Oh, and while I'm thinking of reactions to the odd and unusual, I'll describe one aspect of Tsurunoyu onsen that I hadn't seen mentioned anywhere else (or perhaps just overlooked if it was mentioned): the phallic shrine.

If you're reading along you may have just done a double take on that last bit...the what sort of shrine? Does she mean what I think she means? Yes, she does.

As it turns out, the women's outdoor bath, the rotenburo, is a nice size, about the size of a small swimming pool. All of the outdoor baths (that I tried, anyway) at Tsurunoyu have a feature that I particularly liked, loose pebble bottoms. The edges of this particular bath are surrounded by wood planking (with some mineral build-up from the water) which turn out to be very nice for sitting on once you've gotten very warm from the water. You can also rest your head on your elbows and gaze out out the surrounding hillside and trees and whatever else might happen to be in the surroundings.

And that's when I noticed it. The phallus, I mean. It's about half a meter high, and carved in stone. A bit abstract in execution, but no mistaking it for something else. And if you then look farther into the surrounding grounds you see that there's an actual shrine, one of those little houses with cupboard doors, with offerings of this and that and yet another phallus (carved in wood, about a meter long) leaning up against the shrine.

So I'm guessing that a woman who might be experiencing some issues with fertility might visit this particular onsen. No problem for me in that quarter. A couple of young women who happened to notice it while I was in the bath looked a bit startled and caught me eye, asking me (in sign language, basically) if I knew what the the story was, and I shrugged my shoulders expressively in response: "No, I don't know the significance of it, and no, this isn't the usual thing where I'm from."

Oh, and while I'm thinking of reactions to the odd and unusual, I'll describe one aspect of Tsurunoyu onsen that I hadn't seen mentioned anywhere else (or perhaps just overlooked if it was mentioned): the phallic shrine.

If you're reading along you may have just done a double take on that last bit...the what sort of shrine? Does she mean what I think she means? Yes, she does.

As it turns out, the women's outdoor bath, the rotenburo, is a nice size, about the size of a small swimming pool. All of the outdoor baths (that I tried, anyway) at Tsurunoyu have a feature that I particularly liked, loose pebble bottoms. The edges of this particular bath are surrounded by wood planking (with some mineral build-up from the water) which turn out to be very nice for sitting on once you've gotten very warm from the water. You can also rest your head on your elbows and gaze out out the surrounding hillside and trees and whatever else might happen to be in the surroundings.

And that's when I noticed it. The phallus, I mean. It's about half a meter high, and carved in stone. A bit abstract in execution, but no mistaking it for something else. And if you then look farther into the surrounding grounds you see that there's an actual shrine, one of those little houses with cupboard doors, with offerings of this and that and yet another phallus (carved in wood, about a meter long) leaning up against the shrine.

So I'm guessing that a woman who might be experiencing some issues with fertility might visit this particular onsen. No problem for me in that quarter. A couple of young women who happened to notice it while I was in the bath looked a bit startled and caught me eye, asking me (in sign language, basically) if I knew what the the story was, and I shrugged my shoulders expressively in response: "No, I don't know the significance of it, and no, this isn't the usual thing where I'm from."

Hmm, sorry about that double post---something weird happened in the middle.

Mara, I used Japanese Guesthouses to book Tsurunoyu as well as the next stop on this trip (which I hope to get to today if work doesn't keep me from it). One chain that I particularly like is Dormy Inn, so I tend to keep an eye out for it. I also liked the one Villa Fontaine property that I've tried, so I just look for deals to pop up on the booking sites. At the end of the day you'll likely find something very affordable.

Once you've booked (if it's non-refundable) you are absolutely not to keep looking, as it's a sure recipe for remorse.

Enjoying your report. Making notes to remind myself to skip natto as it doesn't sound even remotely like anything I'd want to acquire a taste for!

