Is it because we’re having so much fun at home we’ve forgotten the world? Is it because we’re so rich and the rest of the world’s so poor and we just don’t care if they are? I’ve heard rumors; the world is starving, but we’re well fed. Is it true, the world works hard and we play? Is that why we’re hated so much?

Ray Bradbury, “Fahrenheit 451”

5 October 2023

• 7:15-9:00 Asahikawa station to Asahidake ropeway bus
• 10:30-12:00 walking a forest trail
• Ropeway up to Asahidake (12m)
• Blue course (50m)
• Ropeway down (12m)
• Nearby onsen (25m)
• 15:42-17:10 bus from the bus stop outside that Onsen to Asahikawa station

Asahidake

I woke before 6:00 after five and a half hours of sleep, my body heavy with fatigue. My shoulders were painful, just like that time in Seoul in late July when I couldn’t carry anything on my back after hiking Seoraksan.

Quite a few other travellers were taking the bus to Asahidake with me, also opting to risk disappointment over not going at all.

As the long bus to Asahidake ropeway went up the mountain, I noticed that the weather was half cloudy, half sunny up here, and reached the ropeway tired yet elated. Decent visibility; no rain. 

“SERVICE SUSPENDED DUE TO STRONG WINDS,” a sign read at the entrance to the ropeway.

Great.

The temperature was 7 degrees. The view was moderately clear. Only the wind stood in the way.

The staff didn’t know when operation would resume. At 9:00, the wind was too blustery; by 15:00, the forecast promised calm conditions. Yet no one knew when exactly the wind would start growing weaker between those hours. 

A huge group of elderly Israeli tourists entered the building. The tour guide was shouting, when every other visitor around was quiet.

When did Asahikawa become Tel Aviv?!

I spent the next 1.5 hours sitting on the floor, passing the time on my phone. The wind was still going strong.

Then I asked the staff member if there was something else to do in this area. A guide offered to take me to a forest, to see some kouyou.

Three Taiwanese women joined us. It was a fairly pleasant way, if a bit dull, to pass the time. The trail was narrow and easy. I enjoyed the soft sound of water streaming under our shoes, which reminded me of late 1990’s Iranian films. The water was so clean, that the guide said it was drinkable.

Bears were known to roam this area. Yet the guide wasn’t even carrying a bell. He was a middle-aged Tokyo native who’d moved to Hokkaido to hike on a regular basis, even in winter. Yesterday, he’d hiked Mt Muroran, south of Noboribetsu.

I told him about the tourist information ladies’ bear warnings. He informed me that Kogen Onsen was the number one location in Hokkaido with bears. There were sightings every day. This led to daily patrols, with road closures in case of danger.

“But bears flee upon eye contact with humans,” the guide said. “They can go a full year without consuming any meat.”

The situation didn’t sound too dangerous, then.

Another thing he said: while the Asahidake peak was usually every mid-September, on the 15, this year was around September 22, and now was the end of the peak. We saw some leaves that were already withering. Sounkyo and Asahidake would’ve been better off during my week at the farm.

When we returned to the ropeway station, we noticed that operation had resumed.

It started raining. The wind had subsided, while the rain intensified. Oh well.

We waited for the three Taiwanese women to return safely, since they were lagging behind, and bears were nonetheless a concern. Last month, a decapitated head was found in one of Hokkaido’s lakes, after an ojiisan had gone to fish there alone, and locals had reported a bear sighting.

At least today, the ropeway station was exceptionally vacant. Everyone had gone yesterday and the day before, after seeing that snow had started falling.

I waited in line to the ropeway, which departed every fifteen minutes. The Israeli group showed up and surrounded me with boisterous Hebrew. The guide, who couldn’t understand Japanese, was practically shouting.

Why? The building was silent enough to converse in normal tones. This group ruined the experience for me. Even the trip to the upper ropeway station, over an orange and yellow forest, was more frustrating than beautiful.

And to think that, starting next month, I would hear nothing but boisterous Hebrew all day.

At the upper station, a blond guy with freshly pink skin was shivering uncontrollably, a startled look on his face. He seemed on the verge of hypothermia.

What was I getting myself into.

