Last month I was on the train going to work and I suddenly thought "I want to go on a hot spring trip!" so I whipped out my mobile phone and did a quick search for onsen (hot spring) near Tokyo. A few places that are fairly well known popped up and then I noticed one that I hadn't heard of before, Shima Onsen (四万温泉). I was curious so I did a quick image search and found pictures of what appeared to be a small country village with a nice old town look and vibe to it. Throughout the rest of the day, when I wasn't busy, I did a little more research and by that night I had decided that this was where I wanted to go so I jumped onto the Rakuten travel website and booked a couple of nights in a traditional Japanese ryokan (Inn).
Shima Onsen is a tiny little mountain village tucked away in the mountains in Gunma, about 170kms northeast of Tokyo. The onsen was discovered about 1,000 years ago and the village was established in the 16th century and is widely regarded as the oldest onsen town in Japan. It has been visited over the years by regular people seeking to soak in the onsen waters that claim to treat over 40,000 illnesses and was also visited by famous animation director and producer Hayao Miyazaki (who was responsible for many of Studio Ghibli's world famous animation movies such as Princess Mononoke, Spirited Away and The wind rises) prior to the making of Spirited Away. It is said that that there is a red bridge in the town that was the inspiration for the red bridge that lead to the sento (bathhouse) in Spirited Away.
The day of departure came and I set off for my local train station. Now there is a particular website that I use to plan which trains to use and it told me to catch the Shonan Shinjuku line from Shinjuku station to Takasaki station (about a 115 minute ride). Seeing that it was a reasonably long ride and I had a couple of bags with me I bought a green car seat ticket (780 yen extra) for a bit of extra space.
To buy a green car ticket you need an electronic ticket called a PASMO or Suica which you can purchase at any train station ticket machine. I purchased my green car ticket from the green car ticket machine on the train platform and then the train arrived and I jumped into the pretty empty green car and started my adventure (yes, the word adventure is used here for a reason....). You need to scan your PASMO or Suica on the scanner that is above your seat and a light overhead switches from red to green. This shows the train attendant that you have bought a green car ticket. A few minutes later the train attendant came through the car with a selection of snacks and drinks available to buy (she also checks each passenger's seat to make sure the green light is on) and I bought a drink and settled in for the ride.
A little over half an hour later the train pulled into Omiya station. I was pretty relaxed at this point and looked out at all of the poor people on the platform rugged up against the cold winter wind outside. The train left the station and a few minutes later the train attendant came back through the train and stopped at my seat and pointed above my head. I looked up and my light had changed from green back to red. She asked me something in Japanese which I didn't understand so she got her English handbook and asked "Where is your destination?" to which I replied "Takasaki." She suddenly had this worried look on her face and said "This is now the Utsunomiya line. You needed to change at Omiya to the Takasaki line!". Now my train info hadn't told me that and if I hadn't bought the green car ticket then I would have finished up in Utsunomiya (in a completely different part of the country to Takasaki) eating gyoza dumplings instead of enjoying an onsen!
I jumped off at the next station and went back to Omiya where I switched across to the Takasaki line and continued on to Takasaki station. At Takasaki station I switched, again, over to the Agatsuma line where I ended up in Nakanojo. Nakanojo is the nearest train station to Shima Onsen and from Nakanojo it's another 45 minutes by bus. All up it took about 4 1/2 hours (not including the delay due to the train mix up) from my station in Tokyo.
I jumped off the bus and made the short walk to the ryokan I had booked, Ayameya Ryokan (website here in Japanese)
and walked inside. I was met by one of the owners who was very, very friendly (not a lot of English though) who then showed me to my room.
Very nice indeed!
After setting my stuff down and checking out the room (local tv only, no cable and shared toilet outside of the room, definitely a more traditional place!) I went outside to have a look around the town. One of my friends, Ikuho chose that perfect moment to send me a message and tell me that I had to go to a particular little shop and try something called yaki manju. It is one of the local delicacies. Luckily enough the shop was just around the corner from my hotel so that made the decision easy. Walking up to the shop
I waited until the lovely old (about 80) lady looked up at me and ordered one yaki manju. Only a few minutes later it was ready.
I wandered around for a little having a look at my immediate surroundings. What I found was not too dissimilar to Gujo Hachiman, a small town in Gifu that I visited last October. Every Japanese person who has seen these photos has mentioned that it brings feelings of nostalgia for them, as though they are looking at Japan 50 or 60 years ago.
Running through the middle of the city was a river with banks lined with snow.
It was not snowing at this point, but the weather forecast was predicting snow over the next couple of days, so I was hoping not to be disappointed. I wandered back to the ryokan and decided to go and check out the onsen.
Now I should pause here and let you know that most onsen and sento (public bath) will prohibit people using their facilities if they have tattoos. It is for good reason. Tattoos in Japan are closely associated with the Yakuza so in order to prohibit the mafia from using their facilities, they make it a blanket ban for everyone. I have a tattoo which is a big reason why I don't often go to onsens. A lot of my Japanese friends, however, told me that I can cover it with bandage tape so that it is hidden and then it is not a problem, so this is what I decided to do for this trip. Covering up said tattoo, I went down to the onsen area. Now this ryokan had both an indoor
and an outdoor onsen.
