Day 9, Onuma - Towadako

About six a.m., September fourth. The entrance to the train station from the youth hostel side. Just as well the sign is large and easy to spot, right? Lucky I knew where I was going.

Being artsy at 6.05 at the Ikedaen Station, waiting for my train to Hakodate, and then from Hakodate to Kikonai, Kikonai to Kanita (Honshu) and Kanita to Aomori

Robot arms. 6.10 at the Ikedaen Train Station

6.15 a.m.! Two carriages, too, for the early morning students and workers.

Some time after 7.10 a.m., a station a few stops after we had left Hakodate

Way down south. I guess we were nearing Kikonai, the station where those with seishun juhachi kippu had to get a limited express to be able to get to Honshu (no local trains available).

A poster at the Kikonai train station. We arrived here before nine. I remember, because I used the bank ATM once 9 hit (no, Japan does not have 24 hour ATMs). Misogi festivals are basically where guys strip down to fundoshi (loin cloths) and purify themselves by plunging into water in the midst of winter. The Kikonai version, dating from the 1800s, seems particularly severe.
Kikonai station
Torii over the ocean. A few people were reading a sign to the right, but I can't read kanji. A Dutch ship sank here, again in the 1800s, 1857 . Maybe it somehow reflects that.
On this ticket I found it a great idea to get out and stretch when you could, considering how long you spent on the train, or actually waiting, therefore, coin lockers were a blessing, though, in these towns, the Japanese staff of the shops in the stations and so on didn't mind you leaving your bags nearby and they'd keep an eye on them. Usually there was something to see. Like this statue of this boy, though what story it represents, I do not know.
The train arrived at 9.31. We'd been waiting since 8.00 or 8.30. Two trains left at 9.31, which is highly unusual at the smaller Japanese train stations, or any of them, actually. So, my fallback of double checking the time to make sure I was on the right train almost had me foiled. There are only five limited expresses a day from Hokkaido to Honshu, so I really didn't want to miss this one. It goes through the tunnel, pretty long, pretty deep, and there is a station at the deepest point of the tunnel. If you book ahead, you can get out and have a tour, but that would mean waiting a couple of hours for the next train. I don't think I could do it. Imagine all that ocean overhead. Still, I had saved my obento (packed lunch) for this part of the journey, so that my 50 minutes of luxury could be enjoyed to the full
We arrived in Kanita at about 10.30 and were shipping out at 11.30 or thereabouts. I'd already explored the shrine opposite the ferry port on my way to Hokkaido, and it was a little far and a little humid to do it again, and so that left me plenty of time to look at the lovely displays in the JR station. Oh, by the time we got to Kanita, on Honshu, toilet paper once more seemed to be a feature of the public toilets. Every JR station seems to have small displays, created by the staff, I suppose, illustrating the highlights of the area. To be less than accurate, I am not sure if this small display, obviously promoting the benefits of drinking sake in outside onsens, was actually in Kanita or Kikonai
Another poster. Click on it to enlarge. This one is urging commuters to mind their manners, which is fair enough. It is interesting that it is in English. We foreigners are notoriously bad at not adhering to social customs and mores. Rest assured, there were Japanese versions around the place, too
Well, after I'd eaten too much, and done some yoga exercises and stretches which did a little to alleviate the aches and pains brought about from too much sitting and too much lugging around of baggage, the train pulled in and we could sit on it , waiting until it pulled out again (with us on board!, just in case that sentence confused you). This local was going straight to Aomori. It would still take an hour, I think, or maybe a little less. Many more carriages than the local trains up in Hokkaido and further north in Tohoku. You could feel that you were drawing closer to a city centre.
Someone famous came in off one of the other trains. The ladies in my photo were waiting for him. A big guy. I think I'd seen him on the television. I wasn't sure if he was Japanese or not. I'd definitely seen the interviewer. We were told not to take photos. They, camera crew, talent, back up, all went into the small waiting room to film, I guess. The ladies were definitely giddy and fascinated

