After being woke up by the builders again, we were overjoyed to see that it had snowed pretty hard overnight, covering Toya in a new fresh blanket of snow. After waiting for the house to warm up, I pulled on some boots and went for a walk down by Lake Toya.
Before I went, I took some photos of the "street" that the Hokkaido volunteers live on. The first picture shows the house itself, the second shows the rest of the road.
As you can probably imagine, this is somewhat different to what I'm used to by now. The house itself is bigger than our flat in Oji, but it's still somewhat cramped when we're all staying in it together. I dread to think how cramped we're going to be when we get back to Tokyo!
The Lake itself is about five minutes walk from the house, first by a road encased in snow and ice, then a path hidden under snowdrifts. There exists a set walk around the entire Lake, although it's around 28km so I think I'll pass this time.
On the third picture of the set above, you can just about see a traditional Japanese shrine in the far distance. If it hadn't been so cold I would have walked to it, although it was around 1.30pm, and it gets dark here at about 4pm so I wouldn't have been able to dawdle along, which is something I like doing on walks.
Along the shore of the lake (do lakes have shores?) there are various statues. Everything from a little girl carved out of stone in deep thought to three what look like metal trees.
I'm afraid I have absolutely no idea what any of these statues represent. I'll try to ask a local if I get the chance, but unless someone with some prior knowledge can tell me, I guess they'll always be a mystery to me.
At this point the temperature was dropping and so were my spirits, as the snow was too deep to walk through quickly, so getting anywhere was hard work. Plus the general tiredness due to lack of sleep means we're all pretty fragile at the moment. This evening we're going out with a few of the locals we met at the Christmas party. Which reminds me, I should write about the Christmas party. Keep your eyes peeled for that one.
I'll leave you with one photograph I am really proud of. It is of a large black granite stone slab, on which is written something I can't read. When I replace the picture of the castle at the top of this blog I may well use this photo as the basis for it.
The next update shall be about snowboarding! Hurrah!
Possibly Related Content: