Day 20: The Hidden Pond in the Forest
In each of the regions I have included in this trip, there were some particular landmarks or things I wanted to see. Like in Germany, I really wanted to see the Berlin Wall, the Reichstag Dome and the Holocaust memorial. The Wailing Wall, the Temple Mount, the Baha'i Garden in Haifa, the Dead Sea were my must for Israel, I also wanted to visit the Holocaust memorial in Jerusalem to draw a contrast comparison to the one in Berlin. Petra in Jordan was highly recommended by a few friends, I appreciated it a lot more after I actually visited it. Wadi Rum (the desert) was way beyond my expectation. These were all bonuses. In Nepal, Mount Everest was obviously the one I must see. And lastly, in Hokkaido, what I really wanted to see were the red-crowned cranes, to enjoy a night of onsen ryokan in the rural Hokkaido area and see the Blue Pond. Today, I have checked the last must-see landmarks - the Blue Pond.
We got conflicting information from different staff in the ryokan. One staff agreed with my guess that it would take 40-45 mins to walk to the Blue Pond each way. The man at the front desk told me it would take 1-1.25 hour or so one way to hike to Blue Pond from the ryokan, and we needed to have at least 2 hours for that. But in the tourist office, we saw on the map that the Blue Pond was only 3km (1.5 miles) away. Anyway, we decided to attempt it this morning, we had sufficient time even it would take 2 plus hours. We requested breakfast at 7am sharp, another big meal, it featured porridge, smoked salmon, miso soup, and all the other little Japanese delicate side dishes. It surely fueled us up for the hike. It was partly sunny, not cold this morning. Perfect.
We took off around a quarter after 8am. The path in the little onsen town was mostly clear where we could walk pretty fast except a few icy patches. There was only one road leading into town, after we passed the last hotel (or the first depending on the direction you are on), the sidewalk was gradually covered by more and more snows. Until the sidewalk was completely invisible, it was under about 8-10 inches of snow, we started walking on the road sharing the lane with the incoming traffic. There was not really a lot of traffic to speak of, maybe occasionally some army trucks, tour buses or tourists in their rental cars. We walked pass the first sign, it was a sign saying that the onsen is 1km away. In other words, we had walked 1km already. I thought it was encouraging, but walking on the road between the heavy blanket of snow and the cars proved to be not an easy task. I walked pretty fast ahead, while Bryan followed behind me, because he was wearing his sport shoes.
Keeping our pace, we walked passed the second sign, the third. It was still not the Blue Pond yet. By the time I finally see the second parking lot sign and a sign indicating Blue Pond entrance. I was relieved. It took us indeed 45 mins (more or less) to walk from the town to the Blue Pond. The pond was closed for winter, the entrance was all chained up. I insisted that it just meant the car couldn't drive in. It had to, I was already here, there was no way I wasn't going in. We followed the path to the left where the snow was somewhat clearer, soon I saw two cars in the parking lot, this had to be it. I continued heading down the trail which was snow covered. Soon, there was a path down some stairs, there was a sign say "don't enter", but the frozen pond was just right next to it. The stairs were completely covered by snow. There were some footprints down the stairs in the middle. Of course, I was already at a point of no return. I followed the prior footprints, still I got my feet all wet, because there were really a lot of snow, possibly just collected from the night before. I was excited to see the pond, though it was all frozen, there was a small pool of water by the trees in the middle. It was crystal clear, but we couldn't see the blue color though.
Following the path by the pond, we headed further and further, the snow was somewhat cleared after a certain point, and we reached one of the corners of the pond, and there was an amazing wide view of the entire pond. Turned out we could have taken the high way and it would lead us to the same place. This is where people can see and take wide angle shots of the pond. Maybe because of the effort we had spent to walk here, I was so excited despite the pond was frozen and it was all white everywhere, it had a different feeling. Another goal accomplished, I thought. Someday in the spring, I would really like to return here to see the pond again and its magical dream-like blue color.
The return trip was much faster, that's usually the case. We got back to town around 10am. Had a warm coffee from the vending machine, and rested a few minutes in our room before we checked out. The owner was already at the entrance waiting for us, with a camera. She asked us about the pond, I said it was very nice. And then I said I really had a great time there at her ryokan and thanks her for her hospitality. And then she actually wanted to take a picture with us. I was kind of surprised by that. She knew about my round-the-world trip too since she was the one who answered my email in the beginning and asked me where I was going next. Maybe because of that, she wanted to take a picture of us together. I was not sure. It was really heart-warming to have met some people who were so kind and genuine on the road. Someday, when I retired, I like to do something like this and provide the same hospitality to other travelers.
Continued our journey to Asahikawa, the second largest city in Hokkaido. We had our lunch there before we returned to Sapporo. Done some records shopping at night and had a fabulous dinner. I was so full, violating all the dietary advice from the doctors. It was a little warmer tonight, about 4C, it was not snowing, but there were still a lot of icy sidewalks. I was actually surprised that the city did not do a better job to clear the ice on the street. Maybe because they were more environment conscious and didn't want to use a lot of salt on the ground. Tomorrow, we will be heading to Hakodate, a place Bryan picked, where we will see the famous night skyline of Hakodate from a hill, said to be one of the most beautiful night views in Japan. Thanks to the Hokkaido Rail pass, we really have made it bang for the bucks with all these long distance rides.
See the other photos from Day 20 here.