The main reason I was dissing the B&B at Lake Akan (阿寒湖), was what started our morning this day. We were woke up by the host at (if my memory was correct) 8AM in the morning, saying that we should check out at 8. What? He never told us anything about an early checkout time the day before, and no relevant posting or handout in sight. Besides, I never ever known a lodging place kicking out guests this early, most are either 10 or 10:30. But this dude woke us up early in the morning and gave us only 30 minutes' grace time to get out of the place. It's not like we liked that crappy shack, but hay, we payed to have a good night's sleep, and this is how we were rewarded.
The plan of the day was to walk around the area for the day, and spend another night at Lake Akan, this time camping at the camping ground. We also considered a near by rider's house, which turned out to be another wooden shack, that we couldn't find the host, and there was only fiercely barking dogs "greeting" us.
So we set up camp at the Lake Akan camping ground, and left our luggage in our tents. In Japan, it's so safe that we could leave our bags by the road and no one would steal it. Well, it's then, I asked 毅軍："Where's our tent's polls?" After a long search in vain, we figured that he left it back at the Ashyoro (足寄) camping place, where he camped alone 2 days ago. I had a list of sporting goods shops around Hokkaido, but all are far away, after all Lake Akan is a national park. And even if they had tent polls, you never knew if it would fit our tent. 毅軍 even considered taking a bus to the next big city by himself to find the polls, but the bus schedule didn't work out; and I really don't like the idea of splitting our group up too far with no cell phones to communicate. What a bad way to start a day! We decided to forget about the polls for the day, as we were there to have fun, not to worry about problems.
It's another day we split ways. Candy's plan of taking the lake tour boat, and then riding around the area, sounded nice, so I tagged along.
After parting ways after lunch at Lawsons' (real great, mentioned in my last post), me and Candy went to take the tour boat: The Marimo (まりも丸). Well, the boat it self was okay, it was an old boat, and the comfort level of the over all ride, I'd say it's well, kind of like the old city buses, nothing special; in comparison though, it was worse then the experience I had at either Kobe (神戸) , Kagoshima (鹿児島), or even the boat to little Liucheu island (小琉球). There was a gift&snack bar on the boat, empty and closed. They had a recording introducing Lake Akan playing on the boat, but I can't understand most of it. And it was a cloudy, windy, foggy and cold day with occasional drizzles, so looking outside was not fun, either.
Candy seemed to enjoy it, though.
We got off the boat on a tiny island in the middle of the lake, which had a "Marimo tourist center" on it, with exhibitions and aquariums of the marimo seaweed balls.
So the "Marimo center" turned out to be a two story building, each story the size of a 7-eleven. We were like, that's it?
Well, at least we get to see marimo...
Outside was a tiny park for tourists to walk around and take pictures.
And as with every major tourist site in Japan, there will be a sign with the site's name for people to take pictures next to it, proving that they have came.
And that concludes it, back to the boat.
On the way back, the fog got even worse, and it was a world of white outside the window, so much for the boat tour... The attendant started selling marimo merchandise, more souvenirs and a picture book. And they were playing a hilarious "song of the marimo" in the old, slow Japanese enka (演歌) fashion.
まりも〜よ〜まりも、緑ま〜りも♪
Well, that kept me laughing...
And that was that, for our not so interesting lake tour. We did see stuff we didn't see before, but just wasn't as amusing as we thought, most parts of the tour left us thinking "that's all?", and the fog made it even worse.
We next went to a walking route aside the lake yet apart from the shopping strip, to see a less commercialized part of the area. We first came to "Benkei's hotspring foot bath" (弁慶の足湯), where 毅軍 previously said he would be, writing postcards.
It was a free little pool for people to warm up their feet while enjoying the scenery. Although 毅軍 was not there when we got there, it's just what we needed to warm up our cold feet.
And sitting here, we share the same great view of the expensive hotels.
We then continued along the scenic path along the lakeside.
Oh, yet another photo spot sign.
And oh my god, here's the lyrics of that "song of marimo" (マリモの唄) we hard on the boat...
As the lake is surrounded by volcanoes, it's a place of active earth energy release. Other then the previously mentioned hot springs, here's a mud volcano, which the native Ainu people called "Pokke".
The native name sure does sound like the sprouting bubbles. Interestingly, even standing at a distance, we could feet that the ground around it is warm.
There goes the bubbles!
Actually, the mud volcano not only warmed up the surrounding ground, even the lake water close by was warm. And there were signs that said this higher ground temperature also allowed plants of warmer climates, such as ferns, to grow in the area.
The path next lead to the Akan Lakeside Eco-Museum Center (阿寒湖畔エコミュージアムセンター), a government owned museum full of information of the nature, geography, and ecology of the surrounding area. It's admission free, and the shear amount of information and exhibits in there makes it a must stop for nature lovers, like me. Best of all, the marimo there looks much healthier, greener, beautiful, and bigger then those on the island in the lake. There is sufficient introduction to the whole volcano system around the area to feed my curiosity, and also specimen or models of the local wildlife. And the floor of the whole exhibition area is a huge satellite photo of Lake Akan national park. It sure was nice to trace the roads we rode in, and the roads we planned on riding out of the area.
