I should have driven my car enjoying the idyllic scenery around here, but... there was a sudden change in the weather. The rain started to come down in sheets just before Toyako Lake. We were going to call at the Windsor Hotel TOYA Resort & Spa which is the conference site of the next G8, but I gave up. The heavy rain was one of the reasons. The other is that the hotel was not on our map. The hotel was built recently and the map in our car was not updated. I had a cellphone and could have called the hotel, but I was too lazy to do so. I'd like to have had coffee in the lobby and taken some pictures around there to show them off next year during the G8 meeting. I supposed that we couldn't have enjoyed the scenery of Toyako Lake from the lobby.
There were two sites I wanted A to see around here. One is the crater of the volcano, Mt. Usu. I'll show you two pictures near the crater. Take a look at the 1st picture. Do you recognize the road traffic sign? It stands for the speed limit (50kph) around here. You will find a fence between the road and the walkway. The oblique area between the fence and the signpost used to be the road.
Look at the other picture. You can see the horizontal road on the near side and this road is winding to the right on the far side. Besides, this road is going diagonally down. There's a pond on the sagging road that was made by the eruption of the volcano.
Such dynamic scenery can't be seen in any other place in Japan. This is the reason why I took A there. However, to my sadness, she seemed not to be interested in the activity of the volcano. I visited here last year, but I wanted A to see it and went again.
Next, we left for Mt. Showashinzan (398m). This is a very famous attraction too in southern Hokkaido. This had been heaved up and made over 2 years. I can easily imagine that people were astonished by it. Talking about A, she didn't look happy standing in front of the mountain. I didn't know why. Because she is a girl? Generally speaking, women might have less interest in earth science than men.
We had lunch at the small restaurant near the parking lot. The lunch was so-called Sapporo ramen. Hokkaido is also noted for its ramen, but this ramen was lousy. After that we made for the Ainu Museum, POROTOKOTAN.
(Vocabulary)
idyllic scenery 牧歌的な風景 ai-di`-lik
come down in sheets 雨が滝のように降る
sagging たわんだ, へこんだ, たるんだ; 低下した, 落ち込んだ
heave [他] (苦労して) 〈重い物〉 を持ち上げる, 引き上げる
lousy (インフォーマル) ひどい, 最低の, お粗末な
(KW: 洞爺湖 有珠山 火口 クレーター 昭和新山)
Comments