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Shima Onsen

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What a glorious day! It’s about 13C with gorgeous blue skies, we are headed from Minakami to Lake Okushima. Lake Okushima is a reservoir lake that was created when the Shimagawa Dam was built between 1980 and finished in 1999.

I’m not sure what is causing these cloud formations, but they’re quite striking.

Even this little public restroom is designed to suit the area; this gorgeous little ginko tree that I imagine will be a striking huge tree in due course and some Japanese maples planted around it turn a boring toilet block into a cute looking cottage.

If you can encircle your car park with glorious autumn foliage, why wouldn’t you?

There were some stunning views and lots of lookout points to take advantage of them, on the short drive around the lake. We seem to have finally found some autumn colours.

Akazawa Bridge:

Mr K is enamoured with the local mascots – he loves this little Gunmachan guy, and pointed him out in his little escavator numerous times. ‘Construction work is underway, to widen the existing road!’, and yet, so much more informative for having a cute mascot impart the information.

The Shimagawa Dam is 330m long and 90m high… it’s quite impressive. I wasn’t super impressed with the large bullhorns visible at the top of the dam. Are those for sirens to let people below know if there’s a problem? At the moment the water level is so low as to be irrelevant, but if the water in the dam was high, I can’t imagine a sudden release would be good for Shima Onsen downstream from here.

Shima Hinatami Park below the dam, we went down there after leaving the drive around the dam and Lake Okushima.

Gunmachan directing traffic, I think. ‘Construction work is underway, cleaning the lake surface. We apologise for any inconvenience and appreciate your cooperation.’

The Ochiai Street Bridge over the Shima River… right beside the bridge was an unagi restaurant! Ooh, a small unagidon would be nice for lunch. We will have to check that out.

Self portrait with running water over rocks…

This is the most famous ryokan in Shima Onsen – Sekizenkan Kashoutei and it is considered the “Spirited Away” ryokan. I considered booking us to stay here, it has great reviews and is very well known. However, it is mostly known for its large Roman style onsen baths – and for whatever reason, I didn’t really feel the need to seek out Roman style baths in Japan? You can see the high rounded arched windows from the onsens underneath the ryokan. No, I’m here for the Japanese ambiance… I want the places with the more traditional Japanese riverside baths; they’re extremely picturesque. So I found us somewhere a little quieter down the gorge in the Lower Shima area where many of the older, more traditional ryokans line the riverside. Sorry Spirited Away ryokan, maybe some other time.

Photo of the Roman style baths snavelled from the internet: It’s lovely, I’m just not sure why…?

Show me a red bridge in Japan and I’ll show you a line of tourists (Japanese and Western) lined up to take selfies on it! I just want a tiny short break in the traffic to take a quick photo with no people in it!! It’s so hard sometimes.

We haven’t seen anywhere near as many tanuki statues in Gunma as we saw in Gifu last year… I wonder if there’s something local cultural thing going on there.

There’s not a lot going on in this sleepy little town – I think all the visitors are comfortably tucked in at their ryokans enjoying the onsens. We spied a pottery studio where you could go to do classes, and like one gift shop, and a single konbini – but it’s definitely a quiet sort of place.

Shio no yu – there are several hot spring drinking fountains scattered throughout Shima, the Shionoyu (literal translation: salty hot water) fountains are thought to help alleviate a variety of health conditions.

Keiunbashi Pocket Park? I was a bit confused as to what exactly is a pocket park? But when I saw this quiet little green space smooshed in amongst restaurants, cafes, ryokans and 1950s game arcades, I was enamored of the concept. More pocket parks for the people!

Kawara no yu is a public onsen precariously situated on some rocks in a fork of the Shimagawa River right in the middle of town, directly below a bus stop. It is a well known iconic building due to its distinctive round shape. It has very old school, cozy, gender separated baths. It’s free to use this facility, it is kept by the town, and I believe there is a donation box. It’s tiny – only accommodates four or so people in either side, and possibly tattoo friendly if your company doesn’t mind.

We are totally on the hunt for lunch now.

This statue was rotating left and right – I took a short video and will have to upload it at some point when I have decent internet… I don’t know why, but it looked just, weird: little statue of a lady in a kimono with a tray of onsen buns to let you know this is a public onsen, presumably one selling steamed buns!

We had passed by a number of very touristic looking restaurants as we wandered through town – one unagi place that had me drooling, but also doing a solid bit of side eye at the ¥4100 price for a meal there – and that’s before you hit the saké list! We kept walking, looking for a more local izakaya – you know the type of place, mismatched furniture, no English menus, cheap but hearty meals and even cheaper saké; somewhere the locals might eat. We found this place tucked in around a corner from the onsen (above), and decided to check it out. Meals ranged from about ¥1200-1700, which is far less tourist priced imo, so we decided to stop in and check it out… I’ve walked in and said to Mr K, I have a feeling about this, I’m going to need some photos so I can tell people where it is! Asunaro – a small syoduko and teishoku restaurant (syoduko: casual restaurant with inexpensive Japanese dishes; teishoku: has set menus which contain meat/seafood plus rice, miso soup and pickles).