"Once you've booked (if it's non-refundable) you are absolutely not to keep looking, as it's a sure recipe for remorse."

lol, I should follow that rule with my airfares - I put them on yapta so I get an email when they go below a certain amount and if it's after I've purchased it, I just get annoyed. ;-)
I've never used Japanese Guesthouses other than for research....but I know they are supposed to be very helpful....
Waiting for more... :)

Thursday, November 25:

Thanksgiving!

Up early to meet dawn in the mixed rotenburo.

Breakfast: is this some sort of fattening regimen? Large piece of cured salmon, rice (waiter scoops me up a large bowl), egg (sunny side up, hard yolk, but cold) with ham and salad, ume, vinegared cucumber, some sort of cooked stem, natto, miso with tofu and mushrooms, mushrooms in slime, probably something else. I must have looked hungry, as the waiter brought me a peeled persimmon (that nobody else
got).

Check out (pay with MasterCard), catch 8:30 ryokan shuttle to Arupa bus station.

The sun peeps out and we all run to take photos of Lake Tazawako. I notice some young Korean women take out chemical hand warmers and remember that I'd packed some myself. So I get them out and apply them to my socks and they are dumbfounded: OMG, that's a great idea. Except that theirs are too big to fit in their shoes. I explain that we use them for skiing. I am, apparently, a genius.

Bus to Tawazako JR station features exceptionally unattractive orange plush upholstery, but it's punctual. And I know that I need to take the numbered ticket that tells the driver where I boarded to turn in when I pay at the end of the ride (with the ticket that I'd purchased previously in Tazawakl). Thirty minute wait at station for train to Kakunodate. Brief ride, and it's an all-seats-reserved shinkansen so I stand (which is what I think I'm supposed to do, though I almost certainly could have sat and not been in much trouble).

Lovely weather in Kakunodate, and a bit of koyo to enjoy.

Get directions to Ishikawa ryokan (which I'd booked from Japanese Guesthouses) at tourist office (where there was a tiny bit of English), but can't find it at first as there's no sign in English or kana so I ask a little old lady. She doesn't know, but a little old man passing by on a bike does, and tells me to go back about 30 meters. The little old lady has gone on ahead to scout it out and indeed it's right there, with kanji for "rock" and "river", which I'd have known if I'd bothered to look it up in advance. Plus I was looking on the wrong side of the street.

I always tell the kids to look for old people with either pets or groceries if they need to ask for directions, as it means they are probably locals. Just about everybody here qualifies.

Nobody at the desk, so I just leave my bag in the lobby and head to see the sights. By check-in time of 3:00 I've pretty much seen them all. Buy some very good traditional sweets (samples offered, with tea), and then some interesting senbei: one with kumquat glaze, one that's like a small hard churro, sweet, but I can't place the flavor and there's too much kanji for me to figure it out easily.

I mention the sights in Kakunodate but don't describe them in my last post, so here's some more detail.

Kakunodate features an area of old samurai estates. It's a big wide road without much in the way of commercial development, very different from what you usually find in Japan. The estates themselves are quite cool, with walled grounds, gardens, and views into tatami mat rooms. Several of them are open to the public (though many are private residences, and it's not always easy to distinguish them). Virtually all of the signage is in Japanese (kanji, that is), so make a point of getting the tourist maps in both English and Japanese so that you can do some cross-referencing and thereby avoid surprising the people that live in a private residence. There are also some estates that you can pay to visit, as well as a museum about cherry bark crafts (which the samurai started doing when when they weren't supposed to be fighting, which is what they apparently liked best). The river (which in spring features a lot of cherry trees in blossom) is sort of cool, and there are lots and lots and lots of small shrines and graveyards to visit if you like that sort of thing.

Return at 3:00 and still nobody in front, but I give out a little "sumimasen" and a granny emerges from the back, excitedly getting a guy (her son? he's also pretty old). He gets my bag and we head upstairs, pausing for "toire" indication. Directions of various sorts given, dinner, breakfast, morning bath times all established.

Paperwork filled out, ocha and a sweet served.

