Lake Toya is known for the large and small hot-spring hotels lining its shores.
This time we stayed at Toya Kanko Hotel.
It had a reassuringly classic hotel name.
After checking in at the bright lobby, we went straight to our room.
This was a traditional hot-spring ryokan hotel, with futons laid out on tatami.
I resisted the urge to dive straight into the warm bedding and took photographs first.
The room was bright and overlooked Lake Toya directly, which I loved.
The usual ryokan welcome snacks and green tea were ready.
I wondered whether chilled water would be provided in summer.
Beside the window, a table and chairs offered a place to relax over the lake view.
Sipping tea slowly and gazing at the lake was wonderful.
A long lakeside path had been laid out, though the snow made it impossible to distinguish.
The all-white landscape was beautiful.
Thankfully, there was chilled water beside the washbasin.
Just as I had hoped.
There were decorative objects typical of a ryokan too.
They looked expensive, so I took care around them.
The closet held yukata, haori jackets, and towels for visiting the baths.
There was no little bath bag, though.
The washbasin had face cleanser, hair treatment, and cream marketed for cracked hands and feet.
Japanese hot springs often display such products, making you want to buy them.
The bathroom looked clean and relatively recently renovated compared with the age of the room.
The shampoo and body wash were Shiseido products.
We went down to the lobby for dinner.
A café beside the lobby gave guests somewhere comfortable to relax.
Coffee and other drinks could be ordered there.
There was also yukata rental, offering a chance for a lakeside walk in traditional dress.
Dinner was a neatly presented Japanese meal.
It included a tsumire hot pot with fish-cake-like dumplings, dressed mushrooms, salad, grilled mackerel, shrimp, salmon and scallop sashimi, grilled shrimp, and chicken.
The rice was fragrant takikomi gohan, cooked with other ingredients in a pot.
Fresh salmon sashimi.
Well-seasoned grilled mackerel.
Dressed mushrooms with a pleasantly slippery texture.
Takikomi gohan is rice cooked with seafood or other ingredients and a little soy sauce; it was delicious on its own.
An egg yolk mixed in would have been a wonderful addition.
Instead, there was something similar-looking whose name I did not know.
The outside was soft like sponge cake, while the inside had a texture rather like thinly sliced meat.
It was mildly flavored, well seasoned, and tasty.
After dinner, we went to the hot springs.
The source describes one large indoor bath, two outdoor baths, and the hotel’s signature cave bath.
It describes cloudy, sodium-containing spring water and relays a claim that it warms the body deeply; no therapeutic effect is independently established here.
Steam fogged the camera when the cave bath was full, so the photograph was taken during cleaning with the water drained. The source explains that it normally contained water.
The next morning, we got up and went for breakfast.
A one-night stay with two meals at a hot-spring hotel can feel delightfully busy with eating.
Breakfast was another tidy Japanese meal, including simmered potatoes,
rolled omelet and grilled salmon,
simmered kelp,
and yudofu, tofu warmed in broth.
We ate well, enjoyed the views, and rested during our night at Toya Kanko Hotel.
The source says the Lake Toya Long-Run Fireworks, held from late April to late October, could be seen from the window. If snowy lake scenery and Japanese meals appeal, this was a stay worth remembering.
Toya Kanko Hotel (洞爺観光ホテル)
Address: 33 Toyako Onsen, Toyako-cho, Abuta-gun, Hokkaido (北海道虻田郡洞爺湖町洞爺湖温泉３３番地)
Phone: 0142-75-2111