Title: Family Summer Holiday
Location: Okayama Prefecture & Tottori Prefecture
Description: Two days camping in the countryside in the middle of Okayama prefecture, then one night at Hawai Onsen.
Start Date: 2012-08-19
End Date: 2012-08-22
I first visited Hawai Onsen back in 1991 with my good friend Roland Petrov. We had a fine time at a ryokan called the Mido. Sadly, on my return to Hawai Onsen I discovered that the company that ran the Mido went bust in the post bubble retrenchment and the Mido no longer exists.
This time round it was a family holiday. After spending two days camping in somewhere in the middle of Okayama prefecture, we spent a night at the Hagoromo Ryokan, a survivor of the post bubble era, on the edge of Lake Togo at Hawai Onsen.
The Hagoromo was good value for the price, but not as grand as the old Mido, or as the newer ryokan, such as the Sennentei, that were built a few years ago on the promontory that juts into lake Togo.
On our way to Hawai 21 years ago, Roland and I stopped at Tottori, he to visit a friend and drink a bottle of wine, I to visit the sand dunes. On our family holiday, we also visited the sand dunes on our way to Hawai Onsen. Twenty one years ago I was somewhat disgusted at the amount of litter that could be seen poking through the sand, but on my return, the sand dunes seemed to be in pristine condition – either because the authorities have made an effort to clean them up, or because the shifting dunes have swallowed up all that early nineties trash…
