sparrow: Sunday Driving

On Sunday we decided to go for a country drive. We hopped in the toyota and picked up Lucy and Dana, and drove north towards Akan. Our first stop was a soba festival in Teshikaga, with loads of stalls selling lots of yummy (and/or quite bizzare) treats, with about half dedicated just to soba noodles. This was one of my favourites - panda-shaped cakey things filled with sweet red beans.

A local dairy was selling icecream and other things, and Joe had a go at milking the 'cow.'

We then drove on to Lake Mashu, an absolutely beautiful place which we admired from a lookout off the side of the road. We didn't stay up there for very long, as we weren't prepared for how cold and windy it was! It really is a beautiful, peaceful place.

Next stop was an active sulfur volcano with lots of little natural hot springs. The smell hit us before we saw it, like a thousand rotten eggs, but it was well worth putting up with. There was a little old lady selling eggs that she'd boiled in the springs, I suppose she thought you may as well be eating eggs if you have to smell them anyway...

After our fair share of apparently very healthy sulfur fumes, our next stop was a delightful little treat - a foot onsen (natural spa from hot springs). It was far enough away from the source that there were no delicious eggy smells, but the water was still very, very hot! It took us a while to be brave enough to leave our feet in for longer than about 3 seconds, but when we got used to it it was really quite lovely. I felt so refreshed and tingly for the rest of the afternoon!