There’s also this cool lego build of the Noboribetsu Town
We checked into Adex Inn (248 sq ft, with room to open 2 large suitcases and a large bathroom). This is the “poor man’s” accommodations when you can’t afford Takimotokan! Ha ha! Well, actually it’s cuz onsens are not our thing. We don’t really like being naked in front of strangers, and it’s unisex, so we can’t even have the onsen experience together. So we never participate in the hotel onsens. But since Takimotokan is famous for their Grand Baths, we figured we should at least try it one of the nights, but wasn’t willing to pay the $400/night for the experience, especially since most likely we will use the onsen only one night if any night at all. Adex Inn is half the price of Takimotokan, yet still gives full access to the Grand Baths, so this was the better option in our circumstances. But if you love onsens, and will use the Grand Baths both days, then it’s totally worth it, because the baths are GRAND!
Since it was going to rain buckets tomorrow starting around noon, we decided to do the Hell Valley hike today. It is not a long hike. We started at 2:15PM from our hotel and we were done by 4:45PM, and that’s with stopping at every lookout to take many pictures. If you don’t stop to take many pictures, you can finish the hike in less than 2 hours easily.
It’s around 5:15PM and we walked around town looking for a dinner place cuz we had not eaten lunch. But hardly anything was open. This small izakaya off a side street was open with a lady taking orders and doing the cooking. We ordered a few dishes using google translate. Chicken kaarage, yakisoba, fried octopus, gyoza. Not bad! Yakisoba noodles were very springy and delicious, although it was such a small amount for 750yen. Chicken and octopus were nice and crispy, yet the batter was very light, and gyoza filling was juicy and flavorful.
Day 1
Hell Valley Hike
Just a short walk from our hotel is the entrance to Hell Valley. There’s a nicely built boardwalk with several observation decks to view the spires, fumeroles, sulfur streams, and bubbling mud pots of the mountain. The sulfur smell wasn’t too bad… unless the wind blows in your direction. Pew whew!!!
Along the boardwalk, you can see the volcanic activity up close. It’s hard to capture, but I hope you can see that there’s a stream of hot water here.
We hiked up a trail that also gives you an aerial view of the walkways and observation decks, and the valley steaming with volcanic activity
Keep hiking up lots of stairs…
Follow the signs to Oyunuma and Okunoyu Lookout/ footbath. There’s English signs, and when the signs are in Japanese, there is a map showing where you are, so you won’t get lost. It’s great!
You get this view of Oyunuma from the deck—It’s a crater lake with a hot lead section on the left and a smaller deep clear turquoise blue section on the right.
Continue hiking down the trail, and at the bottom, on one side is Oyunuma, and the other side, a smaller pond called Okunoyu. This one is a picture up close of the turquoise blue small section of Oyunuma on the right. The clear blue water is very still, no bubbles or steam coming out, so you can see the reflection of the mountains. It’s really cool!!!
And this picture is of the black section of Oyunuma on the left. The crater lake is 22m deep, with water that is 50-130 degrees C from the top to the bottom, respectively. Some sections are still bubbling.
The clear blue is so pretty.
Across on the other side is the smaller pond, Okunoyu. It has a milky blue color
From Okunoyu, the parking lot had a sign with an arrow pointing to the direction of the footbath. Follow the signs and you will come to a river of hot water. Walk to the end where you see the footbath sign, and if you incline, stick your feet in. We were going to…and many people did, until I stuck my hand in to feel the water temperature and saw lots of little red super thin worms wiggling around in the water as they tumble down the river. Gross! Ok, NO THANKS… hummmm…How are these little red worms surviving the warm sulfur waters?
At the end of the hike, near the parking lot, is this cute demon statue with a demon child. They reminded me of all the demon statues we saw in Beppu last year.
Hiking back into town, we got in just at 5PM, which is when the Enma Shrine does his mechanical movements. Enma is the king of Hell, and legend has it that Hell Valley was formed in his wrath. A reviewer had posted that the shows are at 10AM, 1PM, 3PM, 5PM, and 9PM.
Heh, in the show, his face changes to a red mask, and he moves his arms around. He’s saying something, in a menacing tone, but we didn’t understand. It’s a short little show. Watch if you happen to be there, but I wouldn’t go out of my way to see it.
Day 2
Hell Valley (boardwalk again)
At 7:30AM, the sun was actually shining, so we decided to hike the wooden boardwalk of Hell Valley again to see if the sun gave the area different colors. Plus, no tour buses have arrived yet, so we could enjoy the area in peace and quiet. We love these types of alien-like landscapes!
See how nice and empty it is right now? Nobody is at the boardwalk and everything is quiet—so beautiful!
