Japan 2004 Travelogue: Part 7 Lake Toya, south of Sapporo, is a lake formed by volcanism, as betrayed both by the old cinder cones that form the islands in the middle of it, and by the still-active cones nearby — the last eruption was in 2000! While touristy, Lake Toya was much nicer than Lake Towada. The city has commissioned artists to make sculptures that have been placed all around the perimeter of the lake; some 70-odd in all, if I recall correctly. We saw only a handful, two of which are pictured here.        We visited the active volcanic site nearby, where we saw steaming vents, as well as a statue of the man who first mapped out the volcanism in the area. I found a brief history of the volcanic activity in the area online, which makes for interesting reading. We took a cable car up to the top of the mountain, where we could look across from an observation platform to the main caldera, steaming away.               Then we found our way, via a map that can best be described as "imperfect", to the site of the 2000 eruption. It was a sobering sight. The city has built a walkway which one can travel, going past the scenes of devastation and destruction caused by the eruption.                             Every night, all summer long, there are fireworks on Lake Toya, apparently to help boost tourism or something. We watched them from our hotel window, which overlooked the lake.        And the next morning we departed for Sapporo, with a parting photo of the lake, and three from the road, where we took a small detour to see a beautiful mountain all by itself in the middle of farm country. In the last photo, Keewi is posing as a potato on a stick, with a tall metal sculpture of asparagus stalks beside her, as part of a painted backdrop showing a mountain, with the real mountain right behind her. Only in Japan. :->               Part 8: Sapporo These images copyright © 2004 Ben Haller. All rights reserved.