Japan - Day 10

We woke to pouring rain... so no hiking up Mt Meakan today. Instead we drove north for a bit, to visit Abashiri prison museum.

The prison opened in 1890, and was pretty much the equivalent of being sent to Siberia.

Crossing the Mirror Bridge to get in. On seeing their reflections in the water, prisoners were supposed to reflect on their crimes.

In those days Japan claimed all of Hokkaido, but the northern part of the island was mostly undeveloped and the Meiji government was worried that Russia would march in and take it. So the idea was to send prisoners there to build a road connecting the north to the settled parts in the centre and south.

Walking up to the main entrance.

You know the story of the Burma Railway in WWII? It was pretty much the same here: the prisoners cleared the forest and built the road by hand, in appalling conditions.

I doubt the real prisoners smiled quite so much.

But they did it, in record time, and Hokkaido was safely entirely Japanese.

(click to enlarge)

The prison still exists, in a modern form - the original buildings were moved to the museum site but there were replica modern cells too.

Not much different from student housing!

Apart from the bars, of course.

There was a restaurant serving replicas of the prisoners' meals. We went to a different one.

 Despite loving Japanese noodles at home, Téo refused to try them in Japan until... yesterday. Guess what? He loved them!

Lukan was very happy that the menu included the Italian kind.

The museum being an outdoor museum, we were quite soggy - but we dutifully visited all the buildings before heading home.

On the way back we stopped at another Mt Io. We pulled in just as the rain stopped - and just ahead of a huge bus load of Chinese tourists, prompting me to sprint across to the interesting part in order to snap some unpeopled shots.

We could walk up quite close to the vents, and could hear boiling water under our feet - it was pretty cool! The Chinese tourists didn't stay long, but we didn't linger either as the rain soon started again.

Not fancying the same restaurant menu as the night before, we asked TripAdvisor where to go for dinner. The top recommendations were all full, but at last we found a great little izakaya that hit the spot perfectly.

Mmm, deep-fried chicken. He declined the deep-fried intestines, however.

Then it was back to the hotel for an onsen and bed.

The ol' switcher-poo

You know, Téo says at dinner, about 10 minutes after I went to bed last night, I heard... you know.

What? I ask.

You know. He lowers his voice. S-E-X.

The au pair kind of chokes on her food.

We were watching a movie, I explain. A romantic comedy I add, a trifle belatedly. I feel I need to strengthen the case to the au pair that we were not watching porn by giving the name of the film, only I've forgotten it in English and I suspect the French name - Sex Friends - won't help.

What exactly did you hear? I ask Téo, thinking that surely whatever can be heard in an American romantic comedy is pretty mild, and maybe he made a mistake.

You know. Push-push-push.

The au pair chokes a bit more. Oh good grief, why on earth did I ask?

Well, yes, that's why I sent you to bed, because I knew there'd be a sex scene.

Lukan pipes up. Is it fun to watch sex in a movie?

Holy crap.

Ahh, well, it can be.... ahhh...you'll find out when you're older.

I imagine it's very... he puts on what he thinks is a sexy pose... relaxin'.

Holy holy crap.

But mummy, I have a question for you. This is Téo again. How do you know how to do it? The first time?

Well, your body kind of just knows. It's ... instinctive.

He looks blank. We've already explained the basic mechanics so I know he's asking for more detailed information. Which, actually, I had planned on providing to both kids at some point... but now is not the time. I'm compelled to say something more, however.

You live in a farming village, haven't you seen animals having sex?

Mummy said it again! says Lukan delightedly - who's long been banned from saying "sexy" given it's his adjective of choice to describe himself,  which along with the sexy pose we find somewhat disturbing. Yipee! That means I can too! Sex! Sex! Sex!

Well, bees explode when they do it, says Téo. Males bees. Only the male ones. They explode. And do you know what rhinos do? They charge each other, head first. And hippos throw their poo.

Really? I ask. I didn't know that.

Yeah, says Téo, it was in my Science & Vie magazine one time. 

Sex, sex, sex! chirps Lukan unabated.

At this point the au pair excuses herself from the table.

I kind of want to verify the bee, rhino and hippo thing ... the iPad is right there... but then I remember a video I once saw. Nope, getting online is most definitely not going to help matters.

Huh, I say. Well, I'm pretty sure you won't explode. And you won't have to charge anyone, or throw poo ... unless you want to.

Never before have I been actually thankful for the conversational trump card that is poo.

