Onsen in Yamagata Nov 2014

Onsen in Yamagata Prefecture
22nd-23rd November 2014

After recommendations from teachers at school, I decided to go to Ginzan Onsen in Yamagata.
It's quite difficult to get to from Sendai, so I thought I should stay there for the night and go somewhere else the next day. However, it was a very last minute trip so a lot of the ryokan and hotels were full. In the end, me and Ana decided to experience a night in a manga/internet cafe, which turned out to be a cool experience.

Ginzan Onsen  銀山温泉

The journey to Ginzan Onsen from Sendai took about 4 hours by bus, train and then another bus. (bus to Yamagata. Train to Oishida. Bus to Ginzan Onsen)
Arriving at Ginzan Onsen felt like going back in time. It's a very small place that has a river running the length of the town with lots of bridges going over it. My photo skills don't quite do it justice..

        Our first view of the main street.            Shirogane Waterfall at the end of the main street
At the end of the main road with the bridges and old buildings is Shirogane Waterfall. If you walk further through a small forest area you will come to a silver mine cave that you can walk through.
After having a little explore, we walked back to Ginzanso ryokan so we could go in the onsen.
We relaxed in the outdoor baths with views of the forest for a while before finding a soba restaurant in town.

There are public foot baths dotted around the town at the side of the river. We warmed our feet here while waiting for it to get darker. At night the buildings are lit up and the street is lit by gas lamps. (Again I need to work on how to use my camera at night..)
I've heard that the town is beautiful in the winter when they get a lot of snow - although it can be a bit difficult to get to in winter.

First Manga cafe experience

Although we'd have liked to stay at one of the ryokan, it was a very last minute trip. When we got back to Yamagata station we had a short walk through the city before reaching the manga cafe we'd chosen. After this first experience of using a manga cafe, I started to use them for last minute trips to Tokyo. When you arrive at a manga cafe, if it's your first time going you have to sign up by filling in a form, then you will be given a member's card and you can choose your room. We chose a Family room that had a couple of floor chairs, table, pillows, computer and a TV. Often room choices will include private booth with a reclining chair, booth with a massage chair, flat booth (that has a soft floor to sit on), family room, couple room, sofa room and chairs in the open space. Some places will be in booths that feel like cubicles whereas some manga cafes will have booths with floor to ceiling doors and a key card for more privacy. In a lot of the manga cafes I stayed at you have a computer with internet, games, films and TV. You can also choose how long you will stay, it could be for a few hours or you can choose a night pack which, depending on the manga cafe, could be around 6-10 hours. Then you're able to browse the massive manga selection, read magazines, help yourself to soft drinks, order from the food menu, use the showers, use the computer in your room and sleep. This particular family room we stayed in was just on a hard floor with floor chairs to sleep on. I could sleep but Ana struggled a bit. One that i used regularly in Ikebukuro in Tokyo had soft matress floors that extended under the computer desk so you could fully lie down in them. Some manga cafes even have karaoke, darts and billiards areas.
They can be a very convenient place to stay if you don't have time to find accommodation, a cheap alternative to a hotel, somewhere to sleep if you miss your last train, or somewhere to relax for a few hours in the day. However if you are using them as somewhere to stay the night, it can be risky because you can't make reservations in some a lot of manga cafes, so you could be unlucky and turn up to find they have no private booths left that night.

Kaminoyama Onsen


We didn't really have a plan for the second day, but after going to an onsen on the first day we thought that we wanted more onsen in Yamagata. After a little research online in our manga cafe room we found Kaminoyama onsen which was a short train ride away. When we arrived we visited Kaminoyama Castle on hill with views of the town. Just behind the castle we visited Tsukioka Shrine. This small town is dotted with onsen, shrines and foot baths. It also has a small samurai district. We visited Tsukioka hotel to use their onsen. It has a mix of indoor and outdoor baths with views of the hotel's Japanese gardens. On our way wandering back through the town we stumbled upon Kurikawa Inari Jinja, a small shrine with lots of torii gates. We stopped to have a wander through the tunnel of torii gates before heading back to the station.