Stinky mountains, watery volcanoes and hot feet.

The first thing we noticed this morning was the fact that the Ryokan doesn't have non-smoking rooms. While it wasn't smoky as such - the room did have the faintest reminder of cigarettes - kind of like your clothes after a night out.

Coughing up a lung each, we got ready and headed downstairs for breakfast. We'd left our run a bit late, so were the only diners left for what appeared to be a buffet. As we neared the centre table, I was unable to identify anything whatsoever - apart from vague impressions of pickled vegetables and some kind of fish. I settled on some bacon and noodles I spotted on one of the side-tables (it kind of went together like bacon and eggs strangely enough). The kids almost wept with relief after spotting some toast and jam. Joshie was a happy little man, tucking into jam on toast with a glass of milk to boot. Some of the ladies from the kitchen came out as we were leaving and were unable to stop themselves from touching Joshies sandy-brown hair and calling him 'Kawai' - despite the daggers he was throwing at them (he has a mean frown on him when pushed).

There was a blaze of autumnal colours here - I swear it!

We thought we'd tackle the source of the sulfurous scent head-on, and set off for Mount Iozan. I spent far too long trying to capture the autumnal colours of the forest on the way to the mountain. There is a tradition of boiling eggs in the steaming, sulfury geothermal vents. Why, I have no idea - yet there were queues (I told you they'd queue for anything) of elderly ladies and gents waiting to purchase some of these at the local kiosk. We settled for some '100% Hokkaido' (apparently that's important) ice cream cones. As a bonus, the vending machines stocked hot Boss coffee in a can. More elderly ladies fussed over Josh as he attempted to smudge soft-serve across his face - the frown (albeit just for show) re-appeared.

Blood-sugar surging, caffeine flooding the system, we pushed on for Lake Mashu, essentially the water-flooded caldera of a hopefully extinct volcano. We failed to impress a couple of the local deer on our way up the windy road to the lake. 

'Whaaat?! - can't you seen I'm foraging?'

Lake Mashu is renowned for having the clearest waters of any lake in the world. I might elegantly refute that statement with a sophisticated pffffft (it was pretty clear though).

Lake Mashu - see, you can't even see the bottom..
oh wait, it's a volcano...

Nothing mirrors the quiet serenity of a
Japanese National Park like a  Martin family group-shot..

We noticed a Foot Spa in our earlier travels around the town, so spent the later part of the afternoon up to our knees in piping-hot geothermal goodness. There may have been some other, more local tourists there, and they may have been driven from the Spa by our familial chaos.

The now-vacated Foot Spa/Onsen