Japan - Day 9

So the hotel we were staying at was kind of old. Which there is nothing wrong with, only the futons were also old. Meaning, they were thin. Meaning, we were basically sleeping on a hard floor. This was not very soothing on an already sore body.

(An aside: When I lived in Japan, the weekend after I moved into my apartment was not spent buying bedding and such like, but climbing Mt Fuji. The thing to do when climbing Mt Fuji is to get to the top to see the sunrise. I think I have mentioned that the sun rises very early in summer in Japan? So "getting to the top in time to see the sunrise" means "getting up way before even sparrow fart to start climbing in the dark". This was also my first experience of a Japanese mountain hut... which for the most part was spent lying awake on my back packed in among people I did not know listening to them snore - and by "packed in", I mean I could feel the people on either side of me, down the entire length of my body. All in all, it was not a very restful weekend. When I got back to my empty apartment on the Sunday evening, I lay down on the bare tatami, slept like a log and woke up feeling fine. Ah, youth.)

In keeping with the rest of the hotel, breakfast was the traditional kind.

Téo very kindly gave massages to those in need.

After breakfast we set off to see the nearby Shiretoko Five Lakes - which once again was very kind of Yoko seeing as she had already been there yesterday.

The lakes attract a lot of tourists - and there are bears in the area. So, before we could enter we had to get a "bear passport" by sitting through a presentation on what to do if we encountered any bears. Despite the overarching message of "you don't want to come across a bear" I remained very hopeful of FINALLY seeing one... until we were on the walkways with so many other people, where I had to admit a sighting was very unlikely.

It was still very pretty though.

(Click to see full size)

Then it was back in the car - and very welcome air conditioning - to drive to Lake Kussharo.

We'd finished the adventures of Humphrey the hamster - the Wombles kept the kids quiet for this trip.

After a couple of hours we stopped at a lookout. It was nice to get out and stretch our legs, but the view was nothing spectacular.

You can see our destination, Lake Kussharo. And for those who've been to our place, see how similar Hokkaido looks to our part of Switzerland? 

We were a bit puzzled by the number of cars, lack of people, and pretty ordinary view...and then realised we needed to cross the road and climb a little way.

The reason for the look out immediately become clear. 

It turned out we were at Lake Mashu - which I'd read about but not thought to actually see, as most of the time the crater is filled with fog. But not today! The lake has the officially clearest water in the world, with visibility to 41.6 m. It also has no rivers flowing into it - all the water comes from rain. This means the water purity is a useful indicator of pollution. For this reason, access is impossible - and thank goodness, as otherwise there'd likely be some very ugly development down there.

Coming back down to the cars, Téo somehow tripped... and left a bit of skin on the path.

These were the worst bits, two days later.

We took him dripping blood into a nearby roadside restaurant/souvenir shop where, after cleaning him up as best we could, we had lunch.

Melons for sale ... $88 for five! I bought a few slices out of curiosity, and honestly they were not even that good. The $3 ones we get from France are much much better.

Lukan of course went to inspect the souvenirs... it being now August, and him turning 7 in August, and 7 being the age that pocket money starts, he was desperate to Buy Something with his newly granted riches. Despite our advice to wait until we got to the big toy store in Tokyo, Buy Something he did - a green pom pom key ring.

There it is, along with all his other key ring treasures.

The view from the restaurant.

A zoomed in photo from the car park of Mt Meakan, an active volcano we planned to climb the next day. 

As we headed to our hotel on the shores of Lake Kussharo the weather closed in a little. The kids needed a good run around, so we went down to the water... where the walk was quickly abandoned in favour of skipping stones.

Forced inside by the steadily increasing rain, we went to explore the games room.

The weekend I met C, I beat him on a ski machine. I can't claim the same for real skis.

I broke 2 out of the 3 entry rules for the onsen - I had a camera with me, and I have a tattoo. Luckily no one kicked me out... but in any case it was quite crowded so I couldn't manage a picture. Even if I had, it would not have been interesting as the view was a wall of the hotel - what a missed opportunity with the lake right next door!

For dinner we decided not to take the buffet but instead go to the restaurant. We were a bit disappointed to discover we weren't allowed to wear yukatas in the restaurant - Lukan especially, who had a lot to say about how stupid it was that we had to go back to our room to get dressed properly here when we never had to anywhere else. A good serving of edamame and chips stopped his whinging though. Our meals were very yummy too.

And that was pretty much that for the day!