My second view of this Aomori bridge, or my second time to come into the city, walk along the path towards the turnstile in the train station, to look out the window, and see its elegant arches sweeping the edge of the city
The bus to Towadako, or Lake Towada, left at 1.30, or a little past. Maybe 1.40. I bought my ticket, and again, had an hour to kill. This lunch was delicious. Hotate, or scallops, were in that big omelette-like thing on that huge shell, and the miso soup was full of asari, (clam). I think it was a speciality of the restaurant. Again, relatively cheap, below ￥1000. I went to get an ice-cream (Baskin and Robbins) but the place was under-staffed, and the one girl too busy to serve me. The bus ride to Towadako was going to take three hours, which always seems ridiculous for 76kms, but then, I forget it is a windy road and a lot of it is urban at first, and that the speed limit is not the crazy 120km plus per hour that the Omanis drive.
It was quite a beautiful ride, for which I was pleased, as I had spent ￥3000 on the ticket. The seishun juhachi kippu does not cover bus rides. It went through the Oirase valley, passing waterfalls and the stream, along the way. Also, outside of Aomori, it passed hot springs and rope ways and had lovely views from the mountains and up to them. Of course, the first view of lake Towada is quite breath-taking, or pretty, at the least.

I'd booked my accommodation in Ikedaen by phone. I'm not great at Japanese on the phone. I can do the basics, but it's best if I know where I'm going to beforehand, or I have some kind of map so that I can listen and reinforce what is being said with a visual prop.

The woman had given me the name of the minshuku, and how much it would cost, but I had no clue where it was. I was hoping it was where the bus stopped at Yasumi-ya, though considering the price, I doubted it. The lake is 46km in circumference, though, and I didn't know how I would get there if it wasn't in this centre. The buses really didn't run that regularly.

I went to the visitors' centre (had half an hour to spare before they closed) and they directed me to a very nearby minshuku with a name very similar to my own. I was surprised because it was so close to the lake and the centre of town, how could it be so cheap? (￥3700). It wasn't the right minshuku. The guy looked up my name. Nothing. Then he put in a call to somewhere else and I was picked up. The minshuku in town is called kokuminshuku, the one I was going to is called kokuminshukusha. Koku is the kanji for country.

An older bloke picked me up in not the newest of vans. At first, I was really disappointed, thinking I'd be miles from everywhere. But then, I really wanted to walk the track along the Oirase stream, and this was much closer, and later I discovered that the bus actually stopped pretty nearby.

As I checked in, they assured me that they could drive me into the small town so that I could catch my bus out on Sunday (I was continuing south) and they also asked if I wanted to attend a big festival the following night with three other people. Sure, why not? (post, day 10, in the works).

Anyway, my answer as to the cheapness was because it wasn't the newest, as seen by the photo above. I actually got called up on this phone, and yes, it still works. But it was big (the minshuku). It was a faded glory. It had tennis courts, and a good view of the lake, a huge ofuro (bath). The rooms were large, too. I just guess that Yasumi-ya is the place where people want to stay, but perhaps, in the past, this place had been popular.
What the minshuku didn't have in newness, it did have in small touches. It had a male and female version of the yukata, and it had the heavier brunch coats that you need to wear once it gets a bit colder, and wear it I did. The other way that they minshuku and so on make money, aside from providing accommodation, was obviously through breakfast and dinner. The breakfasts and dinners in minshuku or ryokan are nearly always worth it, but I could afford one ￥2000 dinner, but not two. The ￥2000 was relatively cheap for what I got, too, which was fabulous mountain vegetables, and delectable serves of fish and seafood. Really, I would have loved to have eaten it the next day, but I was being a little bit careful with money in some aspects.
Additionally, having the set meals means that you are limited to a time frame. If you are the only guest (as I was on Friday, or the only one eating, but I have the feeling that I was the only guest bouncing about that great huge building). I think dinner was served at 6.00, or maybe 6.30, but either way, I wouldn't have minded wandering around the bit of Towadako lake where the minshuku was situated for just a bit longer, but felt I had to return for dinner. Ryokan and minshuku are usually run by family, and you don't really want the whole family to wait around for your return.
Likewise, for breakfast, I often wanted to set out before the 7.30 serving time, and I don't get particularly hungry in the early mornings. And of course, an onigiri (riceball) was and is still cheaper than a set breakfast or dinner, but not as delicious.