The place definitely had a vibe – the owners two goldfish fish tanks in the foyer complete with pond scum certainly set the tone. The TV set noisily to a local sporting game likewise let you know you’re walking into someone’s primary place of residence – or at the very least a place where they spent the bulk of their day, such that ambient dining music was the last thing on the minds of the staff. 🙂

The menu was actually quite extensive, but first things first, saké because it was cold out and a bit of alcohol on an empty stomach usually helps with such things.

It was when ordering that we discovered the extensive menu was a bit of a lie. The sour plum pork cutlet was not available, then a second choice dish was also not available, so Mr K ended up ordering the ‘House Specialty Rice’ dish, which came with rice, chicken, egg, nori, spring onions, pickled mushrooms, and dashi broth… with the instructions to mix it all together and wait for the rice to absorb the broth, then ‘nom, nom, nom’. No shit, the landlady said: “Nom, nom, nom!” 🤣

I ordered the miso pork cutlet set – I’m a sucker for anything cooked drowning in miso, so was sure I was on a winner. Thankfully, it was available today… way too much food for lunch though: rice, pork, three small bowls of pickles and miso soup.

Hmmm… Miso pork cutlet? Where’s the miso? Ooooh… there’s the miso. Layered inside the cutlet! OMG – so much umami goodness! More saké for the people; this is definitely where we parked our car!

Banger of a lunch stop! Highly recommend that one – and would totally go there again even if half the menu was unavailable. Mr K said the Specialty Rice dish was also delicious.

After lunch we had a bit more of a walk around town to see the river and the lay out of the town.

Bus stop… Deer? Sheep? Not 100% sure…

Across the river from our ryokan is a strange hexagonal building which turned out to be a public footpath. No, FOOT BATH… not footpath stupid autocorrect.

Shima Onsen is a quaint and rather quiet sleepy little onsen town once you get removed from the one touristy street.

A bit later, Mr K went out hunting for snacks, and came back with a haul purchased like a kid buying shit for a road trip! If it had Pokémon on it, or a Great Wave motif – he bought it… no need to translate, he’ll deal with the weirdness later! The Cheeza crackers were actually kinda tasty – the rest of it… oy!

I’m not sure how, but Japan manages to be the land of the highest quality food with the strictest food quality regulations and laws around food additives… and yet it is also the land of the weird arse, more styrofoam than food, barely edible, snack products! On the other hand, they do have cups of tea and corn soup in a can – purchasable hot from vending machines, so mabye that makes up for the weird snacks.

Minakami Onsen – Keisetsu no Yano Syoubun

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We had originally planned on making our way to either Joetsu or Niigata on this trip, but decided to stick to the mountains of Gunma. There are four major onsen towns in Gunma, and I planned our route to hit them all – Ikaho, Minakami, Shima and Kusatsu. Kusatsu is the most popular one, and the one most likely to be frequented by foreign tourists apparently. Anyway, this is how Minakami ended up on our route.

Accomodations are plentiful in these towns, and they’re generally not too far form the important integrated transport infrastructure that we are here to check out, so it works out well to stay somewhere like this rather than a chain hotel… bit more culturally relevant and interesting all round.

Syoubun is a traditional Japanese ryokan set in a wooden building that is typical of Japanese architecture. It is a relaxed inn with hot springs, located 10kms from Mount Tanigawa (popular during the ski season) and only 2kms from the trains etc., we need to see at Yubiso Station. The reception was very warm and welcoming – it’s getting quite chilly outside at the moment; 15C down to about 6C at night… well chilly for Aussies anyway.

The reception was charming – exposed rough cut timber beams with lots of wood everywhere, the entire ryokan smelled of timber.

After briefly dropping out things in our room, we went exploring the ryokan – there is a wonderful airy lounge that is surrounded on both side with large picture windows into gardens. It’s a very relaxing space.

There was also a ‘happy hour’ of sorts between 3pm check-in times and 6pm, where guests can help themselves to a variety of teas, coffees, shochu, saké, juices and sparkling wine.

We were sharing a lovely (if very sweet!) glass of sparkling wine when I spotted this newspaper… yes, the entire mess is just as depressing in kanji as it is in English.

Oh well, we are doing our best to try not to watch too closely, I’m sure the coming years will bring more than enough horror, we don’t have to start engaging with it while we are travelling.

From a wide open corridor, was this unassuming sliding door which led to our room. We were in the INAKA suite.

The genkan (entry/foyer) was huge, and thoughtfully decorated with lovely fresh flowers and a helpful timber ramp to roll your suitcases in, or perhaps make the room accessible (though the rest of the room wasn’t exactly wheelchair friendly).

