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Copyrighted © 1991-2010 by Randy R.
Johnson.
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You're visiting Randy Johnson's "Favorite Getaways in Rural Japan",
Copyrighted © 1991-2010 by Randy R.
Johnson.
Hokkaido is Japan's northernmost large island, a little more than 30 miles (50 kilometers) north of the main island of Honshu, and has a suitably harsh climate for three seasons of the year. It covers a large area (one fifth of Japan) which has only been somewhat populated in the last eighty years or so. Rolling hills and broad valleys among its mountains, large vegetable farms, barns, and cattle, sheep, and horses(!) grazing on vast meadows make this an exotic destination for Japanese tourists. But it could seem just like home for Canadians. North Americans who can't afford a trip home are drawn to the familiarity of this countryside.
Still, there is some beautiful country here, with high mountains,
beautiful lakes and waterfalls, dramatic coastline, and yes, rolling
hills. It is not uncommon to see the northern fox (kita
kitsune) and red-crested white cranes (tancho-zuru --
clickable photo at left), in the
wild, and there are a number of flowers unique to this area, including
the state flower, the suzuran. In Japan, where even an unleashed dog
walking the streets is cause for alarm, live animals in the wild
sounds like a safari.
The local brown bears (higuma) are seldom seen outside of the roadside "animal parks" called "boku-jo". These parks usually have foxes and bears in some kind of enclosure for you to view before buying souvenirs. Some of the boku-jo's are better than others and if you travel by car you can check out some in the hinterlands where the foxes run free in a large pen. We saw a pure white fox in one of these places. Hokkaido is also the only place I know of in Japan where they regularly eat raw salmon, fresh from the sea.
Hokkaido is a bit far away for a week-end getaway, but it's the kind of big scenic country that is fun to explore by car, and that's how I did it. You can also get around to many places by bus and a number of railway lines.
Hokkaido was the last refuge of the Ainu people who were eventually driven out of northern Honshu Island by the Japanese in feudal days. The Ainu are definitely different from the Japanese, but it is not at all certain just who they are. They appear somewhat Caucasian, with abundant facial and body hair. It is possible they are related to some Siberian Caucasian peoples, but their language roots cannot be traced.
Today, a somewhat touristic look into the Ainu culture is one of the unique attractions of Hokkaido. Most of the place names are of Ainu origin, with unrelated Japanese characters attached to them. Very few people speak the old Ainu language and the old traditions are preserved mainly for display to tourists.
After the first World War, the Japanese Government encouraged Japanese farmers to settle in Hokkaido, partly as a hedge against the rising threat of nearby Russia. But most of the small settlements failed; left on their own and relying on their old wet-rice cultivation, the farmers failed to scratch a living from the soil. As a reminder of this era, it is not uncommon to see old abandoned and delapidated wooden farmhouses isolated in the uncultivated areas of the countryside.
Four main areas of general touristic interest coincide
with the four national parks in Hokkaido. They are:
Stretching far to the northwest is the bleak Wakkanai Peninsula, which I have not visited, but is said to be interesting for some. There is just one prefecture, and that's Hokkaido.
- Shikotsu-Toya, around lakes of those names in the south near Sapporo, and nearby Shiraoi and Noboribetsu
- Daisetsuzan (mountains) and Soun-kyo Gorge, in the middle of the island,
- Akan Lake, farther to the east, between Daisetsu-zan and Shiretoko, and
- the Shiretoko Peninsula, making up the north-eastern tip of Hokkaido.
The Shikotsu-Toya area is the easiest to visit, and also includes a
number of volcanic mountains, Noboribetsu hot-springs, and the Ainu
village of Shiraoi. It is near the cities of
),
),
).
Here's a new and useful place to start
looking for 
Hot-Spring Lodgings
Getting to Hokkaido:
If you fly in to Hokkaido, chances are you will land at Chitose, the airport for Sapporo. It is actually much closer to Tomakomai on the coast, and not far from Lake Shikotsu. (Chitose also has a U.S. Air Force base.)
Until recently (1988), the only other way to reach Hokkaido was by boat, the
normal route being from 
)
).
