Author Archives: borysSNORC

Ikaho

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Ikaho is a small town of around 4,000 people; together with the villages of Akagi, Komochi and Onogami, they comprise the merged city of Shibukawa. Ikaho is located on the slopes of an extinct volcano and, (no one will be surprised to read this bit seeing we are here!), it is widely renown for its hot springs!

On our way into town, there was apparently a very well knonw ‘Must-Do’ stop at the Ikaho Pudding House Crayon. I found out about it by persevering with YouTube videos done by Japanese content creators – not the easiest way to get your travel hints when nothing is in English, but.. famous puddings, you say? To take to our ryokan? Don’t mind if we do!

So much pudding! Pudding isn’t really a big thing in Australian – as far as I’m aware anyway! I don’t usually have much of a sweet tooth, so don’t tend to seek these sorts of things out when I’m at home. However, Japanese sweets tend to have less overpoweringly processed ‘flavour’ added. I can’t quite explain it, but something here that is melon flavoured, will in fact taste like melon rather than some amped up over-sweetened version of a ‘melon flavour’. Anyway, famous puddings flavoured in Royal milk tea, matcha tea, chocolate, strawberry, salted caramel, lavender; it goes on. Thankfully they have these teeny small taster sized portions so you can choose a few flavours without consuming your body weight in pudding! (Edit: predictably, the salted caramel was the best!)

Throughout Japan, you will see tiny little police stations, they are like teeny one man booths, this is the second police station that I have seen that actually appears to be a larger presence – the other being the one we spent over two hours at, on our last trip (J4), when Mr K was given a moving violation for crossing a solid line on the highway right in front of some cops less than four hours after we arrived into the country! Good times!

I LOVE this little police car! You can see by its sleek design that it is definitely made for high speed pursuits. 😀 We also thought the sign out front which shows two horse-police people wearing masks, was really typically Japanese cute! Joshu-kan and Miyama-chan are the police mascots here. I can’t decide if their names are some sort of piss take? Joshu and Miyama are both fairly famous types of beef!

The most well-known Ikaho landmark is the famous stone staircase that runs through the centre of the entire town. The steps number exactly 365 and lead up to the Ikaho shrine; ‘the steps stretch out like aiming for heaven’ is the original plan. The steps are believed to have been here for over 400 years, and were most recently refurbished in 2007, where the new plan is explained (in writing!) as 365 steps leading to visitors to the town 365 days a year! That is Fair. Totally fair. Without tourism, a lot of these small towns would be in real trouble.

Now, I haven’t written much about it at all – I intended to, but got distracted – but I had a total knee replacement in August… nearly 12 weeks ago. Given I live in a low set house (ranch style if you’re an American), there are ZERO steps in my house. So I’ve been doing my physio and doing my hydrotherapy exercises since the surgery, and visited a friend for a weekend who has steps in their house, but that is the most ‘stairs’ that have been in my life since the surgery. Naturally, the best thing I can do here is attempt to walk up all 365 of these steps!

I wasn’t really thinking about whether or not I *should* climb these stairs and was far more focused on whether or not I physically *could* climb these stairs. Which may or may not have been a mistake, I’m not sure. Thankfully we were in no particular hurry and I had the assurance of knowing that there was a wonderful private onsen bath for me at the end of this ordeal if it went poorly.

The town’s onsen waters flow straight down the middle of the street. You can see it here at the base of the steps as the water cascades down the steps, and at various other points further up you can see it gushing down the street through some glass viewing points.

Intermittently at the tops of small flights of stairs, there are terraces for resting, for smoking rooms, or that go off down little alleyways for cafes, restaurants, bunny shops (?) and gaming alleys … it all feels a bit like a fete or carnival with the street food and side show alley type games. The scenery was just magic every time I took a breather to look back down the steps.

The entire street is lined with quaint little shops.

This ‘shrine’ looking spot is actually a rubbish bin! It has been decorated with rubber ducks which seems to be one of the popularly won prizes in the side show alley games.

Also lining the street are a number of public onsens… sadly they are not available for those of us wearing permanent marker.

Cute little winding alleyways built on the slopes that house tiny little cafes, ice cream shops, and other stalls selling local onsen buns.

Taking a moment to rest and look back down the stairs is highly recommended… not just for the break for the broken knees but also for the views which improved the higher up the steps we climbed!

Glorious day for it! The three peaks of Mt Akagi, Mt Myogi and Mt Haruna are well framed from this photo point.

There are several little foot baths where weary tourists can stop and soak their feet on their way up the sacred steps. Speaking of tourists – we accounted for two of the four western tourists we saw all day on the steps. Ikaho is only two and a half hour train then bus trip out of Tokyo, so it’s doable in a day (a long day), but it’s not as accessible as many other destinations where there are better train services. There is no easy train here. To come stay, you’d need to train, then bus, then get your ryokan/hotel to come collect you and your luggage from the bus station. So it tends to be a very popular spot for domestic Japanese tourists, but not so commonly visited by foreigners.

