Japan - Noboribetsu

The day before my brother got married, my parents and I, along with my aunt and uncle, hired a car and went to Noboribetsu for the day. It's a small town about 2 hrs from Sapporo with a lot of volcanic-type activity. There's a geyser in the middle of town (that goes off every 3 hours for 50 minutes at a time and around/over which they built an intersection) and valley on the outskirts called "Hell's Valley".

Hell's Valley

More of Hell's Valley

We checked out Hell's Valley and then walked around some trails a bit to a geothermal lake that fed a stream where there was a natural foot onsen (an onsen is basically geothermal hot springs in which you bathe... kind of like a hot tub but there's a whole ritual for bathing in them. A foot onsen is one in which you only put your feet).




Geothermal lake

     

Foot onsen (basically you just
wade in the warm river)

You can see the river steaming



 

 

A good time was had by all, I think, especially at the foot onsen.



Noboribetsu troll/ogre/mascot/thing