Toyako

Four hours by coach away from Sapporo is a place called Toyako. This was where I was intending to go but getting in at 6AM from an Internet café does not help your chances of catching a 10:30 coach. Yet against all my own expectations I made it.
“You show me the ticket at the end,” said the driver who was less impressed with my achievement.

It is about time I supplied a map of Hokkaido to better illustrate my journey. This shows where I was heading, it was about 100KM away.


We stopped at a rest stop on the way. I bought some dry crackers which turned out to be pretty horrible, I carried them around in my bag for weeks after. This was the view from the rest stop, good isn’t it.


This is not Mt Fuji, it is just one of the many mountains in the Fuji style.

The lake I was heading to was in a national park redeemed for its beauty but this was not why I was going there. I wanted to go up a volcano and somewhere near the lake was a cable car which would allow me to do that just that. We don’t get to go up volcanoes at home, but we done have Lego land.

I got a few glimpses of the lake about 45 minutes before we reached our destination and it looked beautiful. As I was craning my neck to see the lake the coach was suddenly pulled over by a policeman.

The driver and policeman had a quick conversation and the coach quickly started off again. I noticed more policemen standing along the road but there seemed to be no explanation as to why they were there. It was the middle of nowhere.



The number of police standing beside the road increased as we went further. It was amazing, I had never seen so many policemen before.

And then the reason why became clear

Perched impressively on top of a hill was an enormous hotel. The hotel was surrounded by thick forest; not even the road leading up to it was visible. Its bare straight edged front gave it a powerful look like it was part of some great organism that slept beneath the hill. Crucially, though, I recognised the hotel from posters I had seen that week.

Unwittingly in my quest to ride a cable car up a volcano I had found myself at the venue for the G8 summit. In a week’s time the major leaders of the world would be in that hotel discussing global issues. This was why there were so many police lining the road.

I wanted to take a picture of all the police but you can’t really do that sort of thing can you. This was the best shot I got.


In Tokyo too the security had increased for the summit. I had first noticed it weeks before when I got off the bus to go to work and saw a big poster saying, "Counter Terrorism."

At that time Tokyo subway was littered with posters about increased security and at many of the major stations there was a greater police presence. Some policemen even took to standing on boxes so that they could look menacingly at more people at the same time.

I am not anti-establishment or anything but I don’t feel comfortable seeing armies of police around, it makes me nervous. Bored tyrants can always find some reason to stop you, I remember it happened to me once when I was on work experience.

I was at a school helping an IT technician out for a week. While crossing between classrooms on my own I got stopped and called over by a teacher. He looked at me and said, “What’s this?” he was indicating the blonde streak in my hair though it took me a moment to work that out.
“It’s a natural streak,” I explained.
He ruffled his brow over this but let me go. The thing was it was an Inset day and none of the kids were in school, so to him I was either a trespasser or on work experience, neither of which really warrants a hair inspection.

So that’s why police make me nervous.

Eventually we got to our destination, the small town of Toyako on the shores of Lake Toya.

I got off the bus and was immediately surrounded, by smiling Japanese women. They spoke English perfectly and I was completely unprepared for this; I hadn’t really used my voice at all that day and suddenly I was a celebrity.

My first instinct was to sap them for information and then escape. Once they had found out when the next bus to the volcano would be they offered me the chance to go to the Tourist Information Office. “You can try wearing a Yukata, The Japanese Tea Ceremony and Flower Arranging,” they said invitingly None of these activities really appealed to me but they were so earnest, and knew exactly how long I had to wait for my bus, that I agreed to go.

One lady with very good English took to me the Tourist Information Office. On the way she told me that she was an English teacher but had volunteered to be a guide during the summit.

“There are so many police around,” I commented.
“Yes, 20,000 have come here from all over Japan and I hear that in Sapporo you can’t use the lockers in the train stations.”
“What?” I said worriedly, I would be needing a locker in a train station the next day in between checking out and catching my coach. She turned out to be right about this and it was a real nuisance.

There were posters and decorations in the town, “It feels like a festival,” she explained. “We hope that after the G8 many people will want to visit Toyako.”


Indeed the town was on a tourist mission. The Tourist Information Office was surrounded by signs, balloons and posters. There was even a secondary Tourist Centre newly opened next door.