There were many convenient little rest areas on the way up the steps… though I think the town provides them mostly so you have somewhere to sit and consume the onsen buns and ice creams that they want you to buy as you make your way up through the town.

The Komaguchi is the river that branches from the onsen source of the Yumoto. In the stone steps there are four small viewing windows or ‘mouths’ that allow you to see the water gushing down the street – and it’s seriously pumping out a LOT of very hot water.

Also, in the stone steps there are 12 hot spring inns that have been owned by the same families of landlords for over 200 years. Each of these landlords has a zodiac sign inlaid into the stone in brass to locate where their inn is – much like a family crest, only a chosen zodiac sign. I saw a few of them, but was so focused on how many steps we had gone up, that I wasn’t seriously searching for them. This (no doubt very clever, clever) rat is kinda cute.

One area of the steps has a poem by the Akiko Yosano inscribed into the steps, I can’t for the life of me find a translation of this poem on the internets, which is a little disappointing – I’d like to know what it says. Edited to add: The poem is called “The Town of Ikaho” and describes a scene of Ikaho in the early Taisho period (1912-1926), but further than that, a translation I can not find!

Above and below: Some of the carnival / side show alley gaming shops.

We found a little cafe to stop at around the 230 steps up… Mr K needed a coffee and I caught sight of some cute (notably Insta-famous) steamed buns. 😀 It was a pricey little steamed bun – but also the tastiest one I’ve ever tried here, so I forgave it.

A Daruma sundae… again we find that the sweets here are not so sweet and something labeled as strawberry flavoured, actually taste like strawberries, not just the sickly sweet pretend strawberry flavour you find in ice cream or milkshakes back home. This was strawberry, rose hip and hibiscus flavoured, all made with local produce from the Gunma Prefecture. It was quite flavourful and refreshing.

There are numbers on the steps telling you exactly how many more you have to go started to be encouraging at this point; which was appreciated given they were a little distressing at the beginning when my knee was already complaining at steps numbered 12 and 15! We stopped into some cute little knickknack shops – and there are several of them scattered about the terraces. I saw this cool canvas bag depicting the Seven Gods, which I couldn’t figure out a use for, so I didn’t buy it. Retail remorse has since ensued and I wished I had picked it up. It was only ¥800… but c’est la vie! I’m so not going back up the 240 odd steps to go get one tomorrow!

This little guy is Ishidan-kun and he/she/it/they is the mascot of Ikaho… which should be fairly evident from his little onsen hat and his stairs for an apron! lol

The Ikaho Bakery… which didn’t appear to sell any baked goods, but did sell… wait for it… moar pudding!

Now, I reckon we have to be all pudding’d out by this point, but they had a neat little insulated bag there that I thought would be useful for the rest of the trip as we are trafficking our saké around, so we picked up two little puddings for after dinner, so I could buy their insulated cold bag.

These were called ‘Stone Steps Pudding’ and were a traditional style egg pudding, and were not sweet at all. A bit like a light vanilla creme brûlée style deal without the sugary crust.

Another zodiac… no metal pig though.

Japanese manhole covers are famous the world over for being works of art. This one for Shibukawa is so famous it can be found on coasters, washcloths, plates, and all sorts of merch.

The last stretch to the top! It was really busy at this point of the steps – the shrine is just at the top of this next stage. I was worried about how slow (and carefully) I was walking and getting in people’s way and holding them up… and also lamenting that I wouldn’t be able to get any pics without people in them.

I stopped to gather my breath and stretch my knee a bit, and held a spot waiting for a break in the traffic. Patience is a virtue I don’t usually posses… until it comes to trying to take a photo without tourists in it! Then I seem to find the will to wait until the people have passed. Worth it!

The Ikaho Shrine… complete with queue of people waiting to pay their respects and ask for the blessings and cast their wishes. Apparently it gets crazy busy here at New Year.

I know in the big scheme of things, walking up 365 steps is not a big deal… but seeing it was so soon after getting huge chunks of my knee removed and bits of titanium and chromium cobalt implanted, and going from not being able to even hobble unaided from my bedroom to the kitchen in my house 12 weeks ago, this felt like a HUGE achievement. So I’m pretty damn happy with my wash!

It should be noted that I couldn’t have gone *back down* those 365 for love or money! Going up is one thing, but going down steps at the moment is still quite another. NOPE. We had to find a circuitous route down via the winding roads that meander in and around the steps to service the hotels. Still, small victories and all that.

On the way out of Ikaho, we made a stop at the Kajika bridge… the bridge is a famous photo stop, being strikingly red in the middle of summer green leaves, stunning when surrounded by autumn foliage, but also looks amazing when covered in snow. I guess this means we need to come back and see it in all seasons.

It feels like that is all a town needs to do in Japan to get people to come by – have some gorgeous Japanese maples carefully planted intermingled with cherry blossom trees, add one strikingly red bridge across a small ravine or creek. Add a couple of food stalls and get some tourists to start sharing photos of it it to make that thing Insta-famous. Build it and they will come!

The red bridges are such an iconic Japanese object that they never fail to be beautiful and feel ‘typically’ Japan.