The genkan opened into a western style dining room, which turned out to be extremely handy as we spent most of a day working at this table. Hotel tables and desks are notoriously small, and in Japan, they might be 40cm off the ground! So we were grateful for this space. 🙂

Some onsen buns – plain with red bean paste, and slightly bitter chocolate and red bean paste options. I am not normally fond of red bean, but I must be getting accustomed to it, as the texture didn’t turn me off like it usually does.

Our room had huge pieces of polished and varnished natural timbers adding to the interior decor – it was incongruously sleek and modern, whilst at the same time having a traditional old world warmth and charm about it.

Great little corner of amenities! Coffee and tea making facilities, thermos full of ice and cold water, as well as an empty fridge for a change so we didn’t need to put aside the hotel’s beers and strange juices to fit in all my saké acquisitions. 😀

Off the dining room was a balcony leading to an inner courtyard garden, it was a beautiful and quiet space looking into the carefully well kept garden, but slightly cold for lingering outdoors at the moment!

The main bedroom was also a sitting room, with two armchairs facing a television. These chairs can be moved aside and futons brought in if there are more than two people booked in the space.

I was super happy with the beds here, the firmer the better in my opinion, but Mr K isn’t too keen on hard mattresses.

More of the striking timber decorative pieces – these ones twisted and gnarled together. It’s unlike anything I’ve ever seen before – very unusual.

Samue and Hanten coats for use around the ryokan… always much appreciated.

Even though our room came with samue (Japanese pyjamas) and sleeveless hanten coats provided, there was also a collection of brightly coloured yukata for guests, to use should they choose.

The bathroom was divided into four spaces – a toilet, a bathroom with sinks for doing your hair and make up etc, a dressing space for coming or going to the baths, and an outside space for washing before using the private onsen bath on the balcony.

The toilet above – quite a high end Japanese toilet with all the bells and whistles. I forget until I am in-country how much I appreciate the warmed toilet seats here. They don’t feel so great in mid-summer, and I imagine they’d feel awful back home, but when the weather is turning, along with the leaves, a warmed seat in the middle of the night is always a nice touch. Man, I’m getting soft in my old age… I’m almost certain there are descriptions in this blog somewhere of The Worst Toilet in a Turkish Internet Cafe Ever!

The outdoor wash room for bathing before getting into the onsen; it is all timber and smells like being ain a large cypress box!

The private open air bath. AMAZING! Haven’t met an open air onsen bath that I haven’t like yet, and don’t imagine I will. There’s nothing quite like sinking into the water at the end of a long day and just feeling all the tension and pain just leave your body.

Baths and saké… it’s turning into our little tradition everywhere we go. The spring water here is so clear, you can hardly see where the edge of the water is.

One of the draws of Syoubun was their advertised ‘mountain sourced kaiseki dinner’. All the food is said to be sourced locally, and considered warming ‘mountain food’. We had a small private dining room which was actually outside the main restaurant area.

But first, we thought we should try out the locally made Tanigawadake Junmai Daiginjyo-shu. It was lovely and refreshing, crisp without being dry, with floral hints.

Autumn menu…

Roasted Ginko; Figs in sesame sauce; Mugi pork Shigureni; Nanbanzuke mushrooms; Persimmon cream cheese.

Eggplant tempura.

Salt-grilled Iwana fish – a clear water river fish that feeds on moss and algae which flies it a cool fragrance. It is considered a light and rustic flavour that can be prepared deep fried, grilled with salt or cooked on rice in a pot. These are reared locally in Minakami.

Joshu beef toban-yaki, served with ponzu, spring onions with grated daikon radish, and fresh grated wasabi.

Seasonal stew of taro, rice, ginkgo nuts, shiitake mushrooms, topped with bean paste.

Yamamoto hot pot – fresh vegetables, tofu, mushrooms and dashi broth. Minakami rice – provided by the expert in rice production in Minakami, Honda Yoshimitsu, prepared with chestnuts.

Stewed plums, pear slices and apple gelato, served with tea.

That was definitely a hearty meal – usually these kaiseki dinners are course after course of elegant sized tasting portions, but this felt a little more solid than usual! It was at least an hour before I was back in the onsen bath.

I’d like to say I slept like a log, but alas, not enough saké and a little too much snoring meant I didn’t sleep so great. A restorative morning bath in the onsen was definitely a bonus!

Mr K unable to decide between caffeinating or bathing and opting for the time saving effort of BOTH!

I really like this bath, it is large enough to be comfortable, and has a couple of different steps you can sit on if you wish to raise your head and shoulders higher (helpful if you’re starting to feel too hot). There is no mechanism to add cool water if you are finding it too hot though. Seems the more remote the ryokans, the less likely we are to find a temperature control – only too happy to keep researching to test this theory!

