Overnight at Kaga Onsen Birthday trip part 2

Kaga Onsen 加賀温泉
Kaga Onsen station is a short train journey away from Kanazawa. When you arrive at the station you are greeted by a golden Kannon statue looking over the station.

On the train on the way over I had some local ekiben. Ekiben are boxed meals, sold at major train stations. They come in handy on longer train journeys, and are a great way to try local specialities while travelling around the country. I miss these bento meals, and wish that the UK would get better at this kind of thing. Looking at all the sad looking sandwiches lined up on meal deal shelves in English shops, just makes me miss Japan even more!

Anyway.. Kaga Onsen... I chose to stay at Hoshi Ryokan, which is the second oldest hotel in the world, found in the year 718. It's in the Awazu onsen area of Kaga onsen, so I caught the onsen's free shuttle bus over to the ryokan. When I arrived, I took my shoes off, and was served matcha and wagashi (Japanese sweet) in the tearoom.
While planning this trip, I knew that I wanted a ryokan with a very typical traditional looking room with tatami mat flooring, sliding doors, and space for my futon on the floor. When I arrived at my room, I was amazed at how big it was! I have all this space to myself?!

The room looked out over the ryokan's gardens. When I arrived I was served green tea and rice crackers and then left to explore the room, and enjoy the hot spring baths.
Another thing I wanted my ryokan stay to have, was a rotenburo (outdoor bath). I went and relaxed in the baths for a while (I had it to myself), got changed into my yukata and went for dinner. Dinner is included at a lot of ryokan, and it's normally an elaborate meal with lots of small courses. The meal will be varied depending on the season.

I couldn't tell you what some of this food was, but it was delicious! I think I kept the menu, I'll upload a photo if I can find it.
When I got back to my room, my futon had been laid out ready for bed. The first time I slept on a futon on a tatami floor, I was shocked at how comfortable it was. The one at this hotel was just as comfortable.
The next morning before breakfast I went for a little wander around the hotel's gardens. These gardens are in the centre of the hotel, surrounded by the building. Everything is moss covered and there are koi fish in the ponds.

Breakfast was just as good as dinner!

I took this first photo, mostly to send to mum so she could laugh at how red my nose had got from being out in the sun.

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.

Jindaiji and Onsen

During the autumn holiday there weren't always many people around my dorm, so one day I decided I'd go for a little explore around the local area. I had a rough idea that there was a temple nearby after reading an article on cnntokyo, so I checked google maps and headed in that general direction. It didn't take long to get to at all from my dorm by bike. At the entrance they had a small market with a foresty kind of area behind it. Amongst the trees there was jindaiji the second oldest temple in Tokyo.

Close by to the temple there is an onsen (hot spring), so this year I went there with a few friends from global house. Being foreign, and not completely used to the whole being naked in public idea, it still felt awkward in the changing room first. It took me a few months to want to try using the shared bath we have at global house. Once you are in though, it's really nice and you just forget about how awkward you thought it would have been before going. They had different types of baths, both inside ones and outside (which you could still use even though it was freezing outside and January) Some of the baths were charcoal, so the water was black. This was a bit odd to start with: if your arm is underwater you can no longer see it, and yet the water still felt like normal water, it didn't feel thick or sticky or anything. It did leave my skin feeling really soft afterwards though :) The bath that I found strangest was an electric bath. I couldn't bring myself to go in this one, because electricity and water are two things that you are always told must be kept separate. One thing about using the bath at my dorm and going to onsen that I still find a little odd, is how you have normal conversations (making eye contact while talking etc) while sitting in a row showering. It feels normal because you forget that you're all just sat there having a shower with other people, but when I think about it, it still seems slightly odd. Either way, I like them, and find it funny that I was too embarrassed to try for so long at the start of term.