Japan - Day 8

Seeing how well the kids did with the hikes in Daisetzusan National Park, C decided to push them a bit harder today. Namely, the ascent of Mt Rausu - the highest point on the Shiretoko peninsula at 1,660 m. Not so high you might say, only we started at 169 m above sea level. And it was a 13 km return trip. And C was determined we'd finish in under 8 hours.

That's Mt Rausu on the right. We started walking just a little higher than this (but a fair bit closer). See the tiny whitish dot just under the saddle between Mt Rausu and the volcano to the left (Mt Mitsumine)? Keep it in mind.

Not being entirely confident on the 8 hours, though, we thought it best to start early. We left too early for breakfast at the hotel, but they made us some onigiri. After a quick stop at a 7-11 for lunch things, we headed off. Not long afterwards we stopped for a photo, because:

And not long after that for another one:

We were back in bear country - "one of the most notorious places in Japan for brown bear encounters" apparently, so I kept my eyes peeled. No luck on the drive to the trail head though. After a short stop to eat the onigiri, we started walking at 7.30am.

The track went up from the start, through the forest.

Even after 8 days, I still couldn't get over the amount of forest on this island.

I needn't have made C stop the car to get a photo of the deer by the side of the road:

This little cutie was with his mum. He was a bit nervous, but his mother just kept on munching leaves with barely a glance in our direction.

After about an hour and a half we reached the first stop, at the site of a natural spring.

My goodness was that water good - cold and delicious and very much appreciated in the heat, both to drink and tip over ourselves. Then we were off again.

We met quite a lot of people coming down - I guess they'd gone up to see the sunrise from the top. They were all completely covered from head to finger tips to toes: hats, gloves, trousers and long-sleeved shirts. We think they were protecting themselves from the sun, but couldn't understand how they could stand all that clothing, it was so hot and humid. 

After around another hour and a half we came out into a gully.

There were lot of flowers - and not bees this time, but butterflies.

Remember the tiny whitish dot I said to keep in mind? It was a patch of snow:

Micheline and Jean-Pierre stopped soon afterwards, and the rest of us kept going up through the gully to a saddle between Mt Rausu on the right:

And Mt Mitsumine on the left: 

Actually we'd already left the saddle in the above photo, having turned right to start the final ascent of Mt Rausu. It was a gentle climb at first...

... which soon got steep.

The streaks on Mt Io, in the background, are sulphur - which is what this volcano erupts. Liquid sulphur!  

C had wanted us to be at the summit by noon ... the boys all made it easily but I was behind by a couple of minutes. I blame the photo-taking. :) 

Looking towards Hokkaido (west), from the top. The north side (where we had come from) was clear but the south side was covered in cloud - which we later discovered is normal for summer. In winter it's the other way around.

Looking along the peninsula (east) from the top.

And looking down to the northern side. That's the Sea of Okhotsk at the bottom.

Even more incredible than the view, was this critter:

It was huge! The body was something like 3 cm long! There was another, even bigger one, though not as pretty:

We couldn't linger too long if we wanted to be down in 3 hours - and so meet C's goal of doing the whole hike in 8 hours.

No, not that way down...

...the other way.

The kids pretty much skipped down the boulders, Lukan just needing a bit of a hand for the larger ones. My descent was a bit less graceful, and quite a lot more heavy footed.

The path down was the same as the path up. So basically, once we got off the summit and down the saddle and gully, there were trees.

Lots of trees.

We made it down to the spring in pretty good time, where again the cold, fresh water was very welcome. C was very hopeful we'd make it back to the car in the 8 hours... and in fact Chabolz and Andy did, but my feet started killing me near the end. Lukan slowed down too, but I was the last one to hobble down. Which I guess means I'm now officially the slowest walker in our family. Oh well. 

Did you notice the lack of any bear photos? Yeah, no bear sightings. Oh well again.

After taking off our shoes - bliss! - we set off back to the hotel. Yoko had spent the day with her and Chabolz's friends from Switzerland. We came across them on the way, splashing in a river. We joined them - the water was lovely on the feet. But not as good as the onsen.

More bliss for my achy feet and legs.

We had to wait a bit for dinner, so let the kids turn on the TV. They found some kind of talent show with celebrity judges... and of course a Japanese twist. Namely, instead of just buzzing the contestants off, the judges would open a trap door in the stage through which the performers would fall, into a pool of water. Hot water. One guy couldn't swim. Another, smartly performing in swimmers, somehow unsmartly lost them while desperately clambering out. The last one we saw, had the trap door opened after he had leaped into the air. Good grief, it was cruel.

Even after the hot soak I was still hobbling. I was even more happy than usual to lie down in bed that night.