Day 4, Lake Toya

Hokkaido is famous for its national parks, and today I went to one of them. The centre of this park is formed by Toya-ko, or Lake Toya. It is located quite some distance from Sapporo, and takes about 2 hours by train. But in Japan these trips always seem to go faster for some reason, maybe because everything runs on time. It also required me to get up early and travel during the morning rush hour. And since my ryokan lies in an area with many government offices, that meant making my way through the waves of civil servants on their way to work. Their homogeneity was quite a funny sight, I must say.

The plan for today was to rent a bicycle and cycle around the lake (see photo). This is about 40 km, so it should be easy to do in a few hours. While cycling I could enjoy the weather, and the nice views of the lake and the surrounding mountains. The lake also has a mountain in the middle, which is not so strange, when considering that this is an active volcanic area. Along the rim of the lake there are even two active volcanoes that last erupted in 2000. Nothing came out today, though, except some very smelly smoke.

One of the two, the Usu volcano, is still quite young, by the way. In 1943, after an earthquake, suddenly a small bump had appeared in a field that had been flat. Within two years, this bump had grown into a 400 meter high volcano. Authorities tried to keep this a secret, because it could be seen as a bad omen for the war. Also, they instructed the locals to try to put out the flames because it could be used as a beacon by the enemy. In any case, be careful when buying a piece of land in Japan!

Back in Sapporo, I decided not to eat in my ryokan this time (even though it was very good quality). Ever since my last visit to Japan I had been a fan of ‘ramen’, which are noodles in a kind of soup. As the guide books will tell you, one is ‘expected’ to eat them while slurping. However, I believe one is free to eat it in whatever way you want, and slurping is just one of the options (although it makes a nice tourist story). Unfortunately, it is quite difficult to get good fresh ramen in the Netherlands. It turns out that in Sapporo they have an actual ‘ramen yokocho’, or ramen alley. It is about 1.5 meters wide and filled front to back with small ramen bars (about 20, I would estimate). You often eat ramen at a bar, while the food is prepared directly behind the bar. Of course, I had to visit this place, and to prove that I really did, I asked two Koreans to take my photo.