Breakfast and we were back in our little private dining room from the night before.

Simmered grated yam (in the covered bowl), steamed savoury egg custard with plum, and reduced ponzu sauce.

Steamed Minakami mushroom, lotus root, carrot and Ginger; Yoghurt and pear; Cold chicken; Freshly cooked salmon in miso; various pickles down the centre to have with the Minakami rice; Lotus root and mushroom dumpling, Tofu; Soft boiled egg and Miso Soup.

I love Japanese breakfast!

After breakfast we went to town, managed to get some work done and came back about 2pm, before the next evening’s guests had checked in. We thought we would check out some of the other private/family bathing areas in the ryokan – these baths tend to be larger, and can accomodate a larger group more easily, and are available for other guests who do not have a private bath in their suite.

The gardens here are beautiful. Although we have some serious language barriers when in Japan, we do make an effort to try and communicate with the people we encounter… it seems the young couple that are running this facility, and our waiter from last night is also the gardener as he as cleaning the garden and pruning some shrubs this afternoon.

While we were out – the flowers in our genkan were changed! Completely unnecessary, but lovely nonetheless.

The ryokan was not as busy tonight, and we found ourselves redirected into the larger restaurant area filled with small private dining rooms… Japan has been Covid friendly since long before the pandemic, socially distancing diners from one another for centuries!

All dining spaces were differentiated with a different bird sign. Our little Owl booth for the evening:

First things first of course – biru and some saké.

Tonight’s dinner was called “Hermit’s Cuisine!”

The Blessings of Okutone: Homemade chicken ham; Smoked cheese; Hotaka salmon, Shiitake mushroom; Butternut squash; Cauliflower; Romanesco paprika, Radish; Kohirabi red radish; Wasabi; Leaves served with char and milk sauce, mustard and malt sauce, and homemade butterbur miso.

Root vegetable soup, made with burdock, Jerusalem artichoke and taro.

Fried taro.

Deep fried, Iwana fish… I’ve never had a fish served like this before, it was extremely tasty, and even though it was deep fried, it wasn’t greasy at all.

Seasonal boiled dish of turnip in meat miso sauce! All the umami flavours. *chefs kiss*

Meat dish of Oze pork, with plum and miso jelly.

Mushroom hotpot! OMG I’ve never seen so many varieties of mushroom on one plate before: maitake mushrooms, wood ear mushrooms, petal mushrooms, namely mushrooms, yukiwaritake mushrooms, and hiratake mushrooms… and none of them taste like the plain boring button mushrooms we tend to eat most of at home! <insert happy dance here>

Mushroom hotpot was served with Minakami kamameshi rice grown locally by Honda Yoshimitsu. It’s very important where the rice is sourced and is obviously a matter of great pride. High quality rice is served to guests with all the pomp of pulling out good caviar or with the flourish a waiter might make when offering a particularly good vintage of wine. It’s serious stuff here.

Dessert was a simple Persimmon and apple gelato… and I really do appreciate that desserts aren’t heavy chocolate on chocolate with a chocolate motif like they often are in western restaurants.

Mr K feeling very happy with his wash, even though he has no idea where we are or where we are going next! 😉

We went further exploring the ryokan after dinner… had to walk-off some of that mushroom somehow! The facility is much larger than either of us realised. Out the other side of the lounge area that we were using when we arrived, is a huge new wing of extra rooms and another family/private bath.

For a change, and possibly for Mr K’s sanity, I chose Western breakfast for us on the second morning of our stay at Syoubun. It turns out to possibly, maybe, kinda have been a bit of a mistake… I’ve come to appreciate the Japanese breakfast much more! This morning’s fare was a wedge of quiche, a small Weiner sausage, some salad, a couple of slices of tasty boar, egg salad, pears in yoghurt… all tasty, but just felt a bit heavy compared to the usual small portions of vegetables and fish, served with a wee bowl of rice.

Onion soup? Which had a gelatinous texture, not a French onion soup consumé type thing. Yuzu and apple smoothie that definitely was bulked out with some sort of green vegetable.

And a Chinese steamed bun? 🙂 Very strange breakfast all round, but an interesting experience nonetheless.

I loved the little chopstick rest – with a little, ‘kersplat’ cat… summed up how I felt after a rather poorly night sleep. Mr K isn’t keen on the Japanese fondness for hard mattresses and it seems to make him snore like a freight train! I swear I had barely 3.5hrs sleep last night and amongst me throwing things at him, he slept like a log.

Breakfast also contained a warmed bread roll and some hard butter and a very very sweet western jam, which made me feel like I was on a plane! 😀

Next stop we are onto Shimagawa… via town for work.

