There is no snow out here yet but it should start soon. From Dec 1st to mid April the highway out to these onsen is closed to regular traffic and only special buses are permitted. Apparently they get about five meters of snow up here (five yards). That's a goodly amount of snow.
Koyo season is over so the leaves have all changed and most have fallen, though it is still very beautiful. The mountans are turning dormant-brown for the winter and we can see a splash of white dust on the highest peaks.
Shintamagawa Onsen is a 70minute bus ride way up into the mountains. The road is closed in winter so it is secluded. We arrived Saturday afternoon, checked into our tatami room, relaxed a bit and then headed for dinner. It was a Japanese viking with a lot of different Japanese foods. Then we went to the onsen area and enjoyed a 40minute private bath.
The mineral water is so strong here that they cut it in half with regular water for most of the baths. Even so, we were warned of the effect on the skin and told to be sure to rinse and soap off after to neutralize the low pH of the water. Boy did it prickle (hiri hiri) the sensitive and shaved spots! We could sit in the water for about five minutes before getting out, rinsing, washing with alkali soap and getting back in again. It felt great as it was so hot and relaxing...
The heat and the minerals wiped us out so we had enough energy for one game of cribbage before falling asleep on the futon and awaking the next morning early for breakfast.
The breakfast was very Japanese. It was good. There were a lot of foods that I normally wouldn't have access to back home so I enjoyed the tastes. After breakfast we went to the big onsen and spent an hour or so in there enjoying 14 or more different baths. The 100% onsen water was so high in mineral content that within 30 seconds my nipples and other "soft/shaved spots" were on fire! I soaped down, then headed back into the other ones to repeat. The hottest bath was about 46C which is hotter than most westerners can stand unless they have experience with HOT onsen. It felt gooooood (but hot). I came out looking rather lobsterish and then steamed myself in a steam box which is 65C steam. That reminded me of Fukui summers!
Back to the room to fall asleep for an hour and a half, then out for a three hour walk (round trip) including taking video, relaxing at an open sauna on a volcano that was spewing hundreds of hot steam and sulfer gas spouts from vents. The water coming out of a hole in the ground is the origin for the onsen water in the area. It spewed 8,400L/minute of 98C pH1.2 water and is the biggest amount of hotspring effluent in Japan.
Around the volcano was a ganbanyoku or area that people come to, lie out on the rocks, cover themselves with blankets and soak up the natural heat and energy that the volcano emits. It was very interesting to see this as most of the people were quite on in age (like 95 and going strong). We hiked a trail for a little bit but a warning sign said that the sulfer gas gets fairly strong and can be deadly so we turned around and went back down.
Then it was back to the onsen hotel for dinner and another bath followed by another game of cribbage before drifting quickly off to sleep.
This morning we awoke about 7am, went for breakfast, then another nipple-prickling hiri-hiri bath and back to the room to check out by 10am. We had a two-hour waoit for the bus so we walked back to the volcano and took some photos of the ganbanyoku (not on this keitai so cant post with this blog), had coffee at the restaurant attached to the onsen (not the one we were staying at), and walked the 30minute walk back to our hotel. We caught the noon bus and enjoyed the hour ride back down the mountain to Tazawako Lake where we stopped for lunch and I uploaded the previuous blog with a lake shot.
The 14:10 bus took us back to Tazawako Stn and we waited 30minutes to get on the shinkansen back to Tokyo. We will arrive at Tokyo Stn in about three hours.
This onsen was very unique and a great experience. I even got to eat my first snow of the year which has been a tradition for me for about 35 years now. So I am very glad to have gotten away from Tokyo for a few days. It is a great way to spend a hard-earned income and provides fantastic regenerative value.
Come and enjoy the beauty of Japan if you can because the hustle and bustle of the cities only touches the surface of the country. Did you know that 80% of this country is mountains, forests, and rural landscape with very few inhabitants? Stunning!
I love you!
Cam
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