As we walked up the steps my guide seemed to run ahead of me slightly to warn everyone inside. Once I entered and saw the fifteen surprised faces it was obvious I had caused a stir. Everyone started assembling into their places and I was asked what I wanted to do. Like the macho guy I am I asked to do flower arranging but the woman in charge of that was out.

A few minutes later I was being given a private performance of the Japanese Tea Ceremony. In case you don’t know, the Tea Ceremony is like an elaborately refined dance which results in some tea. The arrangement of the equipment, the order and manner in which they are used all have to be painstakingly learnt. It is an extremely complicated, circumscribed and yet oddly beautiful way of making tea.

There wasn’t just one lady performing the ceremony though. Two women were playing instruments, another woman was sitting facing me and another served the tea and a bit of food.
“We normally use coal to heat the water,” I was told by one of the women, “but because of the G8 we are using an electric heater.” So the G8 was causing changes already.

At the end of the ceremony I was given an origami crane, “Take it back for your girlfriend,” they said, bowing politely. I put it safely in my bag.

My earlier guide was waiting for me and took me upstairs where there were some amazing pictures of Hokkaido. We took the moment to talk about politics.
“Your Prime Minister isn’t very popular at the moment,” she said about Mr Brown.
“No,” I agreed, “Do you like George Bush?”
“Not really. The French Prime Minister is quite popular because of his wife. I read in a magazine that she can’t come to the G8 because she is recording her new album. She must think that is more important than the G8.” My guide laughed.

On the way out a man appeared from nowhere to give me an enormous bag of goodies. Inside were five DVDs, three CDs, a selection of sweets, stacks of leaflets and a badge promoting Tokyo as Olympic City 2016.

Next door had displays of traditional crafts found in Hokkaido. A suit of traditional armour was part of the display and there were pictures of a yearly festival where it was still worn.
“That takes place in my hometown,” my guide told me, “but it is very boring.”
She didn’t quite have the right idea about promoting tourism but I appreciated her honest humour much more.

I mentioned being stopped by police in Sapporo airport to her and she said, “I am not surprised, you look like a protestor.” I was wearing shorts and t-shirt, I thought I looked like a tourist but she was adamant. That made me even more nervous.

She took me back to the bus station and that’s where we said goodbye. I caught the bus to the volcano and this place:



It was a tourist trap, full of souvenir shops and overpriced food.

I followed signs to the cable car station, but the silence and lack of other tourists gave me a worrying feeling.

A nice cat was lying outside the cable car ticket office. Inside, a man confirmed to me that the volcano was closed for the day. I went back to the cat.

I looked around the shops for a while, I didn’t buy any souvenirs but I found a White Bear skin on sale for 5000000 yen, that’s £25,000.



I bought some overpriced snacks and ate them while watching smoke rising from the volcano. The place smelt like ash, it had still been worth coming just for that.


An hour later the bus took me back into Toyako and I braved the mass of policemen in order to see the sights. Which included:

The lake.



Male and female swan boats.


Lanterns decorated by primary school children in environmental motifs.





Back at the bus station the friendly women had gone and it was just a dreary bus station again. I ate my free sweets and waited.

A coach with a sign for Sapporo turned up at the right time to pick me up. There were a few other people waiting for the coach and so I didn’t hurry to get on. When I stood to start making my way to the bus it pulled away. Panic filled me but I was too shy to start running and just walked quickly to try and catch the coach before it drove out the car park.

Without slowing down the coach proceeded out the car park and onto the road. I forgot shyness and ran after it full steam, it was the last bus to Sapporo and I was determined not to spend another night outside of my hotel.

There are few moments in my life where I find myself running as fast as I can, with utter commitment to the chase. It was like a movie; I was running across roads without looking, jumping over walls to cut corners and hearing my own theme music in my head.

I was catching up when the driver pulled over, he must have seen me in the mirror.
“Not this bus,” he told me.
“Oh, sorry,” I said panting for air.

I slinked back to the bus station and the crowd of people who had last seen me running for my life. I tried to project an air of nonchalance and with a slight forced grin at my own foolishness. The small group of passengers remained resolutely silent and I sweated on my own for a while. I could hear them though, in their minds saying, “I bet the French Prime Minister wouldn’t do that.”