We ❤️ Ikaho… I’ll definitely be back.

Ikaho Onsen – Oyado Tamaki HORAI

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We decided to spend three nights in Ikaho, which it turns out is practically unheard of… no one comes to Ikaho for three nights. Foreigners in particular very rarely come to Ikaho at all let alone stay three nights, (we saw only two other western tourists the entire three days we were there), but even the Japanese tourists who come to visit Ikaho never come and stay three nights in Ikaho apparently!

However, we had work to do and so we planned for a three night stay. Only problem was – it was seriously near impossible to find a place with three consecutive nights accomodation available, so I ended up choosing one ryokan and booking one night in one type of room and two nights in another. It might have been different if I could read or speak Japanese, which might have meant I could have contacted establishments directly a little easier, but using their (all Japanese and not easy to translate, websites) or trying affiliate sites like the dreaded booking dot com or Agoda or Japanican … it worked out easier to book direct and just suck it up that we would be changing rooms.

It ultimately worked out really well. The staff at Oyado Tamaki were so so wonderfully attentive because we were staying for three nights! It was quite a big deal for them to have us stay so long… it was actually really cute. The landlady in particular was especially friendly, welcoming and appreciative.

Oyado Tamaki is a wonderful blend of traditional Japanese ryokan with Western comfort, without going overboard with the Western elements so as to lose the Japanese culture that you come fro in the first place. There was a lovely comfortable lobby and bar area where we were welcomed with yuzu tea and a snack. Again, the Japanese love of viewing/engaging with nature was evident in the design of these public spaces as the lounge seating is arranged with large picture windows to overlook a gorgeous Japanese garden.

Our first night was in a ‘Horai’ Western style room with a cypress indoor bath.

The room genkan was a spacious and welcoming space where you could put all your luggage… as is rapidly becoming the norm, we left our shoes at the genkan to the ryokan, where we were given slippers to wear around the ryokan, where we arrived at the room to find other slippers to wear in our room, and I bet there are different slippers for the toilet too!

His and hers… quite often though, ‘His’ won’t fit Western men with large feet!

Our room was a very tastefully decorated space with an incredibly high ceiling and views over the base of the famous Ikaho Stone Steps.

It had a comfortable sitting area where we could see the sunrise/sunset and this turned into a nice spot to work.

Welcome snacks… local Gunma mochi and some barley crackers.

The ceiling in this rooms was impressive, it must have been 16’ high, and with it’s timber spokes and fabric-like design, felt oddly Turkish…?

Mr K always appreciates a hotel room with a decent desk – I don’t know what’s going on in contemporary western hotel design, but the ‘desk’ seems to often be some 40cm wide thing that is inconveniently under a massive television and you can barely sit a laptop on it, so would more accurately be described as a ‘shelf’. You can’t work on those stupid things.

All the furniture in this ryokan from the lobby to the rooms, felt like it all had stories to tell, like it had been deployed in different configuration for decades, but was lovingly used and worn and even revarnished and repaired… not quite antique, but not slick IKEA modern either. It felt comfortably lived in.

We found comfortable yukata, tabi socks, onsen towels, and a sewing kit among the room’s amenities.

And then in the closet, we were also provided with Hanten coats, and even more yukata in a range of different sizes (by height), so it was easy to find something comfortable to fit.

The kitchenette nook was well equiped with tea, green tea and coffee making facilities. Also a fridge full of complimentary beer, juices soft drink and water. I do love how they look after you and there is no minibar price list in sight.

After so many open air baths, this was quite different. The bath was long and deep and definitely large enough for two with a view out a near window of some beautiful autumn leaves towards the mountains.

The propensity here for going completely overboard on the individually packaged ammenities is still rather puzzling… surely Japanese travellers bring *some* toiletries and things with them when they travel. I’m not sure why they provide quite so much disposable stuff; the packaging alone is enough to make you look at it with concern. We very rarely open any of it.

The bright orange towel warmer felt oddly out of place, but at the same time was extremely welcome! It was starting to get cold up here in the mountains. Hanging your massive fluffy bathrobe up on a towel warmer while you are in the bath is like the epitome of luxury.

Indoor bath saké just doesn’t have the right feels about it… can’t quite put my finger on why. 🙂

I had seen in my research that this ryokan was known for its excellent kaiseki meals, so was really looking forward to dinner.

Unexpectedly, we saw this wonderful display of local saké at the entrance to the restaurant. We have found in some places, they are putting more and more focus on Western wines over local sakés, which no doubt it to cater to the domestic tourists who see the imported wines as exotic and elegant, but as a foreign tourist, we are all about wanting to try the local sakés – which I know is quite unusual. Lots of foreigner visitors never get a taste for saké.

The Autumn menu looked absolutely amazing! Everything so beautifully presented, and lovingly created. It was called the ‘Shimotsuki Menu’, and started with appetisers of: Marinated mackerel; Smoked daikon radish and cheese, Purple lily root; Kusunoki crystal egg yolk; Roe with kelp. And a soup made of: Chasen eggplant, yukiwaritake mushroom, shirareitake mushroom.