Minakami and Takaragawa

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En route to Minakami, we did some work and then some shopping… snacks, drinks, fabric; you know, the essentials. Lunch time hit and Mr K wanted to find a sushi train. Something to do with us heading towards mountain towns and the high likelihood of there being a decided lack of sushi and seafood on menus, I think he was taking pity on me as he knows how much I love seafood in Japan. We found Hamazushi, which we think is another conveyor belt sushi restaurant chain? Not entirely sure but it was so similar to the last one we visited, odds seem high.

Ordered a ‘Melon Float’ (beause, Japan!), sadly not quite the winner the amazake was at the last place as it was waaaay too sweet. 🙂

None of it healthy. Most of it very tasty. Lunch for two for approximately AUD$12 each… can’t complain. Even ordinary sushi train here is better than good sushi train nearly everywhere else in the world.

On the way to Minakami, we stopped at a Tea Cup – I should clarify this a bit: that we call them Tea Cups stops, most other people would probably call them Roadside Service Centres. If you are road tripping, the Tea Cups are essential, because service stations where you buy fuel do NOT always (in fact, do not usually) have bathrooms for public use! The Tea Cups is what they are signed as on the side of the road. The centres are basically large roadside stops with clean bathroom facilities, restaurants where you can get a proper meal – there’s no deep fried fucking Chico Rolls here, baby! – loads of vending machines, as well as local snacks and produce, souvenirs and gifts all sorts of cool stuff. Nearly every one of these places seems to either have its own mascot or has heavily adopted the mascot of the local area. I do not know why – but we no complain. They’re so cute!

And the local mascot will be on everything! This little pig is super cute but kinda cranky-looking, but stuffed if I can figure out what / where he is the mascot for???

Honey seems to be big on the local produce scene here…

We’ve also fallen in love (all over again) with Japanese roadworks… they have the coolest signage and visual warnings to show that there will be delays ahead. I am certain if I could read the signage, it’s probably extremely apologetic about any impending delays. I haven’t managed to get a picture of the guy of the bowing guy that thanks you at the end of the roadworks, but I will continue to try!

We love the little inflatable dudes… they look different in every prefecture.

The little Gunma-chan is the main mascot for this entire prefecture – and he turns up in the most unlikely of places… on road furniture, on saké cups, on pickles!

So, next stop was one of those ‘Insta-famous’ places… I saw it as a recommended stop on a Reel on FB, and added it to my list of things that were en route to places I knew we were going. Jack the Tart Fantasty. No idea who named this place, but Hokkaido cheese tarts in Minakami in the middle of Gunma? Why not, I say! To be honest, I just thought their aesthetic was cool, and wanted to check it out, but taking Mr K here was probably not my best laid plan – because he really likes the sweet stuff!

Weirdest little place ever! We are in the middle of like a tiny town, smaller and as remote as say, Cooyah, and there is a tour bus here visiting a tart shop! They have jazz music playing softly in the background and a LARGE cafe out the back for visitors to have a coffee and a tart. I have no idea what the jazz, old books, and a manual typewriter have to do with Hokkaido cheese tarts in the middle of a Japanease mountain prefecture like Gunma?! But here they are!

I was right, letting Mr K decide what to buy was complete folly – I wanted one cheese tart, he bought seven! Two plain cheese tarts, and one each strawberry, royal tea, matcha, chocolate and pumpkin!

They also sold these little containers of fudge/cookie slice pieces? I don’t know what these are exactly, but they had little samples out and it tasted like pure sugar so I left it well alone.

The most Japanese thing in the weird little cheese tart fantasty house was the Daruma – but he has no eyes yet! Not even one. :’( #SadDaruma

I have no idea how we are going to eat seven cheese tarts… when all our breakfasts and dinners are included in our accomodation in Minakami.

This was about enough for me! Though I did force myself to enjoy most of the strawberry one. Japanese strawberry things actually tasting like real strawberries and all, so it felt like a struggle worth doing.

Random photo of strange brutalist hotel for Angus… because bitches love brutalist architecture. In rural Japan. Confusing (and ugly) AF.

We found our ryokan without any trouble… all that is somewhere else.

After some stupid early work meetings, we made some time to go tootling around the mountains here to check out some of the other towns. So we took up a drive to Takaragawa Onsen.

It was nice to see some colour creeping into the mountains – though they should be bright red and orange by now in a usual season.

I’m still a bit disappointed at the lack of autumn foliage, it’s mid-November and everything should be deep red by now. Fuck climate change and fuck oil and coal executives with their bought and paid for politicians even more. 🙁 What are we doing?

Still, even with the limited red and orange leaves, the drive into Takaragawa was really pretty.

Takaragawa is a very popular onsen town, and has been consistently rated as one of the best in Japan. It’s an interesting layout in the town – there are ryokan buildings on either side of the river and they all access large public onsens together rather than maintaining their own individual public onsens. Most of the baths are konyuku (mixed gender bathing) where ladies hire a bathing costume and men hide their goolies with their onsen towel. But there are also segregated bathing areas as well.