Another touch that the minshuku had which hinted at former glory, was that the water in the ofuro came forth from a lion's head spout. Rrowrr. Never mind the falling apart, chipped tiles and so forth. It was clean, and once it had been grand. It also provided pumice stones for scraping your feet, in the same way that the Fuji business hotel in Asahikawa (the ￥3200 one, including breakfast) provided disposable razors. Small touches that were not a part of a youth hostel, and often not seen at all in the more modern business hotels.
Before dinner I wandered down to the lake (past the sign which said DO NOT ENTER! BEARS!)
I wandered past some houses, including one where some small kids were playing with a dog. A mother with them looked at me with some suspicion as I walked by. Though a website I have just found describes Towada as 'A city bustling with foreign visitors' (and I was surprised just how many there were for the festival the next day), I don't think that too many came to this neck of the woods. Perhaps.

Later, the small girl who had the dog came down to the waterfront as I was taking pictures. She had a chat to me and declared that my Japanese is very good, but my pronunciation and faking skills are actually pretty good. Still, we got by and she urged me to come to the festival the following night. Absolutely. Zehi! Everyone was looking forward to it.
I said that I would go, and moved on to admire the lake some more and snap a few more pictures.
Walking back I took note of all the bus-stops, including the one with the minshuku's name. I could have got off there and then when we had been heading to Yasumi-ya, but at least I had some knowledge of the layout of the main town, and where I stood in relation to both it and the beginning of the walk along Oirase Stream (smack bang in the middle, I'd say, though closer to the start of the walk, so, perhaps not). Then this cosmos waved at me from the road as I walked by. Things are a lot wilder in Northern Tohoku than in lots of other parts of Japan.

day 8, Onuma Koen and Hakodate

Life is verily and mostly and something unexplained. But anyway, on with the journey. Photos for the next few entries and I'll fill in the text later.



Early morning. I set out before 8, I think, and cycled to the park, walked over the bridges that joined the lakes and then continued 14km or so around the circumference of the lake, taking me past Shinrin Park, past the camping ground I hadn't managed to get to the day before, past the youth hostel, and eventually back into the town of Onuma Koen (well, that's what the station is called). Past the many signs directing you towards evacuation spots in case Mt. Onuma were ever to blow (as it had threatened to do in 2000, I think, coating the township with ash).




About 12.30, 1pm, coming into the town surrounding Onuma koen. I had a lavender ice cream which did taste of lavender and was yummy. Hokkaido is famous for its lavender fields.

So I'd been hanging out to go to one of Hokkaido's microbreweries ever since missing the opportunity in Asahikawa, and not having the time to stop in Otaru, so I was really please to find the Onuma Craft Brewery as the sign reads in English. They had three beers on tap but had won prizes for others. I skipped the lager, though I'm sure I would have enjoyed it (or pilsner, or lighter beer, you know... I'll look it all up later, promise) and had the slightly fruity but very smooth alt beer I think.

I ate snacks of dried squid and other seafood. I then had the 8% beer. As long as they are not too dark, I usually like these beers. They have a light touch of malt-ish flavour which disturbs my taste buds a little, until I get used to it, but it is not so strong that I cannot drink it, which is what happens with a stout. However, I know it's always a dangerous proposition. I don't know why, but 8% in a beer is too much for me, whereas 11% or 13% in a wine is not and nor is the 40% in a Pernod. It was going to be a woozy afternoon.

I asked the best place for ramen and was told on the corner, but it was the tail-end of the tourist season and they had finished lunch for the day. The brewery, too, had just me as their only patron. But there were tourists about. A huge group of Chinese tourists had hired all of the low slung tricycle kind of bikes available, which could all join up, and join up they did. They cycled past me, down the road, towards the park, high-fiving the rental guy as they passed him, fifty of them, all joined together. One of the more bizarre sights of my holiday.