Ferries to Hokkaido: There are also a few long-distance ferries that would be a relaxing way to travel if you don't care to stop in Tohoku along the way. The Teiheiyo Ferry company runs a boat every other day from Nagoya to Sendai (in Tohoku) and on to Tomakomai in about 48 hours. The Nihon Enkai Ferry sails four times a week from Tokyo to Tomakomai in 31 hours. The Kawasaki Kinkai Ferry has six sailings a week on the same route in the same time but these seem to be cargo ferries. The Kunkai Yusen company sails from Tokyo to Kushiro, in northeastern Hokkaido, twice every three days in 32 hours. All these ferries take autos. Visit a Japan Travel Bureau (JTB) office at any large station for more information and tickets. And visit my Japan Ferries Page for some routes...
Shikotsu-ko (Lake) 
ShiKOtsu-ko (lake) is a very picturesque and quite deep caldera lake
surrounded by volcanic mountains, reached by easy bus access to
Shikotsu Kohan, the 'resort' town; it's really quite laid back.
If you like it here you can stay around a couple of days exploring the
lake and climbing the surrounding mountains. (photo left.) From May
through October you can take a half hour cruise of the lake, leaving
every half hour until 5pm.
Eniwa-dake (Mtn.), viewed across the lake, can be climbed in three hours from Poropinai, reached from the main town by road or regular boats. Tarumae-zan is an interesting and short climb after a bus ride from Shikotsu or Morrapu, on the lake. This mountain has erupted as recently as 1979 and is usually smoking quite a bit. The terrain is all recent volcanic rock, and you can walk right up to some pretty hot fumeroles.
The Ito
Onsen (Hot-Springs) near 
)Alternate Site
for Itou Onsen in broken English...
Very close by, another lodging on the back side of the lake is the
Marukoma
Ryokan, which costs about twice as much and is naturally somewhat
nicer; it's also larger -- 46 rooms vs. 13. Both lodgings will pick
up (and drop off) guests at Shikotsu Kohan bus terminal, which is across
the lake.
There are also large marshlands between the lake and Chitose, which
are a migratory bird
sanctuary.
There is a very popular Youth Hostel right in Shikotsu Kohan, which breaks all the rules in being pleasant, friendly, and serves up a famous hot-pot dinner. There are a number of other lodges and inns here in varying price ranges. I stayed with friends in nearby Tomakomai city, so I didn't sample any lodgings in this general area. But Shikotsu-ko is not yet overly developed for tourism, and I would guess it's a nice place to stay for several days, using it as a base to visit Shiraoi, Noboribetsu, and perhaps Toya-ko (see below).
Getting there:
Regular buses ply to Shikotsu Kohan from Sapporo, Chitose, and Tomakomai. There are only three buses a day from Tomakomai station (9am and 1:45pm being easiest) and it takes 40 minutes. There are six buses a day from Chitose airport (the airport for Sapporo) which pass by Chitose railway station and on to Shikotsu in about 40 to 50 minutes. There are now four buses a day from Sapporo station, taking an hour and 20 minutes.
From Tomakomai you can then catch a bus south down the coast about a half hour to Shiraoi, and another half hour to Noboribetsu. There is also a train on this route but it is the main line and the stations are not nearly as convenient. There is a mountain road from Shikotsu to lake Toya-ko, but there is no bus service. Tomakomai is a big pulp mill city on the coast, a couple of hours by train north on the main line from Hakodate, at the southern tip of Hokkaido.
Lake Toya
Lake Toya is another pretty lake at the southern end of the Shikotsu-Toya National Park, with two more recently active volcanoes: Showa-Shinzan and Usu-zan. I've only driven around the lake, and it is much more developed for tourism than Shikotsu-ko. There are lots of big resort hotels, swimming and boating docks. The lake is not so big and you can rent a bike and zip around it if you have time. There is a hot-spring resort on the back side of the lake, and several hot springs that flow directly into the lake. There are buses here from Noboribetsu and Muroran.
There are a couple of popular Youth Hostels here: the Showa-Shinzan Hostel is near the base of that mountain and has its own hot-springs, and the Usu Hostel is south of the lake near the trailhead for Usu-zan mountain.
Half way between Tomakomai and Noboribetsu is the Shiraoi Kotan,
a genuine Ainu village (kotan) that has been on this site for a
very long time (photo left).
Since it was on the main travel routes, its people
were studied by ethnologists and anthropologists early in this
century. And now it has become a big tourist attraction, complete
with turnstiles and a modern 30-foot Ainu statue. There are differing
opinions about whether Shiraoi is a tasteless exploitation of the Ainu
culture for crass commercial gain, or a reasonably informative insight
into the Ainu people and their culture. I personally found it to be
both.
