Girls' Weekend 2.0 - Day 2

For our other Girls' Weekend 2.0 day trip, Fiona and I took a local bus from Sapporo about an hour to another popular Hokkaido hot spring - Jozankei Onsen. The forecast for the day was for temperatures in the low 90's, so we didn't plan to do much hot spring soaking, but there are also five different mountain hikes beginning from the town, so we planned to tackle a few hikes in addition to some site seeing.

The bus dropped us off at 9AM right in front of the Jozakei shrine. It wasn't on our list of things to see, but being that we were there, we decided to check it out. We've visited three or four shrines now since we arrived and we've begun to notice a few commonalities.

Tori gate entrances:

A main shrine building:

And one or more separate, outdoor shrines (?). These look like miniature versions of a shrine, and people have often left things - paper cranes, money, flowers, etc - on the "steps." Fiona and I both always have so many questions about the traditions - I need to do some reading!

After we left the shrine, we crossed the highway and arrived at the entrance to Jozankei Onsen.

Greeting us at the entrance to the onsen village were two of the onsen's mascots known as "kappa." According to the legend of the area, before a hydroelectric plant was built on the Toyohira River which flows through the village, the river flow was much deeper and stronger. One day, the most handsome young boy in the village was fishing by one of the deep pools in the river when all of a sudden he was inexplicably sucked down to the bottom of the river. Villagers who were working near by and saw the boy be sucked under immediately jumped into the river to try to rescue him, but the river was so deep that they could not find him. A year later, on the eve of the first memorial service for the boy, he appeared to his father in a dream saying, "I am living happily with a water goblin wife and a child." From then on, the villagers knew that the boy had not somehow accidentally fallen into the river, but had instead been charged by a water goblin living in the river. Since then, that area of the river has been called the goblin's pool and the water goblins living there known as kappas. It is said that they keep the visitors to Jozankei Onsen safe as since the boy's appearance to his father, no one has ever gone missing there.

Spread throughout Jozankei Onsen are 22 kappa statues. While we didn't see all of them, we spotted quite a few during our walk around the village:

Fiona even held court with the king of the kappa - Kappa Dario King!

After visiting the king in Futami Park, we started off on our hike to one of Jozankei Onsen's most famous sites, Futami Suspension Bridge.

The views up and down the Toyohira River were beautiful.

After crossing the bridge, the trail wound down and hugged the river for about a mile. We enjoyed great views of the bridge and river as well as lots of Fiona's favorite - rock climbing!

After about a mile, we were supposed to reach the trailhead to Mt. Asahidake. This trail would lead us over the mountain and drop us down the other side in the middle of the village. Unfortunately, when we got to the trailhead, it was roped off with a 'No Admittance' sign.  We were bummed, but had plenty of other things on our to-do list for the day, so we headed back toward to village to see our next site.

As we walked, we passed one of the 56 hot spring sources in Jozankei Onsen. Here, many of the springs gush out from crannies of bedrocks found along the river bank.

Directly across from this is a large public hot spring where, in addition to soaking your feet you can also boil an egg. Unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately) it was closed for renovation. In theory it sounds like a fun thing to do, and Fiona couldn't wait to do it, but the thought of eating an egg boiled in the same water where people soak their feet?...I don't know... Because the entire pool was barricaded off, I couldn't see the actual set up - maybe there's a separate area for egg boiling?

In any case, we continued on to Iwato Kannondo Temple. Passing through the temple, you reach a cave passageway housing 33 statues of Kannon - the Buddhist goddess of mercy. Fiona thought this was one of the coolest things we saw in Jozankei.

Several of the 33 statues of Kannon:

Each of them had been left gifts - including candies!

By this time, it was approaching lunch, so we asked for a restaurant recommendation and were directed to this cute little restaurant that is apparently known for it's soba. Soba is the Japanese name for buckwheat, but the word is usually used to refer to the thin noodles made from buckwheat flour. Much of Japan's soba is produced in Hokkaido, so we decided we needed to try it before we leave.