I had intended to go to Hakodate to seek out the amazing ramen that I had had at the markets the morning of my trip up to Sapporo, and I wanted to check out the beer hall which also featured any number of local, smaller beers. So, considering I could not get local ramen, off I went. I asked the woman in the Onuma brewery what the local speciality was. She wasn't sure, but then she said Jingis Khan, or Genghis Khan, which is a lamb dish, borne in Hokkaido, served in a dish which resembles an upturned Mongolian hat. I'm not a big meat eater, so I passed it up.

Onuma Lake Station (Onumakoen station)

The lake from the train



It was easy to find the ramen shop, and though it was nearing two or three, they were still open, even though I know they would have been open very early that morning, too. I don't know what their hours of business were. It was just a walk-in off the street place, which also had a table and chairs on the sidewalk. It could fit about twenty at the most. If they were a husband and wife team, it was the husband who did the cooking. He was eating lunch, but he stopped to serve me same ramen dish that I had ordered before. Full of crab, prawns and scallops. Yum. When I wandered past later I saw some more foreigners in there. I was slightly disappointed as I thought I'd wandered across an authentic 'local' place, but that's not to say that they hadn't too. The ramen shop was and is in a tourist area, so really, who am I kidding? All below ￥1000 too. That is the good thing about tourist spots in Japan. You can still always find somewhere good and cheap and of value to eat. Usually.

The owners, or workers, remembered me. It was fun to have a little chat with them.


Snail thingy

Hakodate is famous for its seafood

Hakodate clams

Weighing up whether to come into town or not is a bit of a concern, as I was still taking local trains and there could be an hour and a half between them. Even the faster trains didn't necessarily stop at Onuma or Onuma Koen (where I had left my bike), and definitely not at Ikadaen (the station closest to the youth hostel). So, a trip into town had to have some kind of purpose. I was pleased to get the ramen as the next venture was to the beer hall where I was hoping to sample some more of the produce of the micro-breweries of the area.

It was getting cold, rainy and approaching the latter part of the day. Four-thirty or so. Anything I wanted to do I had to fill into the next half hour to hour. The train, of course, was not available until about half past five.


This was all that I got to see of the beer hall. My time for travel was perfect. It was just outside of the tourist season, so all the buses and so on that catered to tourists were still running, and the weather was still warm, and tourist traps were not tourist traps as they were not overrun with the tourists that made them so. The downside, of course, was that many of the tourist must-see places closed due to lack of interest, I guess. On a now become rainy, grey Hakodate afternoon at 4.30 the beer hall had given up the ghost. Closed.

Well, I took photos of the sign, as you can see, and the possible sacrilege of some very inventive shandies (on the menu); let's see - grapefruit beer, green apple beer, Cassis beer. Returning to the train station I took photos of the above seafood, and the profusion of flower baskets that adorned the light poles. They just wouldn't survive in Australia. Not just the heat, but vandals would attack them or steal them. I wonder why we don't have a sense of everything belonging to all. I guess it is being such a mix of different nationalities origin-wise, and the rugged individualism that is the spawn of capitalism.

I was full, still slightly tipsy, and kind of out of the hours for museums and such. I guess I could have gone shopping, and I did buy some Hokkaido chocolate, but mostly I found a room on the second floor of the train station, looked out across the railway tracks, went back to my seat, rested my head and had a little nap. Then wrote, then texted, then transferred pictures, then finally caught my train. The waiting, the waiting.


I had to return the bicycle by 6.30 and the train arrived at 6.10 to the weather seen above. Quite a contrast to the morning's weather. I also wanted to wash my clothes. I was travelling with two pairs of cotton trousers, three shirts, three pairs of socks, and enough undies. Great travel companions, let me tell ya. Washing needed to be done every day, if possible.

However, when I got back to the hostel the owner offered to take those of us who wished to a local onsen (hot spring). Cost, only ￥370, about $4.00. It was after dinner, and I could have put on a wash, but at the hostel you needed to ask the owners (who were busy with dinner) and it took a good ninety minutes to dry, and I know they'd be thinking 'She just did them yesterday', or at least that is what my 'fear of imposition self' told me.

