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

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