I embarked on the 1-hour, circular, blue course that offered several observation points over Asahidake. The 5-hour course, which both the Swiss guys and the Israeli couple had hiked yesterday, was too long, cold, and cloudy now. Perhaps this was the trail the shivering guy had returned from. 

When I started walking, the sun was out. Sulphuric vents, windy conditions, and several clear ponds. I enjoyed a clear view of a snowy peak for the first ten minutes or so. Then clouds began to engulf the mountain, and rain to fall. My hands began to hurt inside my gloves.

The visibility dropped so much, that I finished the course in fifty minutes, and went back.

Naturally, the Israeli group, which had eaten at the upper station’s cafeteria during my walk, had to take the same ropeway as me on the way down. Why our schedules coincided to the tip, I could not fathom.

It maddened me. The last time I’d encountered such an inconsiderate group was on Jeju Island, on May 24. I’d grown used to more polite travellers.

After this, I had a little over an hour to kill. The last departure of the infrequent bus back to Asahikawa was at 15:40. So I bought a Hokkaido-exclusive melon candy at the ropeway’s gift shop, hoping to gift it to a good Samarian who’d offer me a ride in Kawayu Onsen. Then headed to the adjacent visitor center, inquired after the various hot springs, and walked for fifteen minutes down the mountain to the most recommended one.

It was inside a fancy hotel. The indoor baths area was rustic, with luxurious soap and shampoo. The outdoor bath was small, situated in front of a forest with a poor view. It rained as I enjoyed the silky and opaque spring water, perhaps a single degree too hot for my liking.

I dozed off on the bus back to the city. Those ten minutes of sun atop Asahidake were worth four hours of bus rides, downpouring rain, and annoying tourists.

I returned to my hostel in the evening. Another Israeli guy had checked in.

The 26 years old from yesterday was a pastry maker from Yehud, now living in Tel Aviv.

The new 22 years old was from Jerusalem, fresh off the army, on a big trip.

Both were fun to be around. We talked for hours in the common area, until the British girl returned with a Korean girl from Jamsil, Seoul, who’d checked in today as well. The latter was in comical awe of the meager words I’d spoke to her in Korean.

“Why do you pronounce it so well?” she asked. I thought she was joking.

I also thought she was joking when she said she couldn’t eat spicy food.

Finally, a Korean person who was like me.

The two Israeli guys and me were the first Israelis she’d met.

Then, a new French girl arrived as well. Everyone was once again doing the same attractions, and the new guests were pretty much all in sync. The two Israeli guys would brave Sounkyo together, for example.

The Indian-British girl said the Swiss guys from yesterday had driven to Shiretoko Shari this morning… where I’d wanted to go… and take the train to Kawayu Onsen from…

But then the French girl said she would attend the Lake Akan festival at the same time as me. I couldn’t believe I’d met a person who would be visiting that lake!

So I went to bed again later than I would’ve liked to. This was my first time since June 31 staying at an international hostel where everyone was friendly, chatty, willing to hang out, and looking to make travel plans together.

Today’s highlights: the soothing stream in the forest; the clear view of Asahidake; evening in the common area.

Updated list of places I never want to inhabit again:

• Fuji Five Lakes
• Sendai
• Okayama
• Hiroshima
• Asahikawa
• Israel

6 October 2023

• 9:16-10:16 Asahikawa station to Kamikawa station local train (Sekihoku line), 11:08-12:38 transfer to Engaru station (Sekihoku line), 13:00-14:57 bus to Kitami station, 15:02-16:01 transfer to Abashiri station (Sekihoku line), 16:17-18:03 transfer to Kawayu Onsen station (Senmo line)

Kawayu Onsen

Today I checked out in the morning and took one highway bus and four slow, local trains to Kawayu Onsen for nine hours.

Not my first time traveling for nine hours straight in Hokkaido. But it would be worth it.

The trains and bus was were nearly all empty, the trees on my way sporting leaves whose color had only begun to change. I progressed through gloomy, sleepy towns, such as Kamikawa and Engaru, that seemed deader than my soul. Then I napped on the bus to Kitami, dashed to the station to make it to the next snail train, and changed again in Abashiri, known for its drift ice in winter.

This time, the single carriage was full of high school students and Asian tourists.