Now, I will also mention here that there is pretty strict etiquette regarding using both onsen and sento. Here is a link to a guide on how to enjoy sento and onsen from the good people at Japan-guide.com. Theirs is quite a comprehensive website that I often use.
After enjoying a nice relaxing soak I decided to head out to find some dinner. The time was about 7:30 when I left the ryokan and I was surprised to find only 2 restaurants in the area open. This is a heads up to be careful about what time you go out for dinner or to get some drinks. Shima Onsen is essentially a relaxation place, not an entertainment town. There are no bars and the town shuts down quite early as most visitors are in their hotels enjoying hot springs. There are a couple of liquor stores where you can buy supplies to enjoy back in your room, but these are also closed by early evening, so make sure you visit them early!
I flipped a coin and opened the door of the winning restaurant
and walked in to find..........nothing! There were no customers, and no staff! Glancing around the room I noticed a button on the wall that looked like a buzzer so I walked over and pushed it. Hearing a faint buzz come from somewhere behind closed doors I hoped that someone had heard. About 2 minutes later an older gentleman (in his 80's) wandered through the door, took a double take then recovered and asked me to sit down wherever I liked (not a lot of foreign visitors to Shima Onsen I guess, but this was what I had wanted when I selected Shima Onsen as my destination!).
I looked up at the menu board to make my choice.
While I couldn't understand everything on the menu, I could understand enough to order some food.
After placing my order, the owner wandered off and prepared my meal. He had kindly turned on the television for me and I was treated to a Japanese wildlife documentary. Pretty soon my food came out.
I started devouring it (it had been quite an adventurous day and I had worked up quite an appetite) and the old man proceeded to sit down a few metres away and started watching TV. After a few minutes he started chatting away with me in Japanese. Now I could only understand about 30% of what he was saying but I was acknowledging everything he said so he figured that I could understand so he kept on going! We had a fabulous conversation (with very little input from me) and before I knew it the bowl was empty. I paid the lovely gentleman who thanked me for coming and told me to come back anytime. With a contented belly and a smile on my face I headed back to the ryokan for another soak in the onsen.
I think I will finish this update here. There should be another one or two posts about Shima Onsen to come so please look out for them.
Thanks, as always for reading, leave me a comment below to say Hi, and I will see you soon for part 2. Bye.
This is part 3 of a recent trip to Gujo Hachiman in Gifu. You can read part 1 here and part 2 here.
We got back to the ryokan and checked in. I had chosen this place because of the beautiful old style rooms. I would love to live in a place with rooms like this!
And outside the window?......
Incredible, the water was so clear, so pure and pristine. The clear water that runs through the town of Gujo Hachiman is a big source of pride for the residents. In fact, a nickname for Gujo Hachiman is "the Water Town". All around town there are water springs called "mizu fune", which translated means "water boat". They are 2 or 3 tiered systems with constantly running water. The top tier is for drinking and there are cups left at the mizu fune for anyone to use for drinking. The lower tiers are for washing fresh vegetables or even rinsing clothes. (My photos for these didn't turn out so well but the kind people at the Gujo Hachiman Tourist Association kindly let me use 3 of theirs. Please go and check out their full English website with so much more information about the town by following the links below the photos).
(source: Gujo Hachiman Tourist Association website. http://www.gujohachiman.com/kanko/index_e.html)
This water then runs into street-side canals that run all across the town,
(source: Gujo Hachiman Tourist Association website. http://www.gujohachiman.com/kanko/index_e.html)
(source: Gujo Hachiman Tourist Association website. http://www.gujohachiman.com/kanko/index_e.html)
some of which have carp in them to eat any food scraps that might find their way into the water system,
and then back out into the river. This is a centuries old ecologically friendly system which keeps the water so clear and clean. Amazing, why can't more places do this?!
Now seems like a good point to stop this post, but I will keep working on the next post which will have quite a few photos of the town at night and I will hopefully have that finished in the next day or so.
I hope you enjoyed this one. Please leave a comment below and share with anyone you know who would be interested in having a read.
Bye.
This is part 3 of a series of blog posts about a recent trip to Nagano. You can find part 1 here and part 2 here.
On my travels around Japan I stay in a fair few hotels which vary in style from a simple business hotel to old traditional Japanese ryokans. I often make a mention of where I stay if the place is especially nice. Never have I dedicated a whole post to where I stay.....until now.
At the end of my last post I finished by talking about taking a bus from Nagano city to Togakushi. This is where I was to spend the next 2 nights.
