We woke up real early this morning to make our way to Noboribetsu via the 8.39 am train. Noboribetsu is part of the Shikotsu-Toya National Park and is well known for its hot springs, onsens and its very own Hell Valley, a crater of smoking geothermal activity.
We scheduled 6 hours for Noboribetsu before making our way down to Hakodate and the 2 things to do were:
1) Visit Jigokudani (Hell Valley)
2) Visit an onsen!
We planned to leave our luggage in the lockers provided at the Noboribetsu Train station, and I was worrying that the big lockers would be all taken up, or the lockers moved away etc. So I was really pleased when we successfully stored our luggage in these. :D
Next up a 15min bus ride to the hot spring town and Jigokudani. We get on the bus, receive a ticket and pay before getting off. A screen at the front informs passengers what price to pay. Interesting right!?
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| No. 10th stop I assume |
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| No. 10 pays 340yen |
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| Bus we took |
#Side track - - > the tap of the toilet at the hotel looks quite cute lol
Onward to Jigokudani.
And suddenly, we were there!
Very stunning.
There were a number of foot paths and a walking trail at Jigokudani. We explored some of them and spent a big part of the time trying not to slip on the icy / snowfilled paths.
After some time of slipping and walking, we reached the Oyunuma Observatory. Oyunuma is a crater pond/lake and the temperature of its surface waters is about 50 degrees. Looks quite surreal.
Met a guy with excellent photography skills. Really appreciate the nice shot he took of us and the hmm wooden stake.
We couldnt move on further then because the foot trail we were on was closed. So we made our way back to the entrance.
At the entrance, we met a very nice lady with not so fantastic photography skills.
We had to take matters into our own hands.
It was close to 12pm and time for us to leave for our hot bath. We started the walk towards Noboribetsu Grand Hotel.
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| Sake Boutiqueeee |
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| Really cute police car |
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| Noboribetsu Grand Hotel! |
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| Oni at the front |
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| Public bath at second floor |
I was super excited to visit a public bath for the first time. No towels or pieces of cloth were provided to maintain bathers' modesty, everyone was walking around in their full birthday suit. ><
I took 2 illegal shots. One right at the entrance, and one right at the sink before the hot baths and birthday suits.
Yk and I were dillydallying around inspecting the place and being taken aback by the different body shapes we were seeing. When we were finally ready, I sped into the baths while YK moved somewhere else and then we bathed separately cos it felt too strange to sit beside each other to shower. Lol.
I downloaded the photos of the baths from the Noboribetsu Grand Hotel Website.
The hot soak was so good. I really enjoyed the experience! It wasn't crowded at 12pm-ish so it was nice to only share the place with 4 or 5 other people. :D
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| Red and happy after bath |
After we finished, we went on down to the bus station, and onward to Hakodate via JR train.
Nice view from the train. Not so nice shots, but you get the idea.
I bought this delightfully traditional looking snack and was looking forward to eat it.
It was some sort of bean paste(?) and altogether too sweet for me to handle. I didn't finish it..
After about 2.5hrs, we rolled into Hakodate!
We booked a night's stay at Four Points by Sheraton which is super conveniently located beside the train station. Sadly we walked around a bit before we realised that building opposite was Four Points.
We only had 1 night at Hakodate and I wanted to take in the view of Hakodate Bay from Mt Hakodate since it's got 3 stars under the Michelin Green Guide Japan. So after we put down our bags, we went off to the bus terminal to get on the bus to the Mount Hakodate Ropeway.
While waiting for the bus to arrive, we quickly started freezing from the strong Hakodate wind and had to hide out at the enclosed waiting area.
The ropeway costs 1280yen for a round trip and it was really crowded.
The car was real dark, check out the attempt at taking a pic
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| Without flash |
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| With flash |
LOL one more zombie shot
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| Raawrrrr |
LOL. Other than that, it was a rather quiet and peaceful ride to the top of the ropeway. The view was beautiful
It was also freezing because of the strong winds, we were shivering like mad.
We asked a lady to help us take a photo, she was very professional about it and took several shots while her friends stood around looking at us.
While the lady was taking the photo, suddenly one of her friends called my name, and it was my HJLS classmate! I was really shocked lol. We had sort of planned to have dinner together tomorrow but unexpectedly met each other at Mt Hakodate.
After enjoying the view and browsing the souvenir shop, we were ready to leave but realised the queue to get out and down was horrendously long. :(
Not really knowing what to do, we took a seat facing the view. But the crowd and people crowding around were so loud and noisy that I started to get a headache. It wasn't pleasant. I took a break to the toilet and we started queuing for the ropeway. *side track - the sink in e toilet is pretty cool.
Next up was dinner and we wanted to visit Lucky Pierrot, a well known fast food chain only available in Hakodate. It was also one of the options that was still open for business.
The food was yummy! It wasn't fall out of your chair yummy but pretty satisfying. The fries were addictive! It was a bit tough to eat the burger with the pieces of chicken moving around, but the meat was seriously juicy. The Japanese curry was yummy, esp with the serving of pickle and the fried cutlet can beat loads of fried cutlets in Sg.
When we exited the restaurant, I ran across the road to get this pic. Actually, the clown looks abit scary hoh?
Quite satisfiedly made our way back to the hotel and had our own dessert from the combini: Melon ice cream balls. These were really good and I super liked them!!!
Must try for melon ice cream lovers.
With bloated bellies, we zonked out. Early morning next day for the Hakodate Morning Market before we check out to Shinkansen to Tokyo.
Day 5 - Hakodate Morning Market / Uni Murakami / Red Brick Warehouse / Tokyo Ringo / Mutekiya