I watched the stormy sea of Okhotsk as the train continued east along the coast. Waves crashing at full force, white from the reflection of the cloudy sky. The lack of blue today in both sky and sea made me think of Hokkaido in winter, and how this island would soon be blanketed under white.

The train stopped at Shiretoko Shari along the way. I recalled receiving a ride from Utoro to this station on February 13 from a nice, middle-aged guest at my first ever ryokan, and taking the same train south to Kawayu Onsen. Too bad I couldn’t revisit Shiretoko national park in autumn.

Everyone got off here, while I continued south to Kawayu Onsen, all alone inside the heated train. The sun had set; the windows had grown pitch black. I looked outside, but there were zero lamps. The only train conductor and I were slowly crossing a dark landscape.

The area outside Kawayu Onsen station was barely two streets, with next to nobody living in it. I wasn’t worried, though, because I knew what I was getting myself into.

Back to the Inn

Vivid images resurfaced in my head. The only restaurant around, which was fully booked with Taiwanese tourists on February 13, and hadn’t accept me; the twentysomething Chinese crypto manager I’d met at the entrance to the station with his white, English-speaking female friend, both living in Japan; the only café around, which closed early, but not before I could find something to nibble. And, of course, the inn I would return to, a seven-minute walk toward a farm with fields.

I got off in Kawayu Onsen station. The wife running the inn was already waiting for me with her car. I was the only person around.

“So,” she said, “did you go home in May?”

She remembered my initial itinerary. Turned out she recognized my name when I’d made the reservation for today.

“Tonight there are five other guests,” she said. “Two Israelis, two British, and one Korean.”

“Eh?!” I exclaimed. “Wait a second. I’m from Israel… I lived in the UK… and came back to Japan from Korea.”

Last time at the inn, it was just me and an elderly Japanese.

Dinner was served soon after my arrival. Sashimi, grilled eggplant, bruschetta, grilled fish, rice, tofu. The other guests – a middle-aged Israeli couple, an older, English couple from Liverpool, and a middle-aged Korean man from a city near Seoul – were all quiet.

Bit of the letdown. My previous dinner here as among the most memorable of this trip. For three hours, the husband and wife running the inn had piled food on my plate to no end, and chatted with the Japanese man and me. Perhaps because it was a slow day, and they’d could afford to mingle with the guests. The other guest was a friend of the wife.

The meal had gone on and on, with them encouraging me to try new Japanese dishes – nattou, fish, rice mixed with soy sauce and a raw egg. We’d gotten into the topic of my vegetarianism, and healthy diets, until the husband had dared me to check my blood pressure, which had turned out quite low.

Tonight, the meal lasted a mere half an hour, during which the husband and wife were busy cooking inside the kitchen. I tried talking to the other guests instead, but preferred the couple’s company.

After dinner, the wife drove me for one minute to the only onsen around. Tiny, with no one inside the men’s section. The only staff member turned on the lights for me.

First time visiting an onsen without soap and shampoo in the shower area. Guests had to take those from a locker.

The water was 63 degrees and the room featured no windows, so I died.

After half an hour there, the wife returned to pick me up. Everyone gathered in the living room for tea and snacks, apart from the Korean man, who hadn’t really spoken much during dinner.

I was surprised to learn that the wife had recently participated in a 100-km walking marathon around Kawayu Onsen and its lakes, for 26 hours straight one day in July. At night, everyone had carried on with headlamps. There were no bears.

I expressed my desire to return here in winter, because I preferred the snowy landscape. Summer was a busier time at the inn, with almost every day fully booked.

“But that February was exceptional,” the wife said. “It was still COVID. Winters are popular as well.”

Oh well. I was still happy to return here in autumn and hear how well the couple had remembered me, just as I had remembered them.

As I filled them in on my travels since then, the husband said that Japan was once full of wacky hostels like the one in Rebun Island. He’d made friends 30 or 40 years ago in Kyushu, where the staff had not only performed the same farewell ceremony at the ferry terminal, but even dived into the water and swam after the ferry. A tradition too dangerous for the hostel to continue its operation. My hostel in Rebun Island was the last of its kind in Japan, and therefore quite famous.

Another valuable piece of information: the Kawayu Onsen – Lake Akan bus I’d take in February only ran in winter. To continue to Lake Akan the day after tomorrow, I’d have to take the train south to Kushiro, and a bus back north to Akan, for four hours, instead of just one.