Now this whole place is ‘discreetly tattoos allowed’. As in, if you are one of the overnight guests staying in the ryokans, the tattooed can get away with using the onsens early in the morning or late in the evenings, or you might be encouraged to cover your tattoos with bandages… but generally, they still do not want tattooed people using the day facilities where the baths are busiest. This is partly why we chose nearby Minakami for a ryokan with a private bathing facility.

No photography allowed here, so here’s some pics blatantly stolen off the internet of the outdoor baths and they look amazing.

Takaragawa is really well known for its autumn magic landscapes.

Following the Tone River …

Minakami is a quaint little town with a small shopping strip near the train station – think about one tenth of the size of Hakone. We did find this quaint little glass art studio which had some beautiful but very chunky glass jewellery on display – it’s not really the sort of thing I wear, but I can appreciate how beautiful it is, and the artistry and skill that goes into making these gorgeous objects.

Seriyu Park on the Tone River has a cool little footbath where you can rest and enjoy the views of the river… which would have been cool, but there was an excavator about 300m away that seemed to be moving/crushing river stones (?) making a helluva racket! So maybe not so relaxing after all.

Also nearby on the riverside was a ‘relaxation zone’ which we initially thought was putt-putt, but then got closer and it looked to have a skate bowl, but got closer and realised it was just a strange arrangement of rocks and things for you to wander through with no seemingly obvious recreational purpose? Maybe it’s the start of a new garden of some sort? It’s a mystery… who knows!

Now, I wish I had taken a photo of the sign explaining this… this lovely riverside park which is where you come to get out of the city and enjoy the nature had been taken over with ‘glass crystal sculptures’ to ‘dazzle and delight’. It was a temporary installation that is over now and looks to have been associated with night time illuminations and possibly fireworks by the river! No particular reason for it seemed evident – like it doesn’t appear to be an annual festival or something??? And, sadly, we missed the night shows by about three days.

I’m easing into it here…

With the polite and not overly strange sculptures…

Then there was this enormous 6-7m diameter monstrosity of glass, driftwood and crystal, mirror balls and ???

So much glass, so much crystal Barbie shiny, so much mirror ball! 😮

Enquiring minds need to know, “Why?”..!

Truly bizarre… and wouldn’t it be some sort of fire hazard?

And all by the peaceful river…

After the excitement and confusion of the Crystal Barbie Park, as it will henceforth be known to us forevermore… we went to the little town, picked up some local beer, saké and retreated to our ryokan to go back to work!

Ikaho Onsen – Oyado Tamaki MOKUREN

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While we were off exploring, the staff at Oyado Tamaki moved our things into our other room for the next two nights.

I had a chance to take a few more photographs of the entrance to the ryokan when we returned from being out all day. I have to say that is a strange, and I am sure unintended, side effect of the overt hospitality of staying at these lovely inns… when you arrive, there are always staff *outside* to meet you, to help you with your bags and to valet park your car for you and usher you into the inn. The downside of this wonderfully welcoming hospitality, is that if you wanted a moment to take a couple of pictures of the beautiful gardens or the thoughtfully designed entrance to your ryokan you kinda can’t without gumming up the works. First there will be staff there, and you want to try to respect their privacy and not take their photography, and secondly, they are gently ushering you inside to welcome you with tea or beer and snacks, so it feels rude to keep them waiting! 🙂

This is the main genkan for the entire ryokan, it is quite large and has a big stove to warm guests in the winter.

We had returned a little earlier than expected so decided to take tea in the lobby, so got to enjoy the garden views for a short time while answering some emails.

Our new room was just down the hall in the opposite direct to our original room.

The ryokan is full of carefully arranged trinkets and artworks to define the season and give the ryokan an ambiance. I know this job falls to the landlady, as with any flower or plant arrangements may be in the display nooks, and I wonder whether it is an easy, second nature task for her or if she agonises over which little ornament to put where and worries over how the lights play over the objects etc.

We had several spaces with little ornaments in display in our room – is the landlady responsible for all of these things? How often do small children come along and make treasures of these attractive little displays?

Wow, so this suite is enormous. We first opened the door to a genkan (entry room/foyer), that I think might have been roughly the size of a hotel room we once booked in Shinjuku a few years back! 🙂

The main room was about the size of my kitchen/dining room combined… a gorgeous Japanese furnished living room with tatami mats and chabudai (low Japanese table), as well as rocking chairs and two enormous bean bags!

The bedroom, which was able to be separated using sliding paper screen doors, had very comfy western style beds and a large desk to work at (which is really going came in handy as tomorrow is going to be all work).

I found these chairs which are only a couple of inches off the ground to be far more comfortable than the older style ones which are flat on the floor with a cushion and a back. I would not have thought being barely 4” off the floor would make much difference.

Our room keys had the same well loved/well lived look of the furniture in our other room.