I ordered a saké tasting flight and surprised absolutely no one when the junmai daiginjo was my favourite.

We were also served a ‘special dish’ that was not on the menu: shrimp, pickles, knotted mushrooms and a small crab cake cooked on lava stone.

Sashimi course: Kina, Iwana fresh water fish, a selection of tuna, Hakojima, and some carp sashimi.

Handmade steamed tofu with famous autumnal Matsutake mushrooms, Fukurutake mushrooms, crab meatball, maple leaf lotus root, chrysanthemum sauce and fresh shrimp. I love these steamed dishes at this time of year, so warming and often packed full of subtle and delicious umami flavours.

Silk salmon in autumn flower arrangement; autum fruits and nuts, apple and fig, roasted chestnuts stewed in honey, deep fried ginko nuts.

Joshu Akagi beef steak, sweet pepper, petal mushroom, and ponzu sauce.

Joshu local chicken steamed with abalone, shrimp, Anpel Kujo green onion. Served with local Koshihikari Niigata rice, pickles and miso soup.

Soy milk tofu with pear, and muscat grapes, served with green tea for dessert.

Gochisōsamadeshita! Dinner was absolutely lovely. It really is nice to have a delicious Japanese meal provided for you at the ryokan and you don’t have to get dressed and go out to find dinner.

After dinner, I went for a wander around the ryokan to see what I could find and hopefully find the public onsens empty so I could capture a few images – us tattoo’d folks aren’t allowed in the public onsens; it’s a terrible shame to have to be consistently booking the rooms with a private bath. Woe is us! 😀
Admittedly, it is always the more expensive option, but at least I know I won’t be breaking any cultural taboos or making people uncomfortable.

First thing I found though was a saké cellar! With a sign outside saying, ‘Come fill a cup for ¥500. Nice! There was quite a fancy selection in the cellar an half a dozen in the fridge to help yourself on an honesty system, where you can just write down what you have had for the landlady.

The women’s onsen was deserted so I had a quiet look around. There was plenty of space in the dressing rooms for changing and storing your things while you bathed.

Numerous spaces to shower yourself before getting into the onsen baths.

I found one small outdoor onsen for a group of friends to enjoy and larger onsens as well.

Ikaho Onsen is famous for having two types of rare hot spring water. The first is “Kogane no Yu” an is the golden hot spring water. The Golden onsen water is rich in iron which causes the water to become a rich yellowish/brown colour when it comes into contact with oxygen. These waters are believed to offer many health benefits, particularly for women. The Kogane no Yu is said to also have healing effects on medical ailments including skin issues like cuts and burns.

The second water is the “Shirogane no Yu” and is known as the silver hot spring water, which is a relatively newer hot spring to the area. It is said to have natural moisturising components that help smooth and refresh this skin. This is the type of water in our room’s onsen, and I fully believe it – my skin has never felt so soft!

I also found a small area set up for small children to bathe in more temperate appropriate baths. The water temperature at this onsen is quite high, so you find yourself having multiple short baths each day rather than long soaking baths.

For what is normally a busy town full of domestic tourists, Ikaho is rather quiet at night… there are clubs and restaurants around, but I wonder if most visitors are all happily tucked in, enjoying the hospitality of their ryokan inns.

Woke up unhappily before the sunrise; was rewarded with this beautiful quality light though.

Mt Akagi, Mt Myogi, and Mt Haruna are out here somewhere… though not sure which elevation is which. If these names sounds familiar, it could be because the beef in Japan seems to carry the same name as the mountain it was raised on. Regional naming protocols no doubt.

Breakfast was served near a large picture window overlooking the beautiful Gunma scenery.

Wow! All the breakfast deliciousness.

Rice with assorted pickles, yuba, and salted seaweed.

Pear jelly, salad and mushroom miso soup, and a lovely piece of fresh salmon. Amazing fresh produce for breakfast.

I am loving this Oyado Tamaki, it is a fabulous ryokan… and we have two more nights here moving into a different room today.

Takasaki – Byakue Dai-Kannon and Daruma-ji

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Went to see the renown Takasaki Byakue Daikannon – or ‘Giant Takasaki White-Robed Kannon’, today. It is located on top of a small mountain, Mt Kanonyama in Gunma Prefecture and has an elevation of 190m. Colloquially it is called Kannonyama and sometimes they call it Byakui, and it is also known as the Goddess of Mercy… so I am just thinking of it as Kannon Of the Many Names! The Kannon (not the actual statue, but rather the concept of the Kannon), came originally from China where she is named, Guanyin, and people come to the Kannon to pray mostly for protection and peace, particularly for protection from natural disasters… which makes a lot of sense when you live on islands prone to volcanos, earthquakes and tsunamis.

The Kannon can be seen from quite a distance away as you approach as it is 41 metres tall on top of Mt Kannonyama. You can see the whole of Takasaki City proper in addition to all the most well-known mountains in Gunma from the top. You can go inside the Kannnon and climb up as high as its shoulders – there are nine floors inside that house 20 Buddhas along the climb.