The onsen was great, though, keeping with its low cost, shampoo and body wash was not provided. They usually are, and I had almost run out of my supply. Even so, after washing myself down with shampoo, hair and body, it was wonderful to relax in the creamy, buttery water. And for a good price. There are local onsen nearby, quite famous, but I think their cost is about ￥1500. Of course, they are all modern and shiny and new. Going to an onsen was the one thing I hadn't done on my Hokkaido trip, too, so it was a nice way to wind it up. There were huge paintings, not abstract but not in the school of realism, either. Pretty old. The girl behind the counter said that the artist was well-known in the area.

Heading towards the onsen the hostel owner had asked me if I'd seen any wildlife while I'd been out walking that day. There were lots of foxes, he said, in the forest and greenery that surrounded the lake. 'Ka', I said 'Plenty of ka. And a kaeru.' Mosquitoes. Man were they bountiful. You didn't want to stop for a moment - the dangers of standing still to take a photo. They actually prevented me from going further in the woods in Shinrin Park. The frog, I can't remember where I saw him, I just remember saying that.

Two guys also went to the onsen, one from east Hokkaido, where I had wanted to visit before I realised I just didn't have the time, and the other from Honshu. It was a full moon that night, having risen over the hostel just before our departure to the baths.

So, I left early again the next morning, my train coming through Ikadaen at 6.15 and taking me through, with the inevitable stops and waits along the way, to Aomori where I was going to catch a 13.40 bus to lake Towada, or Towada ko.

Day 7, Sapporo to Ikadaen (Onuma Koen, just out of Hakodate)

Well, you can see the time as well as I. I went to bed late-ish the night before, annoying the English girl who needed pitch dark to sleep. So do I, so I understand, though our behaviour no doubt was bemusing to the Japanese girl, who like most Japanese, probably gets by on four or five hours of sleep a night, making up for it with quick naps on train trips. I think trains were made for sleeping (and seeing scenery) and I always wonder at the popular western abhorrence to sleeping on them. Of course, in dangerous areas it is not wise. And I sleep with my mouth wide open, so it is not pretty, but it sure is handy to catch a few winks. Also, anything in motion that I happen to be in or on tends to send me to sleep. Seems I can sleep anywhere except for my actual bed.

I bundled everything into a locker, as per usual, and wandered down the main street of Sapporo (or one of them) intending to to see the main park, a narrow strip, which runs for a few blocks. I didn't make it that far, but was able to catch some of the older government buildings in the morning light,

and to grab a diet Pepsi from a Lawson's. Not just any Lawson's, but a Postal Lawson. To purchase anything you first have to dodge the bullets.

The train left at 6.24 and it hit Higashi Muroran Station at 9.04. There was an hour wait there. The guidebooks write it up as an industrial town with nothing much to see, but I decided to see a little of it anyway.

Stowing bags in coin locker and so on...I walked along the pretty empty streets (nothing much wakes up in Japan until about 10am, business-wise) and discovered a park down one of the side roads. Here, as when I lived in Shikoku, the older people were playing gateball. I hadn't seen that for a long time. Natsukashi, as they say here, or it evokes nostalgic feelings, takes me back and so on.

It was good to stretch my legs and the park was pretty big, though the locals weren't keen on returning the 'ohayo gozaimasu' (good morning). Perhaps because I'd been on the road for so long it already felt like 'konnichiwa' time and that was what I was erroneously using.

The station wasn't the most friendly around. Most modern Japanese toilets offer the choice of Japanese style or western style - the squat or the throne. If English is used, the toilet door usually announces 'Japanese style' or 'western style'. In Higashi Muroran Station you had the choice of Japanese or Foreign.

Now, except for old ladies who have trouble with balance and squatting, the Japanese toilets actually are a lot better for the body and I think they're one of the major reasons why older Japanese people seem to have a much better flexibility and physical assurance than their Australian counterparts, anyway. Not to say that the western toilet is not popular with them, or with me. I think it was occupied, though, so I used the 'Japanese' toilet. I hope it didn't mind a foreigner expelling things into it.

In addition, this station had warnings posted about the place strictly condemning sleeping in the overhead pass. Now, it was a transfer station, and people are likely to get stranded at one point or another, considering the trains all stop at one am or so (a lot earlier for the less frequented lines) so I guess there might be a lot of sleeping in overhead passes going on, or maybe the steel workers of the town had tried to sleep off a drunk there in the past.