By 9AM though…OMG! Look at all the tour buses! One guy walking quickly behind me stepped on my heel so hard, my shoe came off and he didnt even say sorry. So rude!
Visit the Bear Park
Ok, time to get outta there! We walked back to our hotel and saw it was staffed, so went in briefly to buy pastries and to ask them to order us a taxi for tomorrow morning at 8:45AM to the JR Noboribetsu station. Then we walked a short way into town past the 7-11 to an arrow that points to Bear Park. Followed the sign and hike up the long hill to the ticket center. It’s 3000 yen ($21) per adult. The ride on the gondola up to the Bear Park is 7 min.
A giant plush bear accompanies each gondola up. We got up to Bear Park at 9:50AM, just in time for the Duck Races.
Duck races occur on the hour, and for 200 yen, you can bet on a duck. Here are the Duck Racers: Arare, Ann, Salt, Sugar and Jeje. I bet on “Salt”, a 4 year old duck with the spirit of buddha.
Here he is, in LAST place at the start of the race. But steady he goes, while the other ducks got distracted by the food pellets the man was throwing in the water. Salt was NOT distracted! He kept chugging along. But man, so close! He came in 2nd place.
Next, we watched bear activities which is at 15 past the hour every hour. They have the bear climb ladders, and open boxes to find bear food.
And then we visited both enclosures #1 and #2 to see more bears. The enclosures were kinda small for that many bears…
Here is the human cage where you can get up close to the bears by buying some bear biscuits for 200 yen, and putting the biscuits one at a time in the tube and shooting them out to the bears. The bears will come over to eat the food, if they are not sleeping…
On the other side of the bear park is an Ainu exhibit. Ainu are the indigenous people of Hokkaido. The exhibit has a few huts with various Ainu tools, canoes, and cookware.
Also there is an escalator to go up to the roof to see Lake Kuttara. The pictures look pretty, but we wouldn’t know, because the thick fog had drifted in, and we couldn’t see a thing! Plus it was really really cold and windy by now as the storm was coming in.
And finally, the highlight!!! You can pay 1000 yen for a photo with the bear cubs. They only allow 20 groups each session (11:45 and 2:30) and people were already lining up 15min before. OMG! Look how adorable the cub is!!!
After this, it was noon, and we pretty much saw everything in the park, so we headed down the gondola back to town. Later, I looked at the brochure and we missed the Brown Bear museum room where there’s info on brown bears and a trick art with the bear. Oh well, it was so cold at the park, and starting to rain, I just wanted to get out of there…
We ate lunch at this ramen/izakaya on the main street in town, run by a husband and wife team. Yakisoba with lots of veggies and mushrooms, pork skewers, and chicken wings. Pretty good!
Sengen Geyser
Geyer is to the right of the stairs
The clubs are for different things like wishing for good health, or money, or success in school, or career, etc. You can rub one for the luck. We rubbed blue for good health!
When we were walking back to the hotel, we saw huge billows of steam shooting up in the air. This is Sengen Geyser, and it erupts every 3hrs, and goes on for quite sometime. When it erupts, it makes a lot of rumbling noises. It is on the right side in this pictured plaza above with the multicolored clubs.
Grand Baths at Takimotokan
After resting in the hotel, we decided to try the Grand Baths at Takimotokan. My husband didnt care for it, but I thought it was good. Even for someone like me who doesn’t like onsens, there were so many chemical baths, that it made it kind of fun to try each one.
There is an alum bath (good for high blood pressure), a salt bath, high temperature salt bath, a sodium bath (it was labeled as “Sodium bath”, but I’m guessing it’s sodium sulfate because you can’t just have elemental sodium in water…it will turn violently to sodium hydroxide which is corrosive for your skin…), and a ferrous sulfate bath (good for ezcema). There’s also a bubble bath, a cold pool, and an outdoor onsen. And each bath is big, especially the ferrous sulfate one, so it didn't feel crowded. It had the feel of the Spa at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, if you’ve been there. Here’s a link with pictures of the Takimotokan baths.
Afterwards, we went back to the hotel and ordered some teriyaki chicken and chicken sandwiches downstairs for dinner because we were not that hungry and didn’t feel like finding a sit down restaurant in the rain. But I guess it’s ok to hike hell valley again in the rain for night shots? 😬
Night Views of Hell Valley, in the Rain…
It’s pouring rain outside, but the hubby wanted to take night pictures of Hell Valley since it is lit up at night. We borrowed umbrellas from the hotel and headed out. It was hard getting a good picture in the rain because the water kept getting on the camera lens. I think we are the only crazies out here in the rain…and we definitely got soaking wet…
Yeah…we are crazy hiking in the rain in the dark…
Well, thats it for Noboribetsu! We leave tomorrow morning for Hakodate!