About Lake Toya
It is said that this is the first time Japan has scheduled such a major national event outside of Tokyo, which shows that Lake Toya must have two brilliance. Surrounded by mountains, the lake is blue and the sky is endless, leaving the world in two colors: white and blue.
There is also a lake island in the middle of the lake, you can take a boat trip to the island in summer, but in winter it is closed. Although Lake Toya is not frozen in winter, all boats are closed because it is too cold.
In summer, you can take a boat trip around the lake and see the lush mountains from afar, and you can also enjoy the flowers and fires in the summer night, so I think it is a beautiful picture. But in winter, the distant mountains are decorated with white snow and have a bit of ink charm, like a Chinese painting of landscape, which is also a unique view. Although Lake Toya is large, the classic sightseeing route is about 2 kilometers along the shore of the lake, which does not take much time, but it is still quite cold at the lake in winter.
How to get there
Take the JR to Toya Station, and then take the Dounan bus for about 20 minutes to Toyako Onsen Station.
Take an express bus directly from Sapporo.
Fare
Visit is free, if you need to take a boat tour, there is an additional fee, adults: 1420 yen, elementary school students: 710 yen (depending on the season, for reference only)
Tips
Along the Toya Lake for a walk, said the good rain also did not rain, those days the weather is very care of our tour.
I didn’t want to take the boat, but then I thought I’d sit around and have some fun, a large group of seagulls chasing the boat away, the first time super close to see the seagulls; life is full of surprises, the original can get off the boat in the center of the lake to see, encounter a hatching eggs of swans, and another male swan or swimming or looking for people to eat.
At night, there are fireworks on Lake Toya, and the special feature is that the fireworks are set off by two boats constantly changing positions.
Lake Toya is a young volcanic lake, the lake is turquoise and clear, and the distant sheep’s foot mountain into one, seagulls soaring at will, and not afraid of people, but also frequent interaction with tourists on the cruise ship, people and nature in harmony, this is the most profound feeling in Japan these days.
Cruise ship tickets for adults 1420 yen, children half price. The facilities on the boat are old-fashioned, but the appearance is still clean. You can buy shrimp sticks to feed the seagulls on the boat, and the seagulls are very interactive with people, so you can see that they are used to feeding them.
There is a volcano museum nearby, and with half an hour left, we simply went in to visit. We were amazed by the small volcano museum, from billions of years ago to 30 years ago, from the sky to the ground, the formation of Lake Toya and the surrounding ecosystem science to the extreme! At the end, there was actually an exhibit of living creatures of ecological invasion, which was really admirable.
There are two ways to get to Toyako from Noboribetsu, one is to take a bus directly to Toyako, and the other is to take a bus to JR station and transfer to a train to Toyako station and then transfer to a bus to Toyako Onsen, there are only two buses per day, although the JR station is crowded, most of the people are going to Sapporo and there are relatively fewer people going to Toyako. It took about an hour or so to reach Toyako Station, and after leaving the station, I transferred to a bus to Toyako.
At night in Toyako, there were few pedestrians on the streets, probably because many travel agencies’ itineraries only pass by for photo opportunities. After a day of heavy snowfall, the sky cleared up at night and the moon appeared in the sky. The center of Lake Toya is located in the direction of my north to the east, a little to the left of the island is the North Star, the unchanging stars around the North Star day after day, year after year, rotating. The long exposure also made the surface of Lake Toya unusually calm.
