Takasaki and Kusatsu Onsen Weekend - 12/9

On Sunday I spent the day sightseeing around Kusatsu Onsen town.  It is a small town and was completely walk able  thanks to the English map the owner of the ryokan gave me!

My day started with a tasty breakfast at the ryokan.  Salmon, omelet, spinach, pickles, ham and rice with nori. 

 After I checked out, I decided to visit the Kusatsu Tropical Dome.  It is a dome (surprise!) that is heated with the hot spring water and houses a lot of tropical animals.  Pretty neat to visit it when it is covered in snow!

 Outside the dome was a group of snow monkeys.  They even had their own hot spring to warm up in!

 This guy was hoping someone would toss some food his way!

 There were a few babies in the group - so cute!

 Inside there was a mix of lots of animals.  There were some impressive fish...

 Lizards just hanging out...

 What's up lizard?

 Apparently in Japan it's cool to pet the capybaras.  This struck me as odd, but this guy seemed to enjoy it!

 It is the year of the snake, so in front of the snake tanks a lot of people had left coins.  There were a lot of very large snakes, I walked quickly through this section!

 I took a turn petting the docile capybara.  His fur felt like whiskers - very rough.

 There were a few birds.  This one was particularly ugly.

 There were a lot of little monkeys.  This one was so cute!

 This one seemed like he was a little annoyed.

 After leaving the tropical dome I walked back through the center of town and took some more pictures of the yubatake since it was sunnier than the day before.  Here is where the water comes out of the ground, and you can really see the sulfur deposits.

 Near the yubatake there was a shrine up a hill.  This is one of the more colorful bell structures I've seen.  Usually they are a drab brown.

 The shrine was very pretty in the snow!

 In the center of town there is also this structure where in the warmer months women stir the hot spring water to cool it down while singing the onsen song.  I wish this was going on when I visited!

 Gnomes also like the yubatake.  Taking this picture got me some strange looks for sure!

 This guy was giving out onsen manju, the special treat of Kusatsu onsen.  They are a steam bun filled with sweet red bean paste - they are sooooo good!  He gives them away hoping that people will come into his shop and buy some to take home to their friends and coworkers.  His ploy worked, and I bought a box for my coworkers!  This practice is almost mandatory in Japan; when you go away you must bring back a small souvenir, usually food.  There are shops all over the train stations where you can buy things before you head home!

After some shopping and snacking on onsen manju I walked to a large park nearby, Sainokawara park.  It is home to one of the largest rotenburo (outdoor baths) in Japan!  On the way I could see the hot water flowing in rivers!

 These tori gates were so beautiful in the snow!  The steps looked a little too treacherous to climb up though - everything was very slippery here because the steam from the hot springs condenses on the cold ground and freezes!

 Here is the back of the rotenburo - it is very private and fenced in.  I enjoyed a nice soak here - for ~$5 you can stay as long as you want.  The bath is very large and the water gets hotter as you move towards the source, letting everyone find their own happy place!

After the onsen I was very warm again, so I took that opportunity to spend some time walking in the park in the snow.  This really got my Christmas spirit going!

 It was so beautiful.  I love to walk through snow that no one else has walked through yet!

 Eventually it was time to go home.  But this gnome and I had a great time in Kusatsu, and we enjoyed the train ride back to Takasaki and then the Shinkansen back to Tokyo!

Takasaki and Kusatsu Onsen Weekend - 12/8

Last weekend I took a trip north to Gunma prefecture to visit Takasaki and Kusatsu Onsen.  I took the Nagano Shinkansen to Takasaki from Tokyo.  It was fun to take the Shinkansen in the daytime and see how fast it really goes!

I think that Gunma prefecture is all together less busy than the Yokohama/Tokyo area, and buses and trains don't run nearly as often.  I had to choose between the two things I wanted to see in Takasaki because the bus schedule just didn't allow me to do both.

I chose to see the Byakui-Dai-Kannon, a very tall image of Buddha - mostly because it was the first bus to come along and I was anxious to do some sight seeing!  Even from far away it was pretty impressive!

 Buddha + koyo - very nice!  This might have been the last koyo I will see in Japan.

Gnomes love giant Buddha feet!