Now tucked up in my long underwear and yukata and woolen over-kimono (which I eventually decide is just too scratchy to bear) drinking more ocha in my 8 tatami room. Very old school: tiny TV, little vanity/dressing table, shoji onto absolutely freezing screened the terrace (where my suitcase lives, so as not to damage the tatami).

Main building pretty shabby (and very chilly), and the contrast with my cozy room is particularly glaring. Toilet initially a crashing disappointment, as I initially see the sign "western style" and overlook the little "man" icon. Mr. Toto was there, but not functional (in retrospect presumably because there were no male guests that night).

Turns out the ladies' version is much, much nicer: private room, nice warm seat, spray function strong enough to remove paint. Mr. Toto and I are becoming very friendly.

Dinner is at 6:00. Countless dishes, all very nice except for a very strong cured fish (in curious cross-section---took me a whole to figure it out) of which I can only manage one bite. "Koi" answers my hostess. This is the only meal at which I'm served chawan mushi, a sort of savory egg custard that's one of my favorites.

After dinner it's time for bed, with some discussion among myself, granny, and the guy as to where I'd like my head to be. I manage to stay awake until 8:30. Turns out those pillows filled with grain are perfect for my neck and shoulders.

Friday, November 26:

"Japanese shower" booked for 7:30 AM. My phone rings at 7:27 to tell me that it's ready. The usual set up: "dry" room to stow towel and clean clothes, "wet" room to scrub up and wash hair before soaking for a bit in the ofuro. Tub not heated, no cover, hot water tap just left on to fill and overflow. Does what it says on the label, though. Warm through and through at the end.

Dressed, I head upstairs to my room where granny tells me that breakfast will soon be served. All 13 dishes of it. It is very good, and she is delighted to find that I'm able to finish it. It's good thing I'm doing so much walking, that's for sure.

Finish packing, check out (leaving luggage in lobby), walk around for an hour or so. Stop at Gran Mart (combined grocery and Target, sort of, and absolutely hopping with the elderly denizens of Kakunodate), consider purchasing cozy socks but decide not. Instead get sushi, yogurt drink, and some little brick-like tradional cookies for my journey.

Pick up luggage (with enthusiastic good-bye from granny), walk (uphill, pulling my suitcase, possibly stressing the handle more than it likes) to eki. Buy sake at eki combini.

Train (shinkansen, and of course this time I have a seat---this is my second day of travel using my JR East pass, and I'd reserved the seat when I purchased the pass at NRT) from Kakunodate to Akita mostly countryside. Inaho train from Akita to Tsuruoka slower. Starts with the ocean and then the beach (seriously, the track is on the dunes), then rice fields.

Little green sprouts---won't they freeze in the winter to come?

Those white birds in the rice fields---are they geese? Yes, they are geese, the same shape as the Canadian sort.

More ocean, just amazing. It's a gray and stormy sort of day, and the waves are crashing on the rocks and it's just all very cool, especially when one is tucked away nice and safe in a cozy train just a few feet from the action.

Arrive at Tsuruoka station and get info re bus (aka "basu") bound for Hagurosan, with precise localization of ryokan on map (though English and Japanes maps aren't identical in either orientation or scale, so there's some thinking involved). The nice woman at the tourist information office has approximately zero English, but we manage and I know where the bus will arrive, and at what time.

The wait at the bus stop involves some tiresome conversation with an old Japanese man who clearly thinks that he can make me understand him if he just keeps talking. Eventually I go inside the station to wait, as much to alleviate his frustration as to stop the bother.

I discover that my suitcase handle has gotten cranky and doesn't want to collapse into the suitcase the way it's supposed to. <sigh> And it's cold and damp and getting dark even earlier than I'd thought it would.

Hmm, where is that bus?

The bus arrives exactly on time (of course) and I make a point of taking the first seat opposite the driver. We collect more passengers: school children (clearly the obesity epidemic has arrived in rurual Japan) and shopping grannies.