Before bed, I contacted the only three hostels in the Kawayu Onsen area. All fully booked for men tomorrow, with vacancies just for women.

Where would I sleep tomorrow? I wondered, with a bit of a fright. I went to sleep concerned but cosy in the best futon and blanket one could hope for.

Today’s highlight: returning to the inn.

7 October 2023

• Mt Iou (5m)
• Kotan Onsen (30m)
• 900-grassland observatory (10m)
• Ride to Lake Akan (1.5h)
• Exploring Lake Akan (1h)

Farewell to the Inn

Breakfast at the inn was served at 7:00. I asked if I could spend another night here.

Tonight was already fully booked.

The Israeli couple mentioned driving to Lake Akan today. I wasn’t due there until tomorrow, and wanted to sightsee Kawayu Onsen today, after failing to do so in February. (No car in this area equalled no mobility.) But if I couldn’t stay in the latter today, I might as well ask the couple for a rare ride to Akan.

I called my ryokan in Lake Akan. They remembered me from my one night there in February. And said I could come today. 

Relief. The temperature at night in this area of Hokkaido were kissing zero these days. I wouldn’t freeze out to death.

Before checking out with the Israeli couple, I asked the husband and wife if we could measure my blood pressure again. They’d recalled this incident and my trepidation at eating a raw egg. (A feat guaranteed to give one salmonella in Israel.)

Having not measured my blood pressure since February, the higher result surprised me. I’d gone from a vegetarian diet and sitting in front of the computer all day to walking, hiking, and eating fish on a daily basis. I’d assumed the new result would be better.

Iou-zan

At 8:00, the Israeli couple and I took off. Yet another premature farewell from a beloved accommodation in Hokkaido, one I promised to return to.

The couple wanted to visit Lake Mashu, east of Kawayu Onsen, among the clearest lakes in the world. Yet today was too cloudy and foggy for us to see anything. So they settled on a sand bath in Lake Kussharo, west of Kawayu Onsen, on their way to Lake Akan. An attraction I hadn’t heard of.

I suggested a five-minute visit to Mt Iou, on the way to Kussharo. Autumn allowed me to go farther than winter had, all the way to the neon yellow rocks. Just like in Tamagawa Onsen.

The stream was hot, the sulphur was stinky – lucky the couple had agreed to stop here. I’d longed to see it again.

Then a downpour started, and we dashed to the car.

Kotan Onsen

As we drove west through Kawayu Onsen town, I saw the hotel whose onsen I’d entered, the bus stop outside it to Lake Akan, the visitor center I’d visited… so many memories!

We continued to the lake. Waves crashing in a storm. Rain, wind, fog; we could barely spot the mountains on the other side, with their changing leaves.

The sand bath was too muddy now. Just as well, because the star attraction of Kussharo was Kotan Onsen, an open-air bath right on the lake. This was what I’d failed to visit in February, and what I refused to miss again.

At 9:00, the rotenburo was empty. Two small, gender-segregated baths, separated by a boulder, sharing the same water. Just like in the Tokachidake Onsen from a few days ago, men and women could see each other.

It smelled like burned cotton candy. Slightly sweet. Not sulphuric.

Because the water (clear rather than silky) was no less than 68 degrees. Unbearably hot at first, but in today’s weather, I grew accustomed to it in no time. Winter offered a magical atmosphere here, with snow and swans, yet autumn gave me something I hadn’t expected.

One of the Israeli men got up and ventured into the cold lake. A violation of onsen etiquette, no doubt. Yet no one was around us. So I followed suit.

The lake was shallow and full of pebbles. Waves crashed on me as gusts howled and rain hammered. I shivered and laughed. I felt wild at heart; a part of nature.

It was an unforgettable moment that lasted less than a minute, when I returned to the rotenburo to warm up.

The couple thanked me later for bringing them to the mountain and rotenburo, two places they hadn’t intended to cover. After half an hour of soaking, we left.

At 10:00, we stopped at the 900-grassland observatory on the way south to Lake Akan, a five-minute deoutr from snoozy Teshikaga town. Ten stormy minutes of watching the rural landscape, followed by a slow drive through mountains.