I paid 300 yen to climb to the top of the Kannon inside.  The view of Takasaki was pretty good.  The shadow is from the head of the statue!

 The sign at the top says "tsuita!  otsukaredesu"  which I think means something like "you made it!  good job/you might be tired"

 The main temple building from the top of the kannon.

 Inside there were many carvings of people/things.  This one was pretty scary.

 A view of the stairs inside.  There were only a few small portholes to look out on the way up and at the top.

 From the back of the statue you can see where all the portholes are.  The ones at the top are in the front by the shoulders.

 Here are some facts about the kannon!  I love facts!

 After seeing the kannon and having some lunch near the Takasaki train station I got on the local Agatsuma line train bound for Kusatsu.  In this area of Japan I was not expecting English signs or announcements, so I wrote all of the names of the stops we would pass in my notebook.  I also wrote down some important Kanji I might need to know.  This was not the clipboard of fun, this was the clipboard of anxiety!

 I made it to Kusatsu onsen though, and it was a nice little town!  After getting to the train station I took a bus up to the town, and as we went up into the mountain there was snow - yay!

My first stop in the town was the town center.  This is called the yubatake and it is where the hot spring water comes out of the ground.  It is very hot, so they run it through many wooden troughs to cool it down a little before sending it off to all of the hotels and spas around town.  They even use it to heat the schools and a tropical dome that I visited on Sunday!

At the end of the yubatake is a wooden waterfall.  The water in this spring has a sulfur scent, and you can see that it leaves yellow sulfur deposits behind on things.  Once or twice a year they divert the water from the yubatake and scrape the deposits up and then they sell them so you can have "hot spring" baths at home.

 After visiting the yubatake it was starting to get dark, so I figured I should find my ryokan for the night.  It was easy to find from the maps from their website and the good signs on the road!  My room was very nice, with big windows so I could watch it snow!

I had reserved dinner at the ryokan - it is so much easier than trying to find my own dinner, and it was delicious!  There was so much food and it just kept coming!  There was a pot of beef and vegetables cooking, a whole shrimp, some sashimi, pickles, tofu and some other foods.

 Then came this little dish which was almost like a savory eggy custard - it was really good!

 Next came some lettuce wrap things with pork and other vegetables inside - they were a little spicy.  Also, there was some rice to eat with the cooked beef.

 Finally, there was a little soup and then some strawberries for desert.  It was so much food I couldn't eat it all!

While I was eating dinner the staff put out my futon.  I relaxed for a little bit and then went to the outdoor bath that the ryokan had.  It was late, so I had it all to myself while the snow fell down!  It was so nice and relaxing, just what I needed before my next day of sightseeing!

Kyoto: Part 3

On Sunday we had a nice breakfast at the ryokan, and then headed out to see some more of Kyoto's temples.  We went to three temples all in a row and they are all world heritage sites.

First up was Kinkaku-ji, the golden temple.

The reflection of the temple in the lake was very pretty!

The leaves were also very pretty along the lake.  We found a few good ones to collect and bring home, keeping them safe in a book.

 Here is the temple from the back and up a hill.

 Next we went to Ryoan-ji.  The koyo here were very nice!

 This little bridge was so cute!

 This is a nice pagoda.  In Japanese pagodas are called "goju noto" for five-stacked-tower.  I think at this point we had moved to Ninna-ji temple.

 This building was much more colorful than the others.  It is too bad that the trees around it had already lost their leaves!

 Say cheese!  This tree was very red and beautiful!

 This is a very pretty flower.  I felt like I was channeling Tim's spirit taking such close up pictures of flowers :)

 We also saw one extremely confused cherry blossom tree.  I got rather excited about this since I will leave Japan before cherry blossom season really starts, so I took a lot of pictures.  We were all very surprised to see that this tree had a few flowers!

 We sat and contemplated this very large rock garden for a while.

These little stick on foot warmers saved my feet in Kyoto!  The ground was so damp and cold.  Thank you Japan for being so clever to think to stick handwarmers to the bottom of your socks!  And for selling them for cheap at every convenience store!

 At the rock garden, we also contemplated our feet.  :)

 I don't think that it gets much better than this!

 We had such a great time in Kyoto!  It was so nice to go sightseeing with a group of people, and to have Kamisaki-san and Ashizawa-san to help guide us around!