Once you make it past the food hawkers, and wade through the ticket windows and huge souvenir shop behind them, you are left to wander the village unmolested by vendors. No one actually lives in the village anymore, but they did twenty-five years ago, when you could wander around for free. Now it is more like a movie set of tidily refurbished straw and thatch huts with a paved road down the middle.
Inside one of the larger houses, regular talks are given on the various aspects of house design and functionality, traditional tools, handicrafts, daily life, and social customs. They also told us the meaning of the most common Ainu words found in place names. Naturally it was all rehearsed, but they answered several questions from visitors, and what I understood of it I found pretty interesting. Of course this is all lost on you if you don't understand Japanese, so foreign tourists would certainly miss any value or interest of the presentation. But the cultural information is presented in a reasonably interesting way, whether you can appreciate it or not.
Then there is a little show outside of traditional folk dances and songs, which is admittedly a bit wooden. You can wander through several huts on your own, and visit the dismally caged bears. The village is on a large reed-banked pond, and if you turn your back on the commercial end, you can try to imagine what life here was really like for the Ainu, before 'civilization' arrived.
If that were all it had to offer, Shiraoi would still be a fairly tawdry, if earnest, cultural side-show. Over to one side, however, is what I thought was a very good Ainu cultural museum. It is quite modern and well laid out, with numerous dioramas depicting the traditional lives of the Ainu. There are good displays of authentic clothing, tools, jewelry and such, and murals showing the work, play, and religious activities of the Ainu. There are some brief descriptions in English.
Finally, in the back is an on-line video system with several stations,
where you can bring up early films and recordings made by
ethnographers around the 1930's and 1940's. You can see films of the
real people who lived here, on topics of farming, weaving, marriage,
child rearing, dance, burial, and housing. If you're really
interested in the old Ainu culture, here you can see it first hand as
it was before it became no more than a tourist attraction. You can
also buy a decent ethnographic booklet in English and Japanese.
[Picture (clickable): Ainu wedding, early photo.]
So, if you develop a genuine interest in Ainu culture, I think you can find something to learn at Shiraoi. The Ainu village near Noboribetsu has been recommended as much more authentic, if less scientific. It should also be worth visiting, but I haven't been there. There are any number of little Ainu side-shows and trinket shops around Hokkaido, and unfortunately very little of the authentic culture is left to be seen. Shiraoi is no longer a really authentic village, but it is not bad in its own educational and commercial manner, and it is easy to visit.
Nobori-BETsu On-sen is reputedly the great grand-daddy of all Japanese hot-spring resorts, and I cannot dispute it. It is in the middle of a thermal area filled with bubbling pools of water and mud in various shades, the smell the sulfur, and the gush of steam vents. It is a small scale Yellowstone or Rotorua and you can walk among the cauldrons on a marked-off trail through the Jigoku-dani (The Valley of Hell). (The word "betsu" appears in many Ainu place names and means 'river'.)
The trail, and a road, continue around a hill to reveal a view of lovely little Kuttara-ko lake, a perfectly round caldera lake still sunken deep into its crater. The whole round trip back to Noboribetsu town is about six kilometers and there are a couple of buses a day that stop for only a few minutes at the lake. If you don't have a car, it is that bus, or walk, or just be content with the Valley of Hell.
At the top of the hill, called Kuma-yama, and served by a ropeway is the 'Bear Ranch', a cement pit with a few dozen large brown bears (kuma) of a species unique to Hokkaido and parts of Siberia.
Also at the top of this hill is a reconstruction of an Ainu settlement. (I doubt they would have settled at the top of a hill, overlooking the Valley of Hell, bears or no bears.) There are five or six buildings and the dance and culture shows they put on four times a day are reputed to be authentic and quite interesting. No photos. You are not allowed to hike up the hill, you can only pay (a lot) to take the ropeway up. At the time, we had not heard about the Ainu show, and we were not about to pay to go up and see a bear pit. I leave it for you.
But I have left the best for last. The real attraction of
Noboribetsu and the reason thousands of visitors -- as well as
locals come here -- is the hot-spring baths at the huge
Dai-Ichi Takimoto-Kan Hotel, in the middle of the town.