The Byakue Daikanno was built by Yasuaburo Inoue in 1936, originally as a memorial for fallen soldiers of the Japanese Imperial Army who were stationed in Takasaki. It was always intended to eventually serve as a tourist attraction, and the promotion of the Kannon for tourism began as early as 1937. At that time it was the tallest Kannon in Japan, but has since been superseded by a number of other Kannon (the tallest is currently the Sendai Daikannon), and it is now the tenth tallest in Japan. At 41.8m tall, it has a 48m waist measurement and a 0.4m thumb circumference (though why tourists need to know that, I’m not sure!); she weighs a whopping 6000 tonnes.

Stunningly gorgeous day today. Blue skies, cool breeze, 20°C… just like a Brisbane winter!

We chose not to select some fortunes today… it looked like there was a lot of bad luck being left behind at this shrine! And I, for one, do not need any bad luck.

Every Valentines Day, a giant red string is tied around her finger and couples come to pray for blessings and happiness as well as longevity in their relationships.

Mr K looking chill under a Japanese maple tree… busy deciding how empty my cup is. Apparently, one shouldn’t remark on the fact that the maples haven’t turned this year and they should be bright orange by now, as this means your cup is half empty all the time. Le sigh… 🙄

Takasaki off in the distance there.

Around the base of the Kannon were some smaller shrines which (from what I could understand from the poorly translated signs) housed the graves/remains of much beloved temple authorities.

Nearby was the ubiquitous souvenir shop selling Daruma dolls. The Shorinzan Daruma-ji temple is nearby (and our next stop), so it’s not surprising to see them everywhere in Takasaki. The Daruma doll are a hollow, papier mache, round traditional doll modelled after Bodhidharma – the founder of the Zen tradition of Buddhism. Traditionally, they come in red and are designed to represent the Indian monk, Bodhidharma, but now they come in a wide range of colours and vary greatly in designs depending on regional variations and artistic interpretation. Lots of people consider the Daruma dolls to be a toy, but they are also believed to be a good luck talisman for many Japanese.

You can see in the images that the dolls have blank eyes – I’ll explain this a bit later below. The dolls have become a bit commercialised by many Buddhist temples and even co-opted by politicians as aspirational images for their campaigns. Now, you can buy your fav colour to meet your fav goal… vicarious airy-fairy meanings applied to each colour for the rose-quartz crowd.

This morning as we left the ryokan on our way to the Kannon, I had mentioned to Mr K that we may need to hunt down a supermarket to buy some Japanese pickles… generally speaking I abhor pickles (particularly American gherkins!) and other pickled things at home. Even in Japanese restaurants in Aust they are really ordinary, but here, they are so flavoursome and come in such varieties, that I wish we could get good quality Japanese pickles at home. Wouldn’t you know it? Mr K parks us to go visit the Kannon right beside “The Pickle House”… home to a wondrous selection of Japanese pickled EVERYTHING!

Well, once you are buying stuff that needs declaring at customs (something we usually avoid like the plague!), you may as well have STUFF to declare at customs! So in for a penny, in for a pound, I stocked up on pickles and am now free to peruse the Japanese marquetry too. Bonus! 😀 If we are going to be standing in the queue at Sydney Customs with pickles… may as well stand there for timber products too!

Just outside the pickle house was a steamed bun shop making miso steamed buns. Thankfully, they warned us that ’1 is cool for one person’, and as we were only after a wee snack, we decided to share a stick, rather than have one each. Delicious, burnt miso flavours; but rather starchy.

I loved this little guy on the bridge that crossed over the river to the temple area of town… good thing they don’t sell big stone painted Daruma like this one or I would want to take one home!

When we arrived at the Shorinzan Daruma Temple, the first thing that we were met by near the car park was a cemetery… complete with a little booth containing a sales representative that was ‘selling plots’. Hmmm… I’ve long been looking for a place to sprinkle my ashes, maybe this is the place! 🙂

The Shorinzan Daruma Temple is a small temple not far from the Kannon in Takasaki. It was built originally in 1697 but the Obaku Zen Buddhists as a school. It is known as the original birthplace of the Daruma and it is believed the original Daruma dolls came from this region. Legend has it that the Daruma of Shorinzan are especially lucky, so much so that the city of Takasaki has been leaning on that reputation and Takasaki is known as ‘The Lucky Town’.

Originally the temple was believed to have been built for the Soto school of Zen Buddhism, but int he Meiji era was converted to the Obaku sect. In the late 18thC, the 9th generation Zen Master of the temple offered aid and comfort during the Great Tenmei famine, for whatever reasons, he taught them how to make papier-mache dolls based on the Daruma dolls. These become known as the Shorinzan Nanakusa Taisai Daruma Market Festival which is held every January. In more recent years, the festival has attracted thousands of visitors who come to buy new Daruma dolls and burn their old ones as offerings.

