On each trip, I spend a few days going to places that most tourists skip and go somewhere that give me a sense of where the locals go for vacation. On my visit to Hokkaido, I spent both days visiting Japan's oldest national park.
On day one, we went to the highest peak in Hokkaido at Daisetsuzan National Park (Asakidake Hokkaido's Highest Peak). On day two, we went to Akan National Park. What drew me to Akan National Park was the many beautiful crater lakes together with the active volcanoes. Here you will see volcanoes rises above the water in the middle of the lake, scenic views of lakes and mountains that flashes by as you ride down the winding roads, and the famous marimo (cute round algae, a protected species). Just the thought of this gets my heart racing. Because we didn't rent a car, we had to do some research before we found the Pirika tour, which takes you on a one-day trip from Kushiro JR station to Lake Akan with many stops along the way and a 2 hour break at Lake Akan.
- 8:00 am: leave Kushiro JR station, stop at:
- Lake Mashu, a crater lake with one of the world's clearest water. Too bad that the weather wasn't on our side and we couldn't see anything after staring out in the rain for many minutes.
- Mt. Loh, a sulphur mountain. Here we can clearly see and 'smell' why it is called a 'sulphur mountain'.
- Lake Kusharo, the largest crater lake in Japan. The cool thing here is you can dig a hole in the sand at the shore and warm water will rise up from underground (sanuya). It is also said that here, you can find Japan's Loch Ness. We dug dug dug, but even the volcano's heat has to give way to the non-stop rain.
- 1:10 pm: arrive Lake Akan (2 hours stop). There are many things to do here e.g. boat ride, museums, shrines, old town, and many restaurants and gift shops. I would have taken tons of pictures if it wasn't raining. Due to the weather, we had to focus on eating and shopping with intervals of photo shoots around the area.
- 4:55 pm: back at Kushiro JR station
Though the weather wasn't ideal, we had a lot of fun and learnt valuable lessons:
- In Hokkaido, you should check the weather and change your plan accordingly. This is new for us from Thailand, but after that day we learnt this well.
- Hokkaido has so many scenic areas to explore, so don't just opt for the famous Lavender fields, snow festival, and good food
- Though there were uncertainties booking this tour as the staff were not very English proficient (well, we wanted to travel like a local) and the email response was so delayed that by the time we got the response we already took the tour. But go.... people are helpful and you'll have fun
- Most importantly, we really enjoyed shopping for snacks at every stop because the snacks are always different. We came back with a huge bag of snacks!