It is one of the biggest, if not the biggest bath house
anywhere. Non-hotel guests go to the side entrance and pay a
hefty price (2000 yen, last check) to get in, but you can stay all
day if you like. And yes, I did. It can take an hour just to
see the place! Once inside, you come to lounges, cafes,
noodle shops, and a video arcade on your way to the dressing room.
(Rooms in the hotel start at over US $400 per night for two people,
with 2 fancy meals.)
If you plan to stay in Noboribetsu, the Dai-Ichi is the best, but the
Back at the Dai-Ichi Takimoto-Kan's "Hot-Spring Heaven"... When you pass through the frosty doors into the actual bath area, you enter an enclosed realm the size of a large hockey stadium, devoted entirely to bathing! Vast and sumptuous seem pitiful words to describe the Noboribetsu baths. They are gargantuan, and they are, well, sumptuous. [Picture (clickable): Mens and womens baths, panorama cards (only 2 of 3 pannels shown)]
There are two separate areas of about equal size, one for men and one for women. I have read earlier accounts saying that the men's side was actually for mixed bathing, but there were several dozen men in there with me and no women. Either they have changed their policy, or else they wait until evening, when the day-tourists have left, to go native. There is also a newer (mixed-sex) water-slide area, where you need a bathing suit; otherwise you go into the baths dressed as you would in any public bath -- with a smile and a bar of soap and towel.
There is one bath outside which is definitely labeled 'mixed bathing' (konyoku), in between the men's and women's outdoor baths. In any event, after a long walk you can reach the low dividing wall and have a look into the opposite (gender) side, just to admire the beauty of its unique facilities.
There are a couple of dozen types of baths (at least) on each side.
Hot, cold, warm, big, small, even bigger, red, green, yellow, and
blue; electric, mineral, bubbling, and swirling. There are saunas and
steam rooms, a shallow stream you can walk down, and one place where
five thick streams of cold and hot water drop down from twenty feet to
pound the neck and shoulders of those standing under them. There are
pavilions, stairways, pillars, fountains, statues, murals, chairs,
even ordinary places to actually wash.
There are also a couple of pools outside the glass doors with views of the big steaming thermal cauldron behind the hotel. In fact, the baths are walled in glass and you can see out to the natural thermal area from many of the pools. Now, my idea of the perfect hot-spring is a quiet little rock-lined pool on a forested mountainside beneath the stars ('a bottle of sake and thou beside me...'); but the Noboribetsu baths are magnificently decadent, and are not to be missed if you are anywhere nearby.
The gift shop in the basement of the Dai-Ichi Hotel is also worth perusing for souvenirs. For some reason I really liked the things they had, and ended up doing about half my gift shopping for the trip in that shop.
Getting there:
Noboribetsu is definitely a touristy place, a small town packed with pricy inns and souvenir shops. If you don't have a car, it is best to get there by bus, because the railway station is down at the bottom of the hill, and you have to take a 15 minute bus ride to get up anyway. It's about an hour from Tomakomai, or a half hour from Shiraoi by bus. In summer there is a bus over to Lake Toya via the mountains.
Dai-setsu-zan ('big snow mountain') is a large mountainous area in the middle of Hokkaido, with a number of hot-springs, waterfalls, hiking trails, and mountain-climbing routes. The center of the park is a high area of volcanic craters ringed by mountain peaks, the highest of which is Asahi-dake, at 2200 meters (7200 feet). However, the terrain is not as steep as in much of Japan, and there are rolling ridges, mountain meadows, and also some ropeways, that make it reasonably easy and pleasant to roam the mountains in warmer weather. As a result, many tourists to Hokkaido find their way here, especially in the high season, from mid-July through August.
Daisetsu-zan is most easily accessed via Asahi-kawa
city 
),
So-un ('SO-oon') Kyo (gorge) is the single most spectacular area of natural beauty in the Daisetsu-zan area, and it makes a good base for a week-end of relaxing, or a week of hiking. The gorge itself is about 15 to 20 kilometers long, narrowly cut by the Ishi-gari River into walls of rock up to 400 feet high, with the mountains rising high above.
So-un Kyo On-sen (hot-spring), in the middle of the gorge, is a small town growing into a little resort. From here you can walk or drive on south down the road a few kilometers through some of the nicest scenery, passing the lovely Ginga ('gold river') and Ryusei Waterfalls, as well as some splendid scenery of rock formations jutting out from forested cliffs and slopes. A little farther down are the impressive cliffs of basalt columns towering above the glades called Ko-bako and O-bako (small and large 'box').