The Daruma dolls are often associated with the phrase, ‘Nanokorobi yaoki’, which means: ‘seven times down, eight times up’, which speaks to the resilience of the dolls – the Daruma are light due to their papier-mache construction, but they are weighted in the bottom so they always bounce back up to an upright position when they are tilted or rocked over. In Japan, these are called ‘okiagari’, which means to get up (oki) and rise (agari). They symbolise the ability to overcome adversity and recover from falls or find success and uprightness.

The eyes of the Daruma are often blank when people buy them. They have large oversized symmetrical round white eyes. The purchaser is encouraged to paint in one of the eyes, and focus on a goal. The aim is to complete the next eye when one meets the goal or finishes the big task in mind. They are commonly given as gifts at the beginning of the year or to students, and the recipient of the doll will fill in one eye upon setting their goals, then the other upon fulfilling it. This way, every time they see the one-eyed Daruma, they remember the goal and hopefully work towards it… steadfastly in spite of possible setbacks.

When dolls have both their eyes filled in, marking the completion of one’s goals, some people return them to the Shorinzan Daruma-ji Temple… hence the large collection here at any given point in time. (I wonder if they are cleaned out once a month, like locks on a Florentine bridge or coins from the Trevi Fountain).

After the temple visit we stopped at a konbini to grab some saké and beers – as you do! And I was curious to know what was in these steamed buns… gotta love Google Translate. It comes up with some real corkers.

Another quick and accessible sight in the Takasaki area are the Doukutsu Kannon Caves. These are a 450m deep man-made cave system that have 39 statues of the Kannon Goddess of Mercy on display. Each piece of sculpture is an artwork by the sculptor Rakuzan who devoted his life to creating this unique gallery. The caves appear to be a philanthropic project of a wealthy kimono maker and trader named Tokuzo Yamada. He was apparently quite generous with his fortune and spent half his life on this huge undertaking with the goal of making Takasaki a pilgrimage destination, such that visiting the Doukutsu Kannon would confer upon visitors the same blessings as visiting prestigious temples.

Tokuzo was reputed to have been quite knowledgeable in the design fields and was heavily involved in the layout and design of the Doukutsu Kannon statues he commissioned from teh sculptor Rakuzan. The statues and their posture and clothing are very similar to the aesthetic used in Buddhist art to this day. The entire cave system is considered a masterpiece of modern Buddhist art.

Usually depictions of the Buddhist goddess, Kannon will depict her with a varying background – among rocks, waterfalls, upon mountains, in the snow…. the Doukutsu Kannon created by Rakuzan and Tokuzo are the only Buddhist artworks where the ‘world of the gods is made real’. That is the backgrounds are created by using materials like local Gunma Prefecture volcanic rock and Sanbaseki stone, to create entire environments to glorify the Kannon.

Some of the statues and their vignettes are said to have take the artist more than a year to create.

The work on the caves and their artworks continued until Tokuzo passed away in 1964. The goal had been to make a 800m deep cave, but encountered limitations when they discovered hard ground, which hindered the continuation of the project. They current walk through the caves is 450m and is completely accessible… very unusually for a manmade cave system, it has not steps, but rather is cut into an existing mountain.

This wall may exemplify the difficulty that was found with the tunnelling project.

Right by the caves are the Tokumeien Gardens – considered one of the best Japanese gardens in the northern Kanot region and covering a 20,000sqm area. It is built on the slopes of the Kannonyama Hill using a large amount of the of rocks, soil and sand that were excavated during the creation of the cave.

The garden was designed by Yamada Tokuzou and the master Japanese architect, Kaneko Seikichi. The landscaping was completed by Goto Sekisui II, who was also involved in the beautiful gardens surrounding the Meiji Shrine in Tokyo.

The garden is a beautiful relaxing space filled with giant Sanbaishi stones, a huge amount of lava stones transported from Mt Asmara, red pines, Niigata black pines, and seasonal plants.

Sadly, the autumn foliage is late this year – like, concerningly late. The predictions have been put down to a particularly hot and unusually long summer. The tourism industry each year tries to predict the turning of the leaves in Japan, much like they do for the sakura – cherry blossom season, but thanks to climate change it is getting harder and harder to predict.

The garden should have been full of deep orange and red colour at this time of year, but hardly any of the leaves have turned at all. I have heard news reports that the tourism industry is fearing that the leaves won’t turn at all, but that the weather will turn cold so quickly, the leaves will simply fall dead from the trees rather than give the month long colour people come to see.

The gardens were lovely – though unfortunately, not the vibrant colour way that you can normally expect in November. Below, November pic of the gardens stolen from the internet:

After this we opted for a quickie late lunch. Now, we have been in Japan a number of times, but have never been to a regular ol’ sushi train. So we thought we seek one out. Kura-Sushi is a reliable and well known chain across Japan.

It was exactly what we were expecting! Fantastic (and cheap!) food, quick service, hardly any interactions with the staff at all. It was also super noisy because today was Culture Day, which is a public holiday, and there seemed to be lots of families out who would probably normally at school and work. Was good fun though; I’d go again… lunch for two including drinks was barely AUD$30, and we were trying all the strange things on the menu.