Lake Akan

At 11:30, we reached my ryokan.

I gave them the melon candy from Asahidake. They’d eaten this exact snack four years ago during their first visit to Hokkaido, and had been looking for it ever since. It was thus the perfect souvenir.

Before checking into my ryokan, I went to the business hotel the French girl from Asahikawa would be staying in starting tomorrow. The lights were off, the premises were vacant – the building seemed abandoned.

I tried using their phone to call them. It didn’t work. After lingering and wondering what to do, the owner showed up. There was indeed a vacancy – but it would cost more than my current, already-expeisnve reservation.

So I retuned to my ryokan from February. They gave me a small discount, and I got a private room with a futon.

The ryokan was very old and a bit creepy, with facilities that were more rusty than pleasant.

I asked them for recommendation in Akan and the upcoming Marimo festival. Marimo was a round ball of algae that grew in two lakes in the world: here, and in Iceland. Thus, it was sacred to the local Ainu people, who celebrated it every year in autumn.

An Ojiisan called to make a reservation for me for tomorrow. I was going to miss the first day of the festival, thinking it wasn’t important, but he said this was the only time of the year where one could see marimo in the lake, in its natural habitat. He would lend me thigh high boots from the ryokan, and enroll me in the reservation-only lecture about Marimo in the morning. Only its attendees could later see Marimo inside the lake.

As he made an itinerary for me for the next four days, he taught me words in Hokkaido dialect. The auntie at reception said no one was using them, apart from Hokkaido ojiisans.

“I want to live here, so I think they’re useful,” I joked.

“We’re looking to hire a foreigner who speaks English and Japanese,” the Ojiisan said.

Oh god.

In addition to running this ryokan, he was chairmen of the Lake Akan Tourist Association. I repeated again and again how interested I was in a position. He said we’d talk tomorrow morning before the lecture in the tourist information hall. 

Finally, I asked about a way to get from Akan to Sapporo. The internet had instructed me to take a 5-hour bus To Asahikawa, followed by a 3-hour train. The auntie said there was a direct, 5-hour bus to Sapporo instead.

Once again, I found out just how important it was to talk to locals in the countryside.

The Ojiisan mentioned driving to Sapporo on the 15^th, and offered to give me a ride. Yet it would be too late for me. Four upcoming days in Lake Akan would be more than enough – no one came here for so long, actually – and I wanted to return to Sapporo on the 11^th, after the festival, to see Cowboy.

The auntie said she would make the reservation for me for the 11^th. The Ojiisan invited me to dinner at his son’s izakaya on the 15^th, a popular and expensive restaurant right on Susukino crossing.

After all this discussion, I had lunch at the most recommended restaurant in the village, right by the ryokan: a tiny, Chinese place, with counter space and a single table. I ran in the street into a couple of Australians who would attend the festival in two days. Then I ate miso ramen, the disappointing, meatless option at the Chinese restaurant. Dessert was a chocolate crepe and a melon pan with salty butter from Lawson.

I explored the town afterwards. The Eco Nature Museum – a five-minute visit to behold Marimo in water tanks. The Bokke mud volcano, a five-minute walk from the museum – another phenomena unique to this area.

Ainu Kotan

As I circled the town, I checked out a tiny, rustic shop by the fire department, which the Ojiisan had recommended. Amazing, locally-crafted silver jewelry. Out of budget, though.

Then I returned to several spots from February. The marimo tofu shop – the only place in Japan, as far as I knew, that sold matcha tofu; the souvenir shop that carved my name in kanji on an Ainu necklace; and Ainu Kotan village, where I scoured the few shops for an Ainu coat.

Back in April, I’d bought a samue in Takayama on the day before Takayama festival. Now, I’d been itching to buy an Ainu garment for tomorro’w festival. The jackets and coats in the Kotan all dazzled me, with beautiful, hand-stitched Ainu prints, all costing an entire month’s budget for me.

I returned to my ryokan disappointed I couldn’t add an Ainu garment to my traditional Japanese and Korean wardrobe.

There wasn’t much else for me to do. I realized that working in Lake Akan would make me extremely lonely. Only 1,200 people lived in Akan Town. Who would I befriend? Who would I spend my time with? What would I do to entertain myself? Lake Akan village was so small – just one main street – that there wasn’t even a grocery shop. Maybe, if an offer was extended to me tomorrow, I should turn it down.

