Noboribetsu - Special Guest Blog from Julie

I asked Matt if I could write this blog post, as I wanted to say how proud of him I am, that he has managed to have entire conversations with people here in Hakkaido (where most people do not know a word of English). It just shows how much he has learnt over the last 18 months and although I have no idea what he is saying to anyone most of the time, they all seem to understand, which is the important part.

Right, so I said I would do the post, so here is a run down on today – Noboribetsu day – town of sulphur – big bears that scared me, but had fun feeding – funny little chair-lift – a hike that wasn't supposed to be a hike - floundering around with no idea what to do in a Japanese room – the hugest meal we have ever eaten – and busy bees making the futon beds...

So, I guess I should explain about some of that. The town of Noboribetsu is an natural hotsprings town (hence the sulphur smell). But first I need to tell you about our bear experience. This town has a bear park. First we had to go up this little chairlift which was about a foot off the ground and shook like nothing else. From there we got the cable cars up the rope-way to the bear park. Travelling up so high we were in complete cloud and mist when we got to the top. The bear park has 160 bears and there was some in enclosures where you could feed them. They actually stood up on their hind legs and waved at you so you would throw them a tasty oat ball. There was also a “human cage” where we went down underneath the enclosure amongst the bears. There was only glass separating us from the bears and I walked backwards only to come up close and personal with a huge bear. Thankfully the layer of glass held!

Our hike started off as a leisurely stroll up to the Hell's Valley (a moon-like landscape with lots of steam from the 80+ degree water underneath it) then we decided to keep walking on to the Oyunuma lake. About an hour and a half later we finally get back to town, starving, as it is already 3pm and we haven’t had lunch.

So we check into the hotel and it is our first Japanese room, so we have no idea if we should take our shoes off and change into slippers, so we muddle our way through with the server directing us to sit down at the table (cross legged) and we had a tea ceremony. For dinner they brought in way too much food – but Matt will do a blog post just on that! – then after they come and clear away all the dishes, they roll out the futons. I was just in awe of the entire experience. Can’t say I have ever seen anything like it!

All the photos for Noboribetsu are now in Flickr.