About 15 minutes from my destination (as per the bus schedule), while at a stoplight, I tell the bus driver (in Japanese---there seems little point in asking about English first) that I'm going to Hagurokan (the name of the ryokan, with the name of the village being Haguro-san) and ask him if he knows it. He does and agrees to tell me where to disembark.

The bus empties one by one and eventually we pull up to my stop. I give him the fare and he tries to tell me how to get to the ryokan. Make a right and then it's on your left. Or is that make and left and a right and then..? He realizes I haven't quite grasped the finer points, so he just has me stay on the bus and drives me another 15 seconds right to the front door. ¥740 for curb service. Wonderful, and given that the sign for the ryokan is not only in kanji but that sort of cryptic artistic kanji that really only gives you a general sense of the word it's good thing that he made the effort. Plus it's dark and damp and cold.

Exuberant greeting from the owner, Yamamoto-san, and his wife Yoko-san. He shows me to my room (carrying my bag, of course) and it is amazing: wide halls with polished wooden floors, shoji open to an anteroom with a desk and my very own laptop (and a very nice new one at that). More shoji open to a lovely and cozy eight tatami room (he apologizes for it being so small---as if). Yamamoto-san's got quite serviceable English, and is happy to tell me about the area. He is dismayed to find that I'm planning on taking a relatively early train back to Tokyo, as it means that I won't see much of Haguro-san, so I go to Hyperdia (on my lovely personal laptop with ethernet connection that he has had the foresight to supply) and find that there's another option that will suit. And in the course of matching up the train schedule with the bus schedule from Haguro-san to Tsuruoka he offers to just drive me to the station directly in his own car. Thirty minutes.

The room features a beautiful cherry bark veneer table, a pretty tea caddy with cherry bark scoop), flat screen TV, remote control heater, electric thermos. Hot tea and a sweet (a white chocolate-covered cookie that I later see for sale in a posh Tokyo depato).

Dinner is at 6:00. Food for six, basically. As I am the only guest that night, the meal is served downstairs in a larger, more impressive guest room.

After dinner amusement is some TV, mostly a young woman who does features on Japanese products called "Made in Japan". Chrysanthemum petals featured. Who knew they were so versatile?

Lovely futon with huge fluffy duvet on top. Sleep till 5:30.

What a fabuｌous trip, Therese! すばらしい.
Where did you find the Ryokan Hagurosan - I don't see it on Japaneseguesthouses.....

Thanks, Mara.

I found Hagurokan (not Haguro-san, that's the name of the village, and of the mountain that one climbs while visiting) at Japanican. No pre-payment, and only the usual penalties for last minute cancellation.

My room, dinner, and breakfast there was 8,800 yen. A total deal, and particularly glaring contrast with my experience at Ishikawa Ryokan, where I spent nearly 14,000 yen for nominally the same thing.

I'll mention that the village where Hagurokan is located is also called Haguro-machi (aka Haguro Center).

This specific ryokan was mentioned in the wikitravel article on Haguro-san, and very highly recommended. That article has since been re-worded, with the property still recommended but the glowing language having been deleted, presumably as it just sounded over the top.

It wasn't. I didn't want to leave.

Thanks, sorry for confusing that, Therese - I am doing too many things at once as usual....starting to plan my next trip to Japan. :)

Loving every minute of this as have been to Tsurunoyu and the Akita area so know of what you are going through. Thats what I love about the Japanese....they will go out of their way to make a stranger feel welcome. Looks like you made a find in Hagurokan ryokan . Such special memories.

Aloha!

...and the bus driver who dropped you off at the front door. That's another feature so man of us have found in Japan: First, someone tries to explain the route that you should take. Next, you just stand there, with a look on your face that betrays your not having understood a word. And finally, the person more or less takes you by the hand and leads you exactly where you need to go, sort of like a nursery school teacher.

OK, I have to get the map of Japan out and find Haguro-san so I can stay in Hagurokan on my trip in May. Sounds wonderful! It's now on my list, assuming I can locate it on the map. Thanks again for all the detail.