Back in the town of So-un Kyo On-sen, some pleasant trips can be made up into the mountains, and you can get quite far in just a day if you use the handy rope-ways (gondolas). Of course, so can every other tourist, and you will not be alone unless you come in a little cooler weather. The first ropeway starts right near town, and goes up to the shoulder of Kuro-dake (mountain). From here you can hike across to Ryoun-dake, and take another ropeway down the other side to two more little hot-spring towns, Yokoma-betsu and Tennin-kyo (gorge). This will take much of a day.
Just about every place around these mountains can call itself a hot-springs, and these two have a number of hot-spring inns in various classes, including a Youth Hostel. If you don't want to move your gear, you can get a bus from Yokoma-betsu up to Asahikawa and back to So-un Kyo, but check the schedules. Above Tennin-kyo is the Hagoromo waterfall, and you pass it if you take the trail down the mountain instead of riding the rope-way.
Or you can just wander around up on the mountain for a while, or choose from any number of other trails around both gorges. You will find plenty of information and maps at the bus station and at inns. Naturally, you will have more freedom to explore with a car.
Getting there:
About ten buses a day run directly from Asahikawa station right to Soun-kyo in under two hours; the last is at 5:20pm. In the morning there are a few more from Kamikawa station that take only thirty minutes. The last bus from Soun-kyo to Asahikawa is at 5:45pm. The ropeway runs up to the mountain from 7am to 5pm every 20 minutes; it takes 8 minutes. Ski lifts are also available when there's snow. The ropeway and lifts back down the other side (after a hike to Asahi-dake) to Tennin-kyo run similar schedules. And there are three buses a day from Tennin-kyo back to Asahikawa in an hour and a half. The last of these leaves the bottom of the ropeway at 5pm and Tennin-kyo village at 5:30pm.
Staying:
There are a number of inns in So-un Kyo On-sen town, in varying price
ranges, and a couple of bigger new hotels. It also has two Youth
Hostels. Here is a List of
This is the area where we stayed at the Japan Railway worker's union lodge, called 'Keigetsu-so', nestled alone in the trees between the town and the famous waterfalls to the south. You have to take a suspension foot-bridge across the Ishi-gari River to get there. This is a private hotel of the Japan Railway workers association and they may not make reservations for anyone else; but if you're in the area in a quieter season, drop in and see if they'll rent you a room. They have large baths overlooking the river, nice rooms, and grilled rainbow trout is the local specialty.
Keigetsu-so
So-un Kyo,
Kami-kawa-gun Kami-kawa-cho
Hokkaido 078-11
telephone: (01658) 5-3637
in winter call Asahi-kawa (0166) 22-1835
________________
You can also stay at Yokoma-betsu On-sen and Tennin-kyo On-sen towns, down in the Tennin gorge across the mountains. There is a Youth Hostel at Yokoma-betsu, which has been recommended, and numerous inns around both places. Regular buses ply here from Asahikawa. I would guess that there would be a tourism and lodging referral office in or near Asahikawa station that would have information on and make reservations for both the So-un Kyo and Tennin-kyo areas.
The Shire-TOko Peninsula is a long mountainous finger pointing northeast out of the eastern side of Hokkaido Island. There are roads running up both sides that do not reach its tip, and the only way all the way around it is by boat. There are a few fishing villages here, a couple of which are of good size. But the whole peninsula gives the feeling of a quiet wilderness, a feeling highlighted by the occasional abandoned farmhouse left over from attempts to settle the area early in the century. The northern half of the peninsula is a national park.
There is some nice scenery here and a lot of empty land broken by the occasional village. Again, this is the kind of country explored to best advantage by car; you can get around by bus, but they are not at all frequent in this underpopulated area. Shiretoko is normally approached through Shari town, on the way from Akan or Abashiri lakes. Beyond Shari, the railways end, the road narrows up the western shore of the peninsula, and the countryside seems even quieter than before.
The 'big' town on the western side of the Shiretoko Peninsula is
Utoro (
),
really just a large
fishing village. There are plenty of minshukus here and a few better
places, if you need a place to stay. Just before Utoro town and right
on the road is the Oshin-koshin waterfall, one of a number that fall
off the steep cliffs. The road is cut so close into the hillsides
that it is hard to see the high mountains that run all the way down
the peninsula.