Then again, with the newly-discovered direct bus to Sapporo, I could commute on weekends, meet friends, and spend time with Cowboy.

War in Israel Breaks Out

At 17:00, back in my room, I used my rarely-free time to call my family.

This morning, at 6:30 AM, on a holiday weekend, terrorists had infiltrated the border from Gaza and started shooting and kidnapping civilians and soldiers. Missile alarms had woken my mom, who had initially mistaken them for a thunderstorm.

I just wanted to ask my mom for her well-being and inform her that I was alive. Yet, all of a sudden, a war had broken out. 

Wars in Israel usually began after a period of escalating tension and high-alert security. Awareness was high and casualties were low.

No one had foreseen today’s attack. There were already dozens of casualties, and hundreds of injuries.

My family was okay. But everyone was scared. Horizon, the Israeli volunteer from Busan, couldn’t even bring herself to talk to me on the phone.

I was scheduled to return to Israel in three weeks, at the end of the month. Wars in Israel usually lasted a fortnight. Until they erupted again.

In the previous decade, wars occurred once every 2-3 years. Since COVID, they’d become an annual tragedy. Lately, they’d been verging on biannual.

I immediately called my Ukrainian friend. For better or worse, she was the only non-Israeli person I knew who could understand.

(Then the Ukranian girl I’d met for five minutes inside Seoul’s Nowon station in late July texted me. She remembered.)

While eating marimo tofu with nattou and instant rice for dinner, I read the Israeli news online about the massacre and watched the Japanese news on the TV, the latter reporting about weather forecasts and kouyou spots.

It hit me just how the world I’d escaped from differed from the one I was temporarily inhabiting. Every single thing in Israel was deteriorating. This summer had seen daily protests about the rise of the far-right government and its new, undemocratic laws. Israel was reverting into theocracy in real time.

And now a innocent people were slaughtered, all because of a religious fight over territory.

Better to be lonely yet safe and independent in Lake Akan in minus 20 degrees in winter, I resolved, than lonely, unemployed, living with my family in a dangerous, theocratic state.

At night, I did my laundry, hanging it to dry in the boiler room in the basement. Dark, dirty, noisy, and hot: it felt a bit like a horror movie. At least my clothes would dry by tomorrow.

Then I soaked inside the ryokan’s creepy onsen-like ofuro and collapsed on my futon. My shoulders were still hurting nonstop.

I knew I sounded very extreme with my opinions about Japan and Israel, but they were just as extreme opposites.

Japan was singular in its safety and gentle, well-mannered population. Israel was singular in its religious and political predicament. Life there would always be subject to stabbings, missiles, corruption, theft, inequality, and nuclear threats.

Moreover, Tel Aviv was among the most expensive cities in the world, where only doctors, lawyers, and engineers could make a living. So many Israelis, like that tour group, were noisy, impolite, and short-tempered. At least a select few, like the guys from the Asahikawa hostel, broke the mold.

I could write a hundred pages listing every difference between the two counties. It had taken me five months in Japan to realize all of these came down to one thing, and one thing only. Japanese people apologized on a regular basis. For every tiny thing. Even when it wasn’t their fault.

Israeli people, on the other hand, yelled more than they apologized.

This, in my opinion, was the single most important quality a person could possess. I had lost touch with too many people who’d never admitted to being in the wrong.

How could one piece of land hold such seasonal beauty and societal comfort, whereas another, on the very same planet, strife and war? Protests where police officers beat civilians opposed to a government’s new, anti-democratic laws? Terrorists murdering left and right out of nowhere while people were resting early morning on a weekend and celebrating a holiday?

Humanity could be beautiful when it wanted to. Until that beauty revealed a layer inhuman.

I went to sleep without locking my door. My key hadn’t been working, and I hadn’t bothered to inform the staff, seeing as I’d never bothered to lock my room in Japan to begin with. Other guests hadn’t deigned to lock theirs, either. Sometimes I wondered if Japan was on Earth, while Israel was on Mars.

Today’s highlights: returning to Mt Iou; soaking in Kotan Onsen and the stormy lake; returning to Lake Akan; marimo tofu.