One thing their toilets didn't have was toilet paper. This is a characteristic of Tokyo toilets, and from Hakodate northwards it seemed to be a characteristic of Hokkaido toilets, too. Now, Tokyo has the huge population. Hokkaido just might not get enough money fullstop, or maybe it was aspiring to Tokyo-like inconvenience stakes. I took to either using the toilets on the other side of the barrier, which always had paper, or the squat, steel toilets in the train, which were a lot cleaner than they used to be when Japan seemed to have a lot more beer swilling, chain smoking, business men travellers than now. Of course, they could have all been on the shinkansen or faster trains, and of course, smoking wasn't allowed on the trains any more. Some things do improve. You need not wonderful balance, but some balance to use them on the trains, though.

Higashi Muroran did have that cute ramen shop above, though, which had nothing to do with toilets. Ramen in Sapporo is something worth sampling. Not that I did at that time of the morning.

So, as the hour rolled along, 10.04 came about and once again I was on a train heading to Oshamambe. Once I hit Oshamambe, I'd be taking the same way back to Hakodate that I had taken from Hakodate to Sapporo (or to Oshamambe). I'm going to throw this picture of the coast in here now, because I think it was part of this journey (I could have even misfiled it, and it might be part of the Hakodate-Aomori journey, but, oh well! I could look it up, too, but again...). The train journey was really pretty - All the way from Shibata up to Sapporo. Of course with big chunks of urban and suburban sprawl, but it wasn't too long before you left that behind, and the scenery offered you a choice of ricefields, or ricefields and rivers, or ricefields and mountains, or ricefields and sea. Of course, there was also plain old sea, sea with sunset, or mountains with pines and mountains with rain forest. I haven't taken too many train journeys around the world, but I haven't been on one which follows the sea so closely. The train along the Matsushima line in Sendai has some points, too, where I wouldn't want to be stranded if a tsunami were to come in. Beautiful when the tsunami threat has abated, though. I present you with sea, grid, metal post and train station name.

The stop over in Oshamambe was an hour and a half. I'd wandered down to the sea the last time I'd stopped over, this time around I was trying to find a hat for a reasonable price. I'd picked up a hat I was quite fond of for 500￥ in Shibata and it had served me well, and was lightweight and kind of funky, but I'd misplaced it somewhere in between Asahikawa and Sapporo. I'm figure it's riding the trains still. Hatless when travelling in the still summer-like September is not a good idea, but all the hats I could find were close to ￥3000, and I wasn't going to spend a night's accommodation on one.

So, I discovered a supermarket and stocked up on tissues (probably a little too late. We were entering an area where there wasn't such a paucity of toilet paper, but still, a girl's gotta blow her nose every now and then) and wandered over the lines to check out the wild and viney forest that seemed to be just beyond the town. But, it was humid, I was hatless, and I didn't want to wander too far, so I turned back and then spent a pretty boring half an hour waiting for the train to come in.

Train lines into and out of Oshamambe
Well, my writing's pretty prosaic in these pieces, so I'm sure you know how I felt.

Shoes were off more often than on on the trains. Most of them were just one carriage, sometimes two. Often, even on the one man carriages, you managed to get a whole four seater to yourself. That is, your seat faced the other. They also had two seaters which were similar. On a normal train I avoided these seats as they involve knocking knees and too close a proximity to your three fellow passengers, however, if you're the only one in the seat, then rock on baby. Shoes off and feet up. Following local custom, this is okay, as long as your shoes are off and as long as you take your feet off the seat if someone else happens to share your haven with you, or you both kind of check if it is okay to be so relaxed.

Alcohol consumption on the longer train journeys in somewhat rural Japan is not really a problem either. It's all a bit of a holiday, a rest away from the ordinary, and I saw a man on a train at 9 or so in the morning the other day, enjoying his first beer. It has to be said that this would be looked down upon on a normal commuter train if it wasn't obvious that you were setting out on some kind of journey, and were relaxing in some kind of way. Even so, I avoided it, as it makes me too sleepy in the middle of the day.