Must attempt to learn some Japanese asap (I studied Chinese for 8 years so at least I'm familiar with characters).

Your kanji (what the Japanese call Chinese characters) will be a huge advantage, aprillilacs. I know hiragana and katakana, but very little in the way of kanji, and the farther out you get the more kanji helps.

Though of course in the end it's possible to get by just fine with essentially zero Japanese.

One of the things I especially like about the way Japanese people help you is that they rarely go out of their way to make you feel like an idiot for asking. Not infrequently they are just as perplexed by the map you've got clenched in your sweaty little fist, and have to spend some time orienting themselves: hmm, there's the Eneos gas station, and if we put the Lawson's on the opposite corner... oh, yes, there's the hotel, staring us both in the face.

Saturday, November 27:

The sun finally comes up and there's a bit of surprise: blue sky. Not the norm for this area at this time of year, and I assume that it will translate to the sort of bitter cold that we tend to get with bright sunshine-y winter days.

Shower and loll in ofuro for a while before dressing and going back downstairs for breakfast. Breakfast is enormous, and includes a large piece of salmon that I'd consider adequate to feed my entire family. Since I am only partially tolerant of salmon I was able to convince the innkeeper's wife that I wouldn't be able to eat it, and so in the end I was able to manage about half of the food provided.

Haguro-san (Mt. Haguro) is one of three holy mountains, the Dewa Sanzen. At this time of year it's the only one accessible due to winter conditions. From the ryokan it's an easy walk to foot of the mountain, and the walk takes you through the very quiet (especially at this time of year) residential area that makes up the village. Once at Haguro-san you walk through a gate at the forested base and you can see a very nice five story pagoda and visit some small shrines and so forth. Very pretty area, and a lot of visitors never get beyond this point.

If you do decide to climb the stairs (of which there are three sets), be aware that they are not exactly built to code and don't have any sort of handrails. They're also relatively shallow, so I ended up having to go up them sideways most of the time. At this time of year there's quite a bit of leaf litter to deal with as well. In the end I only climbed the first set of stairs, due mostly to the fact that I know that I'm likely to have more trouble coming down them than I have going up, and I'd already seen two perfectly able-bodied young Japanese take pretty bad tumbles coming down that first set. There's actually a bus that goes all the way to the top, but since the bus schedule at this time of year is very infrequent I didn't want to run the risk of getting stuck at the top without a way down.

And the down side of injuring myself coming down the stairs was too grim to contemplate.

Beautiful views, and contrary to my earlier assumptions I find that I don't need my long underwear, turtleneck, down coat, and scarf. In fact I end up stripping down to my long underwear shirt (which is black, so just looks like a not very attractive top) for much of my walk.

Since I've now got time on my hands I visit the Ideha museum that's located nearby and find out quite a bit about the religion for which Dewa Sanzen is holy: Shugendo. It's a combination of Buddhism, Shinto, and folk religion, and the museums goes into considerable detail about the various festivals and pilgrimages and so forth.

I then walk around the village noting the extensive winter preparations: trees, shrines, houses---everything is wrapped up or boarded up or tented in some way to protect it from the fierce winds and deep snowfalls that will soon arrive.

Eventually I return to ryokan and am offered the use of yet another laptop while the wife brings me coffee (in a lovely bone china cup) and then Yamamoto-san drives me to Tsuruoka. Thirty minutes, in his own car, at no charge. He shows me the various mountains along the way (which we can actually see---he is amazed at the good luck I've had with the weather. I don't have the heart to tell him that I've got a reputation for bringing Atlanta's mild climate with me when I travel. The same thing happened in January when I visited Kanazawa.

We say farewell and I give him a box of sweets from Kakunodate and carry my now non-rolling suitcase into the station. Since I hadn't used my earlier reservation (that I'd booked at NRT upon arrival) I need to get another one, but it's no problem and I once again board the Inaho train, now headed to Niigata.