We found some small welcome snacks, some sakura wagashi, little chocolate flavoured beans and crispy coloured sugar snowflakes?

We had glassware and cups, tea pot and tea and coffee making bits enough for four guests. Everything was catered for…

We also had a fairly large fridge full of free beer and soft drinks, that were replenished when the staff serviced the room.

Matcha tea service and another cute sewing kit.

Mr K already at work as I am still checking out the space.

We had a lovely large balcony with views over the mountains – the weather has been glorious to us so far. This time last year we had early snow and it was fun, but also made some of the mountain roads a little hairy!

Hold your hats and add to the slipper collection! Ryokan slippers, room slippers, toilet slippers and now balcony slippers! 🙂

The bathroom was very stylish and modern… and the towel warmer was a lot calmer than the Agent Orange one.

We are just as over the top with the amenities as always, and we have some sort of crazy space age looking hair dryer that I am sure the Japanese vloggers are thrilled about!

The shower room was large enough for two – easily! This is a huge suite.

Oh, and the best bit for last… the open air bath. All these wooden slatted doors were on sliders so you could open the entire space to the views if you wished (being simultaneously aware that doing so mean you were opening the view in too!).

The water quality here was simply exquisite. It felt soft and silky, and left my skin feeling so amazingly soft. I wish we could take this home with us!

Loved it! The entire decor, the whole suite, it is just beautiful.

We had an enormous range of clothing available for our use during our stay, hanten coats, more yukata in so many sizes, samue pyjamas, more tabi socks etc. We also found a stack of futons in the closet – I dare say the room could comfortably accomodate 5 or 6, though you wouldn’t want to all be trying to use the bath!

There is always some cute little ‘lost in translation’ weirdness. 🙂

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Pre-dinner soak and saké time…

Feeling so relaxed as we dressed to go down to dinner… it’s actually really nice to get clean and sort of dress ‘down’ to go to dinner rather than dress ‘up’!

We were a little early for dinner so took a wander around the lobby area and had a poke through the gift shop. Gunma-chan, lots of local plum sweets and things, and these interesting long long scrolls that I haven’t seen in shops here before… they have seasonal designs on them and a couple with Chinese zodiac symbols, are made of lush fabric and appear to be hand painted and weighted; presumably so they don’t fly around in the breeze too much.

The restaurant is directly below our room, and is the same space we had meals in last night.

I think this display had changed from yesterday…

Funoataki Premium Junmai – Shibasaki Sake Brewery in Yoshioka. Love the cups.

The meal started with a yuzu aperitif and appetisers of: Braised mushrooms with chrysanthemum petals; Shrimp and duck loin stew; Princess Turban shell pumpkin Castello; Salmon and cream cheese roll; Taro dengakuji.

Sea soup: bream, anpei white maitake mushrooms and stalk vegetables. This was absolutely delicious – just a really light and flavourful broth.

Sashimi course: tuna, scallops, flounder, button shrimp.

Simmered dish: steamed tilefish.

Strong Joshu beef shabu-shabu… Joshu is the traditional name of the Gunma prefecture, and the beef of this region is particularly famous. Though I am starting to think they all say that… the Gifu prefecture would say their Hida beef is the most famous, the Kobe beef… it’s all amazing if you ask me!

Shabu-shabu paired with ponzu and sesame sauces… the ponzu was delicious paired with the beef, I found the sesame was extremely tasty but also quite a strong flavour that overpower the meat somewhat.

Steamed shark fin.

All served with noodles, rice and pickles.

There are noodles in this dish under all the yummy vegetables.

Dessert: Melon and Kyoto persimmon… our waiter told us a local saying ‘When persimmon is red, doctor’s face is white’. It’s effectively ‘an apple a day keeps the doctor away’, becasue the more red the persimmon, the higher the vitamin C content; eat lots of persimmon and send your doctor broke!

As I was going through these I realised I am taking an awful lot of photos of food… I kinda can’t help myself. Once upon a time I studied to be a creative advertising photographer and now when I see such carefully styled food, I just have to take a photo! “The camera eats first!” I should get that translated into Latin.

A few pics of Ikaho at night… some taken from our balcony, some from in town.

After dinner it was back upstairs to let our dinner settle before having another lovely soak in the bath before an early night… so lucky to be here for another night after this! No second guessing who has leaned into the saké tonight!

Woke up to this gorgeous pre-dawn light! Just glorious! Mt Akagi, Mt Myogi and Mt Haruna in the distance…

You know what? I don’t know which is which and probably have been listing them out of order!

Breakfast was another delicious affair of fresh local produce… I really could get used to this, which is odd given I am a skip breakfast kinda person at home normally.

Salmon, Tamago, rice and pickles, salads, miso soup, yoghurt, fruit… lots of delicious healthy things.

Tamago, grated yam, salad.