As we approached Hakodate and Ikedaen (Ikada Park) where I was staying, things got closely mountainous again.


Onuma Koen, just outside of Hakodate, is a popular holiday spot. It borders three lakes, the largest of which is Lake Onuma, and I think the mountain overlooking it is Onuma San, though I'll look that up for you. Definitely do not quote me on it. The youth hostel I was staying at was about twenty minutes walk out of Onuma Koen and had a reputation for friendliness and for good dinners, which was not unwarranted.

I arrived there about three in the afternoon and was thankful to my guidebook for directions to the hostel as the station was unmanned and I doubt I would have understood any instructions given to me anyway. It wouldn't have been easy to find the place without instruction, and as it was, I misunderstood what was written, even though it was in English and I'd read it enough times to now know it by heart.

The couple who run the hostel really are lovely. I wanted to stay two days, but had to figure out my Lake Towada accommodation for day nine and day ten. Once done, and it took a while, I booked and paid for an extra night and then hired a bicycle (500￥ a day, I think) and went touring around the lake a little, which really was quite beautiful. I was washing clothes as well. The downside of travelling lightly - you need to wash your clothes regularly, and it's great in places like youth hostels and some minshuku which have amenities, but not all places have amenities, and some of the hostels have special rules so it seems a bit of a burden to ask to wash your clothes again. Consequently, I handwashed my clothes when I was in Towada-ko (and from Aomori) and wore them wet. Body heat dries things out quickly, and the lightweightness of them all (even when wet) meant that there really wasn't too much threat of rashes and chafing and so on. It's not ideal, though.

So, I initially went left from the hostel towards the main park area. I took photos of the lakes that afternoon, but have either put them in an incorrect folder or deleted them somehow, so I'll put a picture below from day 8. I like the picture, but the mountain does have a peak, which I saw, believe me!

Returning to the hostel to transfer my clothes to the dryer (takes 90 minutes to dry), I ran into a couple who were travelling around, both on the older side of things. He was pretty lively. Impish, leprechaunish... They were travelling around in car that he had converted so that it fit two beds and I am assuming a small kitchen, or maybe they just carried a small gas stove for cooking. Later I found that they were from Kumamoto in Kyushu and travelled a lot. He was on the eccentric side of things. She kept him in line, I think.

The hostel owners convinced me that my clothes were okay (I was afraid of impinging on someone else's time) and sent me off to see the sunset. It was some cycling away, considering I had to get the bike back by 6.30. They said that the best spot was the campsite and I probably made it to within five minutes (by bicycle) of the campsite. I still took in a beautiful sunset, even though I hadn't reached the desired destination, and cycled by some pretty spots. Everyone was setting up to take pictures of the sunset. It's quite funny, taking a holiday through the lens of a camera. Sometimes you (wrongly) think that something isn't worth seeing just because you can't get a 'capture' of it.

Dinner was lovely. A mixture of classic Japanese and western. Salmon was on the menu. Yum. There were only six staying at the hostel that night, including one guy who didn't have dinner. I had a two-bed room to myself. It overlooked fields behind the hostel, and I was able to see the rising moon which was kicking into fullness. There were mosquitoes galore in the area, but the flywire worked well enough in my room to keep the window open.

The other two people enjoying their dinner (other than me and the car converter and his wife) was an older lady and a younger woman. Later I found out that she was a tea ceremony teacher and the younger girl was her student. Very cool, very sharp, very kakkoii (the older woman). The older woman said she'd lived 24 of her years in other countries, and she was from Nara. She said that she hadn't learned any other languages though, so I wonder if she is and was a very famous tea ceremony teacher, or just very adventurous.

The girl wanted to speak English with me for a while as she missed her English lessons, which was kind of a drag, but also fine. We sat in the common room, which had a computer (so later I was able to figure out how I was going to return home more precisely)and chatted about her friends (she wasn't really interested in talking about current travel), eating a few of the snacks the owner brought in and drinking the soft drink she had purchased as a thank you.

Lights were out (my lights) by eleven or half eleven I think. The next day was the lake, and hopefully a chance to revisit Hakodate.