Not a bad morning out – now back to work!

Takasaki – Ryutakuzenji Ryokan

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Nestled in a lush and green serene surroundings, Ryutakuzenji Ryokan is a traditional Japanese hotel built in old temple buildings. It’s close enough to Tokyo that it’s a popular retreat with the city dwellers, and has plenty of local places of interest for local and foreign tourist alike – like the Shorinzan Daruma-ji Temple, and the famous landmark, the Takasaki Byakue DaiKannon. I chose this spot as a good place to break out trip up to Gunma, and hopefully find an authentic and traditional ryokan experience without too many bells and whistles.

For such a small ryokan, the genkan was huge! Depending on where I search, it says there are only 3 or 4 rooms here, but some of them are enormous and can comfortably accommodate a family of six or more. Each room has a private bath, and there is no communal onsens here. So tattoo friendly as bathing happens in your own room.

There was a very cool bar area where you could help yourself to beer, wine, spirits, and saké on an honour system – you just write down what you’ve collected from the fridge and it will be added to your bill on checkout. This little bar area and its very welcoming and trusting tab system made us feel comfortable straight away.

I was also able to come collect saké cups to take to my room, and all sorts of crockery or barware that might might our stay more comfortable.

The entrance to our room… no real locks, no key. This place operates like a family home.

The small genkan into our room… to the left is the bathroom, to the right is a toilet.

Another high tech looking hairdryer. Maybe I just think that because I don’t own one and never use one?

Cat toilet shoes! 🙂

Our traditional Japanese room – large enough to accomodate up to six futons comfortably! This room is huge, covered in tatami mats, and traditional paper screens.

The screens are on all doors and large windows – and when opened, you can see garden spaces on every side.

It was raining quite heavily when we arrived, but even the rain couldn’t dampen my enthusiasm for this delightful place… we had our own little garden, with an onsen bath on a wooden deck!

Just had to press a button and it would automatically fill, which I did almost as soon as we put our bags down! 🙂

A little Mio sparkling saké, and a soak in the garden while listening to the rain.

We had a restful afternoon (if you don’t count the catching up on work stuff), before going in for dinner. There were three small dining room areas, and opportunity to eat at the bar if you like. Dinner was offered as ‘mountain fare’. So we were expecting hearty and comforting food, but nothing overly fancy.

Appetiser of mixed tempura, served with a light ponzu broth.

Rich beef shabu-shabu served with vegetables, raw egg, tofu, ginger and pickles. I was a bit iffy about the raw egg thing, even though I am aware that the food safety standards are quite high here and eggs are safe to eat uncooked… was just unsuer

But it was delicious – you broil the beef, fish it out par cooked, slop it through the egg mixture and straight into your mouth, and it was tender and rich and delicious! We also had a small soup with some soba noodles in it, and the littlest orange cupcake type thing and a couple of pieces of fruit. Perfectly simple but very, very tasty!

Next morning was magic! Blue skies and 20°C expecte… when in Japan – kawaii selfies! There’s more boobs in that than I thought, oh well, who cares?

Breakfast was equal parts simple, delicious and nutritious. A spot of potato salad, a piece of fried chicken, a piece of grilled salmon, a wee dim sum, some pickles for your rice, and some Tamago, and fruit.

We went out exploring the area for the day – Mr K is obsessed with the high speed rail – and when we made it back to the ryokan, we were greeted with our fabulous private bath. I could really get used to this little garden.

Another round of the Hakutsuru junmai before dinner!


Dinner was a piece of fried river fish with tonkatsu sauce, a steamed boat of beef, vegetables and a bunch of different mushrooms, a cup of curry soup, some rice with pickles and a wee bit of fruit cake and a weird but tasty jelly. The saké was quite good too – though I didn’t manage the name of it.

The dining room we were using had a display of lacquer ware boxes and pattens, I tried to ask the staff about them to find out if they were perhaps old or family objects, but sadly my Japanese is non-existent and their English was just as bad… but we did have some giggly fun trying to communicate really ineffectively!

Breakfast the second morning was something different – a bowl of cold soba noodles, served with a dashi broth, an egg wrapped around some vegetables, a steamed savoury egg custard, and some fruit. First breakfast without rice!

We loved this stay, the massive private garden, the friendly staff and the welcoming homey atmosphere were really appreciated. I feel this is a truly local experience and if that’s appealing, I would totally recommend people add it to their itinerary. I’m going to miss this lovely space.

The temple that the ryokan co-exists with? Services? I’m not sure. The owner/manager of the ryokan is the priest of this temple, and offers meditation every morning for any guests who wish to participate. I had intended to get up early and go check it out, but with my knee, I wasn’t sure I could comfortably sit on the floor for 45 minutes without ending up in pain and fidgeting. The last thing I wanted to do was impact anyone else’s mediation, so I thought better of attending. Maybe next time we come by this way, and I have a feeling we will – it could easily be en route to Nikko if we had to!