Fiona was thrilled to discover the restaurant offered traditional Japanese-style dining:

The woman who ran the restaurant was so sweet and kind. Before she got busy with more more diners, she spent a significant amount of time showing Fiona how to do origami folds.

Being that we were at a well known soba restaurant, Fiona of course ordered the tempura and rice...

I forgot to take a picture of my soba, but it looked very similar to ramen. I actually didn't like it as much as ramen. I found it to be a little to mushy for my liking - although it's hard to say if that's characteristic of all soba or just something with the dish I was served.

After lunch, we took a taxi about 5 miles to the Hoheikyo Dam. From there it is possible to walk across the dam as well as hike further up into the surrounding mountains. The views from the dam itself were spectacular:

I figured we'd head back to Jozanei pretty quickly after exploring the dam - it was excessively hot which had really brought the bugs out in force and Fiona was therefore REALLY not feeling the hiking. I was bummed, but trying to take it in stride and hoping that we could come back with Jason on a cooler day to do some of the hikes. Anyway, as we made our way back to the parking area, we passed the trailhead to the dam lookout points. I just walked right past them tired of being shot down on the idea of hiking, but Fiona stopped in her tracks and said, "Mommy, don't you think we should do this hike? It looks like a great one!" I was confused, but didn't question it. Well, it didn't take me long to figure out what had piqued her interest so significantly:

There was a bin of communal hiking poles stationed near the trailhead. She's been dying to get her hands on some of these ever since we passed a group of hikers using them recently. These were at least a foot too long for her and I was sure they were going to end up tripping her rather than helping, but I was so eager to do some more hiking that I rolled the dice.

The views on the way up were amazing.

Somehow we made it the half mile up without any spills.

The Hoheikyo Dam is a famous spot to visit in the fall because the changing color of the foliage is, I'm sure, stunning. Nonetheless, even the summer views did not disappoint.

Much to my relief we made it safely back down the mountain without incident and took a taxi next to the base of Mt. Hakkenzan where there is an adorable little ranch/orchard/winery. Mt. Hakkenzan also offers a tempting hike that I am eyeing for a return trip. On this visit though, we were there for a horse ride at Wild Mustang's (trust me, the poor horses we saw sweating in the 90 degree heat were anything but "wild" - much to my relief). 

I was fully prepared to pay for both of us to go for a ride together, but Fiona was adamant that she wanted to go by herself. Not one to pass on the chance to save $20 where I can, I was happy to oblige.

This girl has such a huge heart for animals!

The setting for the ranch and orchard was breathtaking.

Fifteen minutes later, she returned all smiles and best buddies with her horse.

After the horse ride, we stopped at the orchard to pick a different variety of cherries than the last time we went picking. These were the deep red variety most common in the US and they were DELICIOUS!

That rocky peak in the back ground of the picture below is the summit of Mt. Hakkenzan. Looks fun!

Finally, after a very busy day, we made our way back to Jozankei to rest our weary feet in the Tarono-yu ("Footbath of Friendship"). Despite being so hot out, it still felt really good to soak our feet after a long day. The ice cream didn't hurt either!

Random aside: In this post and others I've mentioned how hot it's been here and how it was our understanding that Hokkaido was supposed to have relatively cool summers. I have somewhat verified with local that the heat we've been experiencing isn't typical, but I wasn't aware of how unusual it is until I came across this on the Sapporo Wikitravel page:

Summers are warm and humid, with the average temperature in August, the hottest month, being 22.3°C (72.1°F) and days usually feature highs around 26°C (79°F). The record temperature is 36.2°C (97.2°F). 

So here we are not even half way through July, still weeks away from the "hottest month" and we've already had more than a week straight of temperatures ten or more degrees above average for the hottest month and two days that have just barely missed the record high. Yikes! I guess we can safely say this is highly unusual weather.