The steep road from Utoro across the mountains to Rausu, on the other side of the Shiretoko Peninsula, passes between Onnebetsu-dake and Rausu-dake, two of the highest peaks at over 1600 meters (5300 feet); yet they are no more than ten miles from the sea. Farther north is Mt. Io, which regularly belches pure sulfur smoke and erupted in 1936, leaving a yellow stain of sulfur that can still be seen on the sea bottom offshore to the west.
The best views of the peninsula are from offshore. From Utoro, there are boats all the way around the peninsula to Rausu in the warmer months. They go about twice a day, taking four hours, and are a good alternative to the bus (the boats do not take cars). There are also a few excursion boats from Utoro in the summer up to the tip of the peninsula and back in four hours, and a shorter excursion going a bit less than half way up the coast and back in an hour and a half. The excursion company is Shiretoko Kanko Kisen.
Getting there:
Shari (
or Shiretoko Shari) is reached in about two hours by train from
Kushiro, but there are only three a day, the first at 8:55am. The
same line continues around and back to Asahikawa, about five hours
from Shari with a change in Aboshiri. There are four express trains a
day from Asahikawa to Aboshiri, starting at 9am (which originates in
Sapporo at 7:20am).
From Shari station, about eight buses a day run as far as Utoro on the west side of the peninsula in an hour. Only three of these continue on to Iwao-betsu, the Shiretoko Five-Lakes, and the end of the road, and only the 7:50 am bus actually goes into Iwao-Betsu Hot Springs. In the summer from June 15 to October 15, two buses a day go from Utoro across the peninsula to Rausu on the other side. Otherwise, the only way to get up the east side (to Rausu) by public transport is to take the bus from Kushiro city (on the main rail line) north via Shibetsu, three and a half hours to Rausu, and there are only a few buses a day.
Back on the west side, and north beyond Utoro are only a few small villages and the road narrows to a single lane. The hills are covered in high grass and you are as likely to see a northern fox nosing around as another car on the road.
Up here near the end of the western road are the Five Lakes, the
Shiretoko Go-ko. They are small lakes and you can walk around all of
them in an hour or so if you are in a hurry. But there is not much to
hurry for up here, except the darkness. The air is still, the hills
are still, and the still lake waters reflect the sparse conifers at
their margins and the snow-strewn crest of the Shiretoko Range beyond.
[Picture (clickable): Shiretoko Five-Lakes]
Just north of the Shiretoko Five Lakes is Kamuiwakka, site of
the Kamuiwakka Hot-Waterfall! ("Kamuiwakka Yu-no-taki").
I have not been, but you can see photos at
this
website. Looks great! Unfortunately, it is well-discovered,
and very crowded during the summer. It is 11 km. up a dirt road near
the end of the main paved road past the Five Lakes.
A few miles inland, on a side-road just south of the Shiretoko Five
Lakes, is a hot-spring area known as 
).Chi-no-Hate So website
Chi-no-Hate is a nice three-story inn which we had all to ourselves
that night. Over beside the inn is the hot-springs, consisting of a
long series of outdoor pools terraced into the black volcanic rock down
the hill to the nearby creek. It's in a nice natural setting surrounded
by trees, but the mosquitoes were thick enough to keep us in the water
most of the time. The food and the indoor baths were up to high
ryokan standards, and it was a quiet evening in the quiet of the
Shiretoko hinterlands.
[Picture (clickable):
Outdoor baths, Chino-Hate]
Chi-no-Hate-so
Iwaobetsu On-sen
Shari-gun, Shari-cho
Hokkaido tel (01522)
4-2331; Fax: 4-2280
RAusu is the big town on the eastern side of the Shiretoko Peninsula; it is a bit bigger than Utoro and has a fair-sized port. It's a big city on Shiretoko, but is dead-quiet by Japanese standards. There is not a great deal of interest here other than being located at the end of a long journey from anywhere else. Still, down along the shore where the local river empties into the sea, you can see older people in older dress tending racks of drying fish with the snowy peak of Rausu-dake in the background.