Hakone onsen – Hotel Okada

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Something a little different – Yale and I spent tonight in a large hotel rather than a small intimate ryokan. It’s a completely different experience, and yes, at a completely different price point! So I thought it would be interesting to make the comparison and see what your extra $250-300 a night gets you; roughly the difference in cost between this place, the Hotel Okada, and last two night’s ryokan accomodation rates.

With 117 rooms on 12 floors and a maximum occupancy of some 650 people, the ambiance of the hotel is nice, still very Japanese in the decor, but things are far less personal as soon as you arrive. Starting with what feels like a bit of haggling over somewhere to park.

The kumiko timber-work in the lobby makes for an impressive entrance. And straight away it feels strange not to have to take off my shoes… but I imagine keeping 600 people’s shoes straight would be a bit too much!

Yukata are available in foyer if you wish to borrow something other than what is provided in the rooms. Which is pretty handy if you are either, fuller figured like myself, or 6’9” like Yale. The check-in procedure was a little more involved too, I guess with so many people comes bureaucracy.

Our room for the evening was on the 4th floor, was a booking type, “SUISAI”; a Japanese/Western style room with open air bath… Yamabato (not sure what that means). I noticed the kumiko timber work touches are carrying on throughout the hotel.

The genkan (room foyer) was very clean and welcoming, with half a dozen pairs of slippers! I guess this is bookable as a family room, so more slippers the merrier.

Bags to take your things to the public onsen – which we definitely did not use, as this is a 100% not tattoo friendly facility. The hotel is very family oriented, and as such definitely, ‘NO TATTOOS!’

Our room had two western beds, a sofa, a Japanese tatami sitting area with another small couch and chair.

Large TV (which we never turn on because you can rarely even get the BBC World News in English in hotels here, and everything else is not just foreign but also strange and foreign). We have coffee and tea making facilities, small bar fridge and all the needful things.

I’m always pleased to find a range of glassware – so I can find something suitable to take my saké into the onsen with me without having to use teacups or resort to swigging from the bottle! We were also provided with pyjamas, bright and comfortable hanten coats, and some lovely navy yukatas.

The lighting and decor is very warm and comfortable… compared to many large western hotels which tend to feel like you’ve walked into a fucking IKEA – so I love this!

The sitting space is surrounded by large picture windows to allow for views of the mountain stream outside… I have over the recent years come to appreciate just how much Japanese domestic tourists value being able to feel as though they are ‘enveloped by nature’. Living in the large cities like Tokyo or Osaka and to a lesser degree Kyoto, it must be common for them to spend most of their lives in a the concrete jungle glitzed up with loads of neon and animated and noisy talking street lights, train barriers and even toilets! Seeking out gardens in Japanese cities takes time and effort, compared to Australian cities which are heavily designed with green spaces everywhere in both the inner cities and the suburbs. The Japanese have a keen appreciation and connection of being ‘in nature’ and find it calming and restorative to be surrounded by the changing seasons.

The bedroom is warm and Japanese, the toilet could be Danish! 🙂

The bathroom is also bright and modern with all the amenities you could possibly want. His and hers washcloths, lotions and potions, toothbrushes, hairbrushes, cotton buds, hair bands, razors and more.

The hairdryer looked like something from a sci-fi film! Which I am sure is impressive to the hairdryer obsessed Japanese vloggers! The showering/washing room was very nice too… bit warmer with timber and slate.

And of course, the piece de resistance! The open air bath… smashing! The design and lighting in this space is gorgeous! You can see straight into the tatami sitting area though, so if you had a family here, you might need to draw the curtains.

First things first, always barely unpack, have a shower and straight into the onsen… pure bliss! Hakone Mountain Road saké – not bad.

Dinner here is buffet style, which I imagine is where the price reduction is going to be evident. The Sky Lounge on the 7th Floor is where our allocated buffet dining is… the hotel is quite large and has more than one large dining room.

I didn’t want to take photos of people eating their meals or hovering around the buffet – so I plucked this image off the internet. Let’s just say this promotional image is doing some heavy lifting. The room was large, bright, noisy and not even remotely as orderly looking as this image implies.

Food choices were odd… there were lots of hot boxes, with various foods in them, but no vegetables available that weren’t sitting in stews? Which made a lot of the veggies look like my grandma boiled them, or they’re the leftover bits from Asian dishes after everyone came along and took the meat out! I did find some nigiri which was nice and fresh and the rice was lovely, but the rest of this, was all a bit hit and miss; temperature-wise nothing was quite right – hot foods a little too not hot, and I couldn’t find the right accompaniments to any dish. So dinner was a hasty affair.

After a very quick dinner (oh dear lord it was so noisy in there!), it was back to the onsen to relax.

Next morning we had moody mountains, a light drizzle and the rushing river below our window.

Breakfast was another noisy affair that I would have preferred to make avoidable if possible. I can understand the appeal of staying in a large hotel like this if you are bringing the family away for a weekend and were after a more affordable option, but seeing how far we have a travelled, I definitely prefer the smaller ryokans at this point.

And we exit through the gift shop…!