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I pondered the meaning of these words as I soaked in the steamy, murky depths of our Youth Hostel’s onsen.

Baking soda aside, they certainly seemed to make some kind of sense: fresh from WWOOFing at Takano Farm the healing waters soothed my aching limbs.

Furthermore, I could well understand the locals pride in their extraordinary surroundings, after all not many people can boast of having 100% naturally heated water, free and, quite literally, available on tap.

However, what seemed less certain to me was their nonchalant attitude towards the heating system which bestowed them with this miraculous aqua.

You see, Toya Ko sits on an enormous puddle of liquid hot magma.

There’s nothing particularly unusual here - after all the entire planet’s crust floats on top of the piping hot liquid core - but, unlike in somewhere nice and safe like say, Abingdon or Wantage, in Toya Ko this magma is somewhat closer to the surface.

The town can thank its geological location for this, positioned as it is on a fault line, where the Pacific and American tectonic plates meet, allowing the magma to rise up.

This is all too evident in the enormous volcanoes poking up across the landscape. Toya Ko itself lives in the shadow of a particularly energetic beast, Mount Usu, one of the most active in the whole of this volcanic nation.

Mount Usu has awoken several times and with catastrophic consequences, most recently in 2000.

Living with the constant threat of being showered with molten hot rocks and shaken by earthquakes, was the volcanic nature of their environment a blessing or a curse to Toya Ko’s residents?

The ones we talked to didn’t seem too concerned. One chap, keen to practice his English, had lived here for 40 years and witnessed both the 2000 eruption and the one preceeding it, in 1977. Did he live in fear? He just shrugged his shoulders and laughed.

Bravado or not, if it wasn’t for the hot springs this place wouldn’t be home to the numerous massive hotels blighting the lakefront, their guests wandering the streets in ill-fitting kimonos in between their hot dips.

And without the smoking volcanoes the roads would be empty of the fleets of luxury tourist buses ploughing the highway up to the cable car station and views over the brooding craters.

However, this natural phenomena has its flip-side. The threat of a apocalyptic natural disaster can be a big turn-off for many a potential house buyer. Unlike in Highgate High Street, estate agents in Toya Ko seemed rather thin on the ground.

And even if one were able to forget the showers of flying pumice, rivers of molten lava, cascades of hot mud and clouds of ash the evidence of previous disasters lies all around.

After visiting the new volcano visitor centre, home to ash-coated vehicles, buckled railway tracks and lots of mind-boggling information about ‘pyroclastic flows’ and ‘lava domes’, one can step outside and see for oneself the devastation a volcano is capable of.

The appropriately-named ‘Konpira Crater - Remnants of the disaster walking trail’ features an abandoned part of the town, where buildings devastated in the 2000 eruption have been left in the state they were found in.

A new crater was created in Mount Konpira and from there hot water turned into a river of hot mud, gushing down the hillside and into the hot springs district.

An apartment block stands between dead trees, its first floor buried, its roof pockmarked by falling rocks .

A former bathhouse stands abandoned, its doors caved in, windows smashed, furniture poking up out of the piles of mud which built up in the rooms inside.

Nearby, a large steel bridge lies at a bizarre angle, its girders poking up, streetlamps twisted against the ground underneath; ripped away from the highway and swept along on a river of mud to its final resting place.

A little further up the hillside the highway which once linked the town with the outside world is kinked and twisted, its tarmac rising up at grotesque angles before running into the grass and ending abruptly, a highway to nowhere.

Even closer to home for us, rising behind our hostel, Mount Showa Shinzan broods menacingly, its summit seared of vegetation, steam pouring out of vents.

This ‘parasite volcano’ only appeared in 1943, growing up out of a corn field, sometimes at a rate of up to 1.5 metres a day.

Thanks to the efforts of the local postmaster, a Mr Masao Mimatsu, this wonder of nature was recorded in great detail, the first time such an event had ever been recorded .

The enterprising Mr Mimatsu also bought the land on which the volcano appeared, thereby preserving the new natural wonder for future generations and protecting it from the Japanese tendency to build ugly great hotels and shopping precincts selling useless toot right next door.

Sadly elsewhere in the area developers were able to get there first. Above Lake Toya itself, a beautiful 11km-wide caldera formed by volcanic activity, the hideous silhouette of the Windsor Hotel stands out starkly against the horizon.

Incidentally, why do people insist on calling hotels worldwide by this name? Perhaps they find Saxe-Coburg-Gotha rather a mouthful and it leads to all sorts of confusion with cabbies.

In July this venue played host to the G8 summit, an event so monumental that we weren’t even aware of its location until we stepped off at the train station. I guess no-one noticed the extra hot air here.

Whatever progress they made on tackling climate change or reducing their golf handicap I do hope George, Gordon, Nicola and co had time to try out Toya Ko’s many free on-street hot baths.

These mini-onsen cater for passing pedestrians, offering them a chance to bathe their hands or feet. There’s something very zen-like about sitting in a small bandstand, in the rain, with one’s feet in hot water.

Back in the proper onsen, my skin is turning pink and my are fingers beginning to resemble those strange pickled apricots the Japanese consider a delicacy. Yes, living by a volcano does have its benefits.

I’m still puzzled by the baking soda though.