Salmon and tofu (below)… I always get Mr K’s mushrooms! 🙂

Miso soup with the little baby clams… I don’t know if you’re just supposed to just drink the soup and leave the little clams, or am I supposed to be there working the clams out with my chopsticks!

Fresh Japanese pears.

Today we spent the day alternatively working, hoping in the onsen, drinking saké, and watching the world fucking burn… it is just utterly unfuckingbelievable. By the end of the day I was having trouble believing that there are any intelligent, competent, compassionate or sensible people left in the world. It has been a truly troubling day that left me feeling really unsettled and shaking my head in disbelief.

Because we were in for the whole day working, we chose not to have the staff service the room, when we did surface, we discovered they had left us a trolley full of fresh bathrobes, towels, onsen towels, tabi socks, tea no coffee resupplies, and some refreshed snacks! When you put out the ‘do not disturb’ in Western hotels, you‘re lucky if they even remember you are there!

We’ve really enjoyed our stay at Oyado Tamaki – it’s a beautiful ryokan with a blend of traditional and modern elements. Western beds if you want them, low Japanese furniture, comfortable rooms, amazing onsen baths, and incredible Japanese kaiseki meals… each night seemingly outdoing the night before. I can’t recommend it enough. And with breakfast being so substantial, we skipped lunch knowing we had another lovely meal coming this evening.

This food is so beautiful plated, I couldn’t *not* take pictures, though I had intended to just leave off.

Aperitif: Yuzu liqueur… with dinner, I chose a glass of lightly yuzu saké. I couldn’t risk Kazushi’s (our waiter the last three night) and his look of concern and/or approbation by ordering a whole 300ml of saké all to myself again! 🙂

How beautiful is this? The appetisers were a light dash broth, some additional sashimi – very unusual but the staff had been making a fuss about our three night stay and seems the chef also seemed to think a three night stay was important.

Soup bowl: sea urchin, white onion, daikon radish, ginger and abalone. *chefs kiss*… magic!

Sashimi course: tuna and flounder slices.

Boiled Unagi Hakata – so named because the design made by the layered unagi looks like a hakata obi belt… absolutely delicious! I’ve never had unagi prepared like this before and it was really light and so tasty.

Famous Matsutake mushrooms, served with rice, miso soup and pickles.

Mushroom and pork hot pot.

Dessert course featured Warabimochi (matcha mochi served with a thick molasses like syrup), fresh pears and crème brûlée.

Gochisōsamadeshita!

Dinner was followed by another terribly tedious night of having to soak away our troubles in the onsen!

Add enough saké until the eyes sparkle was the order of the evening… honestly, it seems the only sensible way to deal with the sense of impending doom that was suddenly pervading our trip. There have been plenty of horrors this day, and so much hate, negativity and disappointment in the media… but hopefully we can put the angst behind us as quickly as possible, and worry about the fall out when we get home.

Woke up early to discover a gorgeous colourful skies over the mountains! Simply glorious.

#NoFilter – on the mountains that is… the selfies are always kawaii filtered here. 🙂

I noticed a town worker outside diligently cleaning the steps that the golden onsen waters run down in the middle of the Stone Steps Street – he obviously has the power to turn off the water!

Then it was time for final breakfast before we checked out from Oyado Tamaki. Glorious view from the restaurant this morning.

If you’ve ever been looking at quality Japanese crockery items before, you’ll know that this assortment of small plates, bowls, pinch pots and dishes are worth hundreds for everyone in here. It’s all so carefully curated. I really appreciate the attention to detail that the Japanese put to small details.

Tuna, chicken dumpling, beef in our breakfast salad today.

Butterfish… I’m not sure I’ve had this before, but it was light and soft, with a texture like salmon; prepared with light miso flavours, it was delicious.

I’m getting quite a fondness for Japanese pickles with good quality Niigata rice… I’m going to have to start stocking up more to take home seeing I’m declaring them anyway!

Sadly, (after two more soaks in the onsen), it was time to pack up and move on to Shibukawa for work for the day, which often means emptying the fridge. Normally this would involve packing up some beers and saké to take to our next abode… on this occasion, I found a lonely puddling that needed consuming before we left. Famous Ikaho mid-morning pudding? Yikes! Oh well, I guess that is what holidays are for, thankfully Mr K managed most of it.

The lovely landlady, whose name I wasn’t able to catch, saw us off with a lovely gift. She made comments several times that it was special it was for people to stay with them for three nights and how thrilled she was to have us – and to be honest if you have the time and the money, it was totally worth it! The Dinner No.3 was spectacular with all the stops pulled out in the Japanese delicacies department. I thanked her using Google Translate, telling her that we had such a a lovely stay, that they inn is extremely comfortable, the dinners were amazing and the staff were very friendly and welcoming and she was just delighted. She even insisted on taking our photo before we left.

I can thoroughly recommend this ryokan for a traditional Japanese ryokan experience, with very few international tourists around. We loved everything about it.

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.