This stuffed bear specimen, is the best of all, the size really gave us a shock. No matter how big you believe a bear could be, you'd still be shocked by the real size. Yet, even this one is not full grown before it's death.
Compare the bear with the chair next to it!
Here's also a specimen of a little dear.
I then decided it's shopping time, parted with Candy, and went back into the shopping strip. As mentioned in my previous post, most of the shops sell wood craft of the local Ainu people. All are similar, key chains, cellphone lanyards, pendents, cups, ornaments, and all kinds of stuff in the form of the local wildlife, such as owls and foxes. Yet, if you look close enough (thank Mai-Yu for pointing that out for me, sure got the eyes of a trained artist), the foxes and owls of each store were slightly different, taking a quality and spirit of it's own, showing the level of craftsmanship. Even in the same shop, duplicates of each craft might have slight differences. As I was choosing cute little "fox-in-a-log" key chains, I noticed that some had their eyes slightly smaller, some had mouths tilting a different way. All signs of it's handmade nature. Some shops sell factory made stuff (the same as in airports), and looking at the eyes of the foxes' eyes, the factory made ones seem to lack a feel of spirit. Of all the crafts shop, I liked a shop called "Ezorisu" (えぞりす) the best.
There were also other stores that sell other kinds of stuff. There were the Marimo related stuff shop (which did not interest me), and parody based Hokkaido theme store, selling stuff related to places all around Hokkaido, such as Abashiri (網走) prison handcuffs, GingisKan BBQ flavored caramel, and the Puma brand look-a-like "Kuma" (bear) series stuff. There is even T-shirts with mock claw marks on them, with the words "bear kick", "bear hit", or "bear throw"; very cool, too bad I couldn't afford them. I also liked a shop that specialized in "Beware of bear" (熊出沒注意) products, from cups and clothing to even foods, all baring the "Beware of bear" mark. I especially like a badge with a suction cup that you are supposed to put on your car window, which said "Bear riding in this car!" (クマ乗っている), but again, too expensive.
Yet, I once saw a Japanese cycler with his bike full of stickers from the places he's been to, signifying how much places he and his bike had traveled to together, and I really liked the feeling. So I bit the bullet and bought one of those "Beware of bear" stickers to put on my bike.
We gathered at the camping site that afternoon, and it was one of the most crowed camping sites that we saw on the trip. There was another hotspring foot bath (足湯) at the site, a roofed area with a central table and seat, while the hot water flows under the table warming your feet (with the table there, seems to me, like a place to have foot bath, and beer at the same time). We sat there talking about what we saw and bought during the day. And there were also other campers sitting there chatting. Two half drunk Japanese guys asked us about our trip, and told us that the girls are more beautiful in southern Hokkaido. I replied, we were on our way north, though. Well, they continued on, saying that the girls are "strongly recommended!" (おすすめ！) They also asked us where we were from, and their response to "Taiwan" was: "wasn't there a idol group called F4?" We replied, "err, yeah", secretly hating the group. And then they got real excited say that they heard that fireworks in Taiwan go rapidly "boom, boom, boom, boom!" Well, guess Taiwan's got a weird yet interesting image in Japan.
After dinner, we were back at the hotspring foot bath (足湯) table, this time with 2 families sitting there. Again, other campers were always interested in people on bikes, and so another chat on our trip. We said we were from Taiwan, and their little girl replied instantly: "Taiwan banana!" (台湾バナナ！) So, Taiwan is famous for it's banana exports? How cute! Sometime later, their other kids came running all around the camping site, chasing a fox! I saw this slender furry thing run by very fast disappearing in a split second, with a huge fluffy tail pointing upward. And the next thing I see, a whole group of at least 5 kids chasing it nosily. Minutes after the comical scene, the kids came to their parents and shouted "Saw a fox, Saw a fox!" (狐見た！狐見た！), and another kid followed excitedly "2 of them! 2 of them!" (二つ！二つ！), and then "Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh!", and all went chasing the pour fox again.
As for the parents of the 2 families, they seem to have a lot of fun, with huge bottles of beer on the table, and laughing louder and louder. I felt kind of lonely next to them, and we were relatively quite. So I went to the local convenient store and got some drinks and salted soy beens (枝豆). I intended to get beer, but being poor and cheep, I went for the cheapest alcohol containing sparkling fruit juice cocktail. More of a drink then liquor, it really didn't did much, even falled to make me warm, but oh well, it was nice. Mean while, one of the moms of the families sitting next to us was clearly drunk, face all red and walking unstable, shouting meaning less words, while the others were forced to "carry" her back to their tent. Wow, a drunk Japanese mom, really seems like something in anime, and I never realized the anime were that realistic!
That night we guys slept in the slouchy poll-less tent, under a tree, with the top hung from a branch. Looks more like a piece of tarp for the homeless then a tent, but as soon as we are asleep, it doesn't matter any more. As for the polls, Candy called our friends back at Taiwan who would be coming over to join us soon, and told them to bring us the polls.
July 13 阿寒湖 << | >> July 15 女満別
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