left the shop, they still gave their thanks to us and the people queuing. When it was our turn to order, we ordered their chinese chicken curry rice and the chinese chicken burger. The curry rice was yummy too.

Misuzu Coffee

Musical Concert @ Yakumo

After the breakfast, we walked to Misuzu Coffee cafe to get their coffee and cake to go. After buying, we walked back to the hotel to collect the car. Then we drove further in front to have the petrol pumped. It was my first time to pump petrol, so we were trying to figure what we suppose to do....hahaa..it was a self-serviced petrol station. It appeared the petrol was pumped into the car based on the options you chose on the machine. So we tried with one of the options first to test and then continued to pump slightly more. After that, my friend took the receipts and went to the office to make the payment. It wasn't full after the pumping but we guessed it should be enough for the next few days. Once done, we drove out on the road to Lake Toya. We even stopped by the same stop and ended up buying small packets of uncooked rice and some snacks before we continued on the road. There was even a music concert held there and there were more people compared to the previous time we came.

Beds in living room

Mini Jacuzzi tub

It took us around 3 hours to reach Toya area and we were surprised to find the hotel which we were staying was soooo far away from the town centre. Nevertheless, we managed to find the hotel with not much problem. The only problem i had was i was not able to park the car into the hotel's parking lot in the reserve way. Even i tried to drive in the car in, i ended up scratching the car on the left side (quite bad scratch though but we didn't really thought of reporting it to the car rental company as it wasn't really a serious accident. That was where i was wrong when i returned the car on the last day). In the end, i had to give up and parked the car in the open on the side. After that, we unloaded our luggage and went into the hotel for check-in. We were brought to our room by the hotel staff. Once we entered our room, we were blown away by the view from the glass window. We could see the whole view of Lake Toya and the town centre behind it. The next best thing was the room had a mini Jacuzzi tub. The toilet itself was as big as a room size. There were so much space in the living room and toilet.

Lake Toya giant photo frame

Foot-bath

Corn Soup

Hamburger steak

Pork Cutlet with Rice

We rested for some time before we drove out to the town center. We tried to navigate to the town information building in the town center on the car's gps and we drove to the place. Luckily there was available parking lots there where we could park our car. Then we walked down to the lake to explore. There were ducks boat where you can rent out into the lake but it was late and was closed for the day. We also found a foot-bath while walking the lake, so we decided to go and had a nice foot bath. We had our foot soaked for about 20 mins and decided to look for a nice dinning place. We decided to have our dinner at Boyotei, a western style restaurant where they were famous for their hamburger steak. The place was very cosy and we had a table further inside. We ordered their famous hamburger steak and pork cutlet rice set. The pork cutlet rice set came with a corn soup an and a drink. The pork cutlet was very tender and the rice was nice. My friend had the steak and it was yummy too.

Cruise ship

Our cruise boarding tickets

Interior of the ship

Night view from the lake

After the nice dinner, we walked back to the lake and booked a cruise ride where we can see the fireworks from the sea. We waited for the cruise to dock and headed out at the specified time. We bought the tickets for 8pm cruise. The cruise boat was very huge and looked very wonderland. It looked some time before we headed out deep in the lake and waited for the fireworks to start. There were two speedboats speeding left and right the lake and the fireworks were lighted. The fireworks performance lasted about 20 mins and it was lighted from right to left. It was quite nice but the sound of the fireworks was very loud as it exploded in front of us. Anyway, this was one item we won't want to miss as the fireworks performance was only available during summer period. When the show ended, we were brought to the pier and we walked with fast pace to the car as it was super cold. After that, we drove back to the hotel slowly as the road was quite dim. But we reached the hotel safe and sound where we had our turns in the jacuzzi tub....hohoho...

Did i also mention we noticed the rental car's gps always say we had reached near our destination instead of saying we had reached our destination most of the times when we navigated to the different places (kind of weird)? Hahaaa....

Places visited:
Lucky Pierrot
Misuzu Coffee Daimon Branch
Yakumo
Boyotei (Address: 049-5721 Hokkaido, Abuta District, Toyako, Toyako Onsen 36-12)
Toya Lake Line Cruise

Hotel Stayed:
Hotel Cocoa