Backdate: Japan Hokkaido Jun 2025 Day 5

14/6/25 Sat: Left our nice Airbnb at 10am because Potato had to drive southwards and westwards to Lake Toya next. Re-fueled at Eneos (6,864 yen) during the 2 hour-drive and it was nice to have the complimentary windscreen wiping service. toll was 3,660 yen.

Parked at the small town's free carpark and we managed to get seats at松前屋at 12.15pm for lunch. It's a small family-run eatery which was supposedly popular. It has probably less than 20 seats and the interior was cosy. We had our "own room" for dining while LL and Dexter sat at the bar counter seats because of LL's knees.

PotaTOHs had the scallop don with clam soup and it was very good. MIL had katsu don and FIL ate curry katsu don. Lunch for all six of us came up to 11,800 yen.

We had a rather free afternoon, so I suggested to walk over to Toyako Visitor Centre. It was only a 10 minutes' walk or so, but the wind was blowing quite relentlessly and it got pretty cold, and we ended up walking into a random nearer building to shield ourselves from the cold. *FIL enjoyed it omg haha~*

We saw exhibitions on the volcanic eruptions from Mount Usu over the years, and the living habitat of Lake Toya region. There was also the G8 Hokkaido Toyako Summit Memorial Museum on the third floor of the building. Then, we walked for another five minutes or so to get to the Volcano Science Museum. Visitors would see a free exhibition area that shares the geological information of Hokkaido and Lake Toya, and it was quite interesting to hear the sounds of bird species they have there.

FIL, MIL and PotaTOHs paid 800 yen each to enter the their museum, which went in-depth on Mount Usu’s eruption starting from 1910 onwards, to 1997 and 2000 were all documented. *It's first eruption was in 1663 though.*

Saw one of the damaged truck from the 2000 earthquake. It's not a big space, but it has information on structure of the earth and volcanoes, a small simulation area that uses image and body sonic to present the 1977 eruption, buckled railway tracks, how the 2000 eruption created numerous craters and caused geographic change at the west foot of Nishiyama and elevated it to about 70m, and a mirror vision of "shelter life" where after the 2000 eruption, people lived in shelters for up to five months.

We also watched a short Japanese documentary, with English audio radio given to us, on the earthquakes in the theatre. It did remind me of what I saw at Iceland's volcanic museum too. The force of nature is overwhelming and we're all just but tiny humans.

Had a chance to try the VR sets. MIL was especially immersed in it and both FIL and her were not dizzy at all! I’m impressed. The videos were beautiful but I had to remove it once in a while because I couldn’t take the giddy spells.

Left at 3.15pm or so and Potato drove us to Hotel Cocoa resort, where we will be staying for two nights (S$977.2 for six pax for three rooms). There were some construction to their entrance when we arrived, but the receptionist gave us sandals and we had to put all shoes in lockers on the first floor. All our rooms were on the second floor.

Here's PotaTOH's room 208. We could see Lake Toya and there's even a view of Lake Toya from our bathtub haha. While Potato took a nap in the afternoon, I enjoyed some me-time till 6pm. *Our air-con was leaking on the second night all the way till third morning alamak~* 

Saw very good reviews of Aji no Ippei, run by an old couple in their 80s, but a pity the small eatery has got no more seats for 4 of us when we got there at 6pm or so. *Very thankful Potato is there to help in Japanese because mine is rusty and my mind goes kind of blank when I hear locals speak Japanese haiz...* So, four of us walked across the street and settled for Momiji izakaya. One lady in her 60s runs the place. She also looked to have a hearing aid on, so it was not that she’s rude when it looked like she ignored us and other customers a few times.

We shared some oden! 150 yen each piece. The fried karaage was good and there's a small portion of Hokkaido's local dish, Gengis Khan, which was braised lamb meat with beansprouts.  The fried sotong was a bit salty but nice. The tamago was okay~ Potato can cook even better haha. We each had to order a drink as well, so FIL got beer haha. Bill came up to 5,000 yen.

Spent only half an hour eating there because there were more customers coming into the small izakaya and we left at 7pm. Passed by hot spring water and public foot bath before we went for our second round of dinner lol.

We ate at Horaikan at 7.30pm. There weren't many customers in that ramen eatery, manned by one elderly couple and their daughter? PotaTOHs ate the miso ramen (950 yen) and gyoza (770 yen). The miso ramen was on the heavier side while gyoza was a bit soft. It's probably rare in Japan but I didn't like their food, which costed two of us 1,720 yen.

At 8pm or so, we saw the decors on the streets were lighted up! We were walking towards Lake Toya, which will have a free 20 minutes of firework show that starts at 8.45pm in the summer season. There's also the ship that one can pay and go onto, and they will drive out to the middle of the lake.

It wasn't packed, though there were a number of people around. It was also a cooling night, so it was nice. *Potato didn't look too well though after dinner.* I met a Taiwanese guy randomly and he talked non-stop and shared with me his love for fireworks, his life in Taiwan and also asked me about Singapore's standard of living etc. 

The fireworks were pretty, but we didn't stay throughout the 20 minutes. Ended the day when we got back to hotel at 9.30pm.