Akan—>Mashu—>Sulphur Mountain

Breakfast was in the large dining room and self-service. All the traditional items were available - rice, fish, noodles, pickles. There was a local item that was like semolina with croutons that was interesting. Yogurt was more sticky than what we were used to, and had a mild taste. The tea from a teabag was awful so I stuck to oolong and green teas.

The drive to Akan was under 2 hours. We had our first petrol station experience on the way. It had been years since we’d been to a fully serviced place. They even cleaned our windows, and directed traffic to guide us back out to the road. Talk about great courtesy and service.

Lake Akan is one of three lakes in the Akan National Park. We just missed the hourly sightseeing boat so we took the speedboat option.

The main attraction of Lake Akan was to see marimo, slow-growing algae balls that populate the bottom of the lake. Marimo was declared a national treasure and there is a concerted effort to preserve them. The Marimo Observation Centre is located on an island at the top end of the lake. The round shape of the marimo is formed through gentle rotation of waves, and one of the exhibits replicated this action. It’s just like a relaxed version of lava lamps. [hurray for flickr video]

Back on shore, we walked the length of the village of Akankohan. The main industry being tourism, there was an abundance of souvenir shops. But hidden between buildings were hand or foot baths. Temperatures ranged from cool to too-hot-to-put-your-foot-for-more-than-5-seconds. Very enjoyable and relaxing.

The far end of the village behind the Ainu tribal museum was a 30-minute nature walk that led back to the lake. The end of the walk was the Singing Marimo monument, from what we could gather it had song lyrics carved into a rock.

Lunch was rice bowls at a local family place. Pork for mm and ebi for me. As with many Japanese we came across on this trip, we communicated through a combination of hand gestures, pointing and lots of nodding. The Japanese has a cute tendency to continue talking in fast Japanese even though they fully understand that we understand 0% of what they are talking about. It’s as if by talking even more, some of it will get through.

We hurried to Lake Mashu. The drive took longer cos of slow moving vehicles. We ended up at Observatory No 1, and a nice view. Apparently the lake is often covered by mist from the Kushiro wetlands but today it was open though overcast. Apparently also the view from Observatory No 3 is better (there isn’t any No 2) but we didn’t have time.

The next stop was Io-zan, or sulphur mountain. Similar to the hellmouth at Noboribetsu but on a smaller scale, there was a short path that led up a little into the mountain where we could see, feel and smell the sulphur seeping out from the rockface.

Another fully loaded, beautifully cooked dinner course and hot spring evening followed. Heh, we even did laundry.

I didn’t realise until mm told me that we were going too fast, even worse than a tour group. Sorry, mm. Let’s slow down and take our time.