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Chapter 4: Forest for Oysters

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Aboard a local train to Rubeshibe, Hokkaido
Wed 04 Oct 2000 09:14

Yesterday I griped about the rain, now I'm annoyed by the fact that occasional bursts of sunshine obscure my view of the laptop's LCD. I'm never satisfied, now am I... at any rate, today's plan is to hitchhike to Sounkyo Onsen ("Misty Gorge Hot Springs") in the middle of Taisetsuzan ("Great Snow Mountain") National Park, and if it starts to rain again (today's percentages 30/40/50) I'll wimp out and catch a bus. And now I'm sitting on a train in order to bypass the urban conglomeration (at least by Hokkaido standards) of Kitami, reknowned as Japan's top onion producer. Boarding the first train on this trip (after Tokyo) did produce a mild pang of guilt, but hitching distances of less than 1000 yen is rarely worth it... and I have to hurry if I want to catch a ride before those percentages start climbing again.

Incidentally, staying at the minshuku yesterday was an excellent idea. It rained hard well into the night, I got some serious coding done, was stuffed to bursting at dinner (including sashimi, surprise surprise) and breakfast, and managed to actually sleep long and well for the first time since I left. For once the staff managed to contain their curiosity and I was left entirely unpestered, which suited me just fine.

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Summit of Mt. Kurodake, Sounkyo Onsen, Hokkaido
Wed 04 Oct 2000 14:35

Halt! Who goes there?

Up, up and away

The summit (police box to the right)

I got a ride from Rubeshibe within seconds, courtesy of a sembei (rice cracker) company salesman who gave me a few packets of his company's products as a souvenir (one of which also made it up the mountain). Mt. Kurodake ("Black Mountain") stands a proud 1984 meters tall, although the size of my personal accomplishment is perhaps slightly diminished by the fact that I climbed the first 1740m of that with a cable car and ski lift... the rest of the 1.7 km trek to the top took a relatively tough hour, hopping from a muddy rock to another. It's been a beautiful day so far, but now the clouds are starting to roll in and I think I'd better start the climb down before it starts to rain.

By the way, if you think bringing a laptop to the top of a mountain is weird, rest assured I think bringing an entire (manned) police box up and roping off the entire summit is even more weird.

Today's profound thought:
"The forest is the sweetheart of the sea", says a quote attributed to the Forest for Oysters Society in an informative English pamphlet about the Taisetsuzan area. Yes, I looked up what on earth the Japanese original said, only to find out that it was in classical Chinese. ¡Ö¿¹ÎÓÀ§Â糤ǷÎø¿Í¡× was legible enough thanks to my studies of Mandarin, but I'll be damned if I can make heads, tails or oysters out of the attribution.

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Sounkyo YH, Sounkyo Onsen, Hokkaido
Wed 04 Oct 2000 17:25

Mountains around Kurodake

A jungle of trees

...and trees like moss

And it did rain, although not much. By the time I got back to the chairlift everything was wrapped in fog and visibility was zero. Descending through the clouds was fun though, after absolute nothingness a beautiful vista of autumn colors opened up, trees seen from high above looked like seaweed and corals when scuba diving...

The hostel's restaurant is closed for repairs, so dinner and breakfast will be served at exactly the same cheapo eatery I went to for lunch today. At least I was smart enough to opt out of tomorrow's dinner... and on the plus side, by eating breakfast there I'll also get a lift off the hostel's hilltop to the center of the (small) town of Sounkyo Onsen. I've met three other youth hostellers so far, and they're all over 60 years old. Dammit, if I'm going to stay in a place like this, the others should at least be young, female, single, pretty, large-breasted and own a sports car!

[Post-dinner addendum: Be careful what you wish for -- you just might get it. (Hot damn!)]

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Inside the Amagiiwa Tunnel, Sounkyo, Hokkaido
Thu 05 Oct 2000 11:07

Well, it *did* seem too good to be true. Not only did Nobuko not have a sports car, or any car at that, but she was on a three-day trip that ends today -- and she left on the 7:40 bus to Biei to admire its famous fields, most unusual in Japan for being flat. Ah well, since she's from Yokohama I may actually meet her again someday; due to a freak of statistics every other Japanese person of the female persuasion whom I've met so far on all my trips (incl. all 4 of The Gyaru and Midori) has been from the Kansai area...

Ryusei-no-Taki waterfall

Mossy boulders below Ginga-no-taki

The stream at the bottom of the gorge

So after gently probing from above yesterday, today I decided to try the bottom route and penetrate deep into Sounkyo Gorge itself on foot. Alas, not only did I forget to take my camera's spare batteries with me, but it started to rain and I'm typing this sheltered within a (now disused) tunnel along the bike trail/footpath snaking along the bottom of the gorge. Some pretty waterfalls, yes, but not quite as spectacular as I'd been led to believe. The lava tubes within the gorge are interesting, but for most part just look like concrete pillars. The middle section of the path connecting the Kobako and Obako (Small Box and Large Box, respectively) is currently roped off due to a danger of falling rocks, and needless to say there's yet another police box whose sole purpose is to prevent people from using the path. Grr.

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Kurodake-no-yu, Sounkyo Onsen, Hokkaido
Thu 05 Oct 2000 13:59

Oh my goody gosh, my ki just stuck to me so well that I'm still peeling pieces off. (In case that made no sense, feeling good is kimochi ii in Japanese, lit. "my ki is holding well".)

Kurodake-no-yu is the new winner in the pro onsen category: a three-story edifice featuring a rotenburo, an inside bath, a sauna and a (tiny) cold pool to boot. Big, almost empty at the bizarre time of 1 PM, (almost) hot enough and with all the mod cons, all this for 500 yen with the hostel discount (and a very tolerable 600 yen without it). I finally even learned why throwing water on the rocks is not allowed in Japanese saunas: evidently the steam will be hot and thus dangerous. And silly old me thought that was the whole point for all these years...

After lolling about for two hours I'm now selflessly replenishing my electrolytes with a frosty mug of Hokuto Kougen (ËÌÅ͹⸶¥Ó¡¼¥ë), the local microbrew. Some bizarre and mildly annoying old fogey deciced to get his weekly English practice with me ("Where you from? America, yes?"), but eventually took the hint and compensated by flinging a Y110 bag of orange-flavored gummy blobs my way.

After speaking absolutely nothing except Japanese for two weeks, I ran into Scott and Trevor from the States and enjoyed the nearly forgotten pleasure of effortless communication. They'd been traveling around for over a month and after Hokkaido were planning gradually drift south in search of an illegal job. Scott's shaved head and dangling chains together with Trevor's chin spike and straightjacket-type coat were quite successful at freaking out the locals but they were really quite a merry bunch, odds are we'll meet again at a certain techno party in Tokyo featuring (among others) Underworld and Orbital. But after a six-pack of beer it was time to go pack...

Chapter 5: Press the Button >>