Setsubun’s main attraction is mamemaki, or ‘bean throwing’. This is achieved by going to a (jinja) temple with dried beans (fukumame, lit. ‘luck beans’) and throwing them to the ground. Then you would shout “Oni wa soto, fuku wa uchi!” (“Devil(s) out, good luck in!”) and pick up and eat your age worth of beans (i.e. 23 years old = 23 beans). The beans are said to cleanse the bad luck and force the demons with the bad luck out. Eating the beans is supposed to give you good luck. There was also the ritual of cooking sardines and hanging the heads outside the household.

Unfortunately, many of these traditions are not upheld. Some places, especially in the Kansai region, uphold many of the traditions including mamemaki, hanging sardine heads and holy outside the household, eating a long strip of maki-zushi (called ehoumaki) which is said to bring good luck, and going to shines, temples and even events with entertainment. However, in most places substitutions are made, beans (or peanuts) are merely eaten with a meal, the maki-zushi is brought from a convenience store. I had school lunch today where I received some fukumame beans and also had sardine as my entrée.

It’s nice to take part in these events, even if they aren’t celebrated like they used to be. Many of the kids at school seemed confused at getting fukumame, and I think many of them didn’t know what Setsubun was.

I’ve been down there before