Only about 20 miles offshore, and easily seen on clear days is large Kunashiri Island, which is now a part of Russia. This is the first of the famous Kuril Islands -- called the Chishima-Reto in Japanese -- that the Japanese and Russians have been quarreling over (more or less peaceably) since the Russians took unauthorized possession in 1945. These islands (as well as the Shiretoko Peninsula itself) are part of the mountain chain that becomes the Aleutian Islands, and Alaska. Japanese fishermen used to keep houses out there on Kunashiri, but now they can't even fish the waters.
If you travel farther north up this eastern coast, at the end of the road you will come to Seseki On-sen. This place is pretty desolate, with a stone beach pressed hard against the cliffs below Mt. Shiretoko. It is more like a fishing village, but there are some hot-spring inns here, although nothing too fancy. When you get out here, you just can't get much farther away from it all. There is no public transport at all up here.
Out on the coast just north of Seseki, hot water comes up out of the
rocks on the beach and there is usually a temporary pool made by
hot-spring aficionados. Some people go in naked, some in bathing suits,
just as often you have it to yourself. Here's a web site in
English with some photos of
Seseki
Hot-Springs. Apparently the road has now been extended
a few miles north to the Aidomari
There were also numerous chunks of ice up on the beach, the flotsam of an Arctic ice floe's first landfall. At high tide the hot pools are covered by the sea.
Staying:
There are several places to stay in the good-sized town of Rausu. Not many of them are just for tourists, so you should be able to find reasonable accommodation if you are not planning to head farther afield. There are several hot-spring inns, and the town is sometimes promoted as Rausu On-Sen (hot-springs).
In Rausu we stayed at the Rausu
Of fairly recent construction, this inn, while not spectacular, was a
very nice place to stay, especially after the long trip over the
mountains. They also have some western-style rooms with real beds.
Just a little ways up the hill from here (and left, just off the road)
is a natural hot-spring, known as Kuma-no-yu, where the locals
like to bathe. It is not well marked but there are outdoor pools here --
including one for women only -- with minimal facilities.
Rausu Dai-Ichi Hotel
Rausu On-sen, Rausu-cho
Hokkaido 086-18
Tel. (01538) 7-2259
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The major islands of Shikoku and Kyushu are far from the central population areas of Honshu, but they do have a few large cities and industrial areas. They also have lots of natural areas that are not as often visited. I have passed through both islands a couple of times, hitting the sights that most tourists get to (and which are described in any travel guide; see below). But I have not spent enough time at it to find any place I could call a nice getaway, so I'm leaving that for you to discover. There are plenty of rural and mountainous areas here, and the locals speak in ways that many Japanese find difficult to understand. The climate is quite a bit milder, except on the northern coast of Kyushu, facing the Japan Sea.
On Kyushu are a couple of nice castle towns, 
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Shikoku is mostly mountainous and rural, with a couple of castles at
the quiet cities of 
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is large, interesting, and
well-visited. Among the sights I have not seen, there is a very wild
street-dancing festival in Tokushima that goes on for days in
mid-August. The southern part of Shikoku, in particular, is mostly
rural, with long stretches of sparsely populated coastline. This is a
popular route for bicyclists with lots of time on their hands, partly
because there is not much traffic.
The most interesting and relaxing way to get to Kyushu or Shikoku is to take a large ferry through the Inland Sea from Kobe or Osaka (see Western Honshu Around the Inland Sea.)
Yes, Okinawa is a part of Japan again, since 1972, but last I heard, they still drove on the right down there. It's a two-day ferry ride from Tokyo. I spent a couple of days around Naha on the way to Taiwan once, and found a few interesting sights out of town, including the Gyoku-sendo subterranean caves. There is also the very tropical climate, some nice beaches, and fairly good diving in the northern parts, so I am told. Still, you can find some much, much cheaper tropical thrills in other countries to the south.
The original Okinawan culture was quite different from Japan, with their own language and different physical types. But many anthropologists believe that at least one source of the very earliest Japanese culture came up from the tropics via Okinawa. This is the original home of karate.
Getting There: There are a number of regular ferry services from Kagoshima, at the far southern tip of Kyushu, to Okinawa. And plenty more from Tokyo, Nagoya, and Osaka, and more. Details of these routes are kept on my Japan Ferry Info page.
And of course you can fly to Okinawa from many places in Japan, but that's easy to find out about...
Randy's Japan Page
Getaway Table of Contents
and Kyushu 