When I had been planning this trip, I was originally going to stay in a hotel in Ueda city where Yuuki and Miwa were staying. However, we were not able to find a hotel room as Ueda city was having it's festival on that weekend, so I had to look elsewhere for a hotel. I found a place called Oshi Ryokan right in Togakushi, which was where we were going to be the next day anyway, so I went ahead and booked a couple of nights there. Oshi Ryokan is in a 250 year old building, and in a country with as many earthquakes as Japan has, that is an achievement in itself!
From the moment I booked, the owner of the ryokan Mr Hidenori Oshi, was in contact with me checking to see if I wanted dinner included in my stay, and providing me with a link to the bus timetable for the bus I needed to catch to get from Nagano City to Togakushi.
When I arrived in Nagano I gave the ryokan a call to let them know when I would be arriving. Hidenori answered the phone and spoke great English! He told me to make sure I would arrive with an empty stomach because dinner would be served when I arrived and that there was a lot of food!
I got onto the bus which spent the next hour winding through the mountains outside of Nagano. Hairpin after hairpin bend followed as we made our way up into the Japanese Alps. This was the area of Japan that had hosted the 1998 Winter Olympics, so there was no shortage of mountains around. I got off at the stop I needed and Hidenori met me at the bus stop. We walked the short distance back to the ryokan and the first thing I noticed was the beautiful thatched roof.
I asked how often the roof had to be changed and was told that it is replaced every 40 years and that it is done quarter by quarter with each quarter being done per year so the whole roof takes 4 years to replace.
We went inside and during check-in, Hidenori noticed where I lived in Tokyo and mentioned that he himself used to live in the same area, so we spent some time talking about the things that were still in the area.
Next, I was taken to my room, a beautiful, traditional Japanese room complete with tatami flooring.
I love tatami flooring!!
Next up was dinner. Each room at Oshi Ryokan has it's own private dining room and I was lead into mine, again, a lovely traditional Japanese style room.
Dining rooms, like the one above, are double dining rooms with both sides separated by a screen. The second night I was in a dining room like this one, sharing it with an English guy who lives and works in Majorca. We got talking to each other over the screen which was removed next time Hidenori came in. The first night I was in a completely private room.
I walked into the dining room which already had the first course ready to go. Sashimi and fresh tasty melon (described to me as mountain sashimi!). Both dishes were delicious and fresh!
I may have forgotten to take photos of one of two of the courses, I was too busy enjoying them! Next up was, quite simply, one of the best fish dishes I have ever tasted! Now I grew up around fishing towns and did quite a lot of fishing myself when I was younger, so I know a little about eating fish, but this one was like nothing else I have ever tasted!
Simple, yet so many flavours happening inside my mouth. I would have been happy having this for every course!
Next was some deliciously tender Shinshu beef. Again, simply cooked which allowed the flavours of the beef to come through beautifully.
The vegetables were beautiful, crisp and fresh too. It was around here that I started forgetting to take pictures...... I remembered just in time to take a picture of some soba noodles that were served. Togakushi is quite famous for soba.
With that, dinner was finished and Hidenori came in and we started talking. He is a very interesting man who has a few different jobs, including being a Shinto priest! Now there is something I have always wondered about Shrines and Temples and it is something that I have mentioned on these pages before. What better time, place and person to ask than right here and now with Hidenori. I asked him why Temples and Shrines are so quiet and peaceful. The sounds of the city outside seem to fade away to nothingness. He smiled at me and said that it is because of the wood. Temples, Shrines and their structures and gates are all made of wood and wood blocks the noise. He said it is done so that the Gods can hear us talking to them. After all, what point is there talking to the Gods if they can't hear us. Such a simple, yet deep explanation.
Dinner finished I went back to my room and, a few hours later, fell asleep on the comfortable soft futon.
Morning soon came, which meant breakfast and after the dinner the night before, I was looking forward to breakfast!
I'm not a vegetable expert, but this (whatever it was) was good!
simple, yet delicious salmon,
bacon and egg with a little salad on the side,
miso soup,
and some yogurt and coffee to finish things off.
That breakfast of champions set me up nicely for a day of walking around the shrines in the area (which I will cover in the next post).
Dinner that night and breakfast the next morning followed a similar, delectable pattern. I can definitely say that the food alone is worth the nightly cost of the ryokan.
There is also a beautifully deep bath to sink into (up to the neck) to wash away the aches of walking through the mountains.
The next morning before I left, I wandered around for a few last photos.
I reluctantly said goodbye to Hidenori and his wife and left to catch the bus back to Nagano city. (Thank you very much for your hospitality, I will be back!)
It truly was a great way to spend a couple of nights, and at 9,000 yen a night, including breakfast and dinner, an extremely reasonably priced place to stay, especially when you consider the level of customer service and Japanese hospitality (omotenashi) that you experience when staying here.
If you find yourself heading to Togakushi (and it is a naturally beautiful mountain getaway), look to Oshi Ryokan first for accommodation. You will not regret it!
Thanks again for having a read. I hope you are enjoying this mini series of posts on Nagano. If you are, please leave a comment below, and keep an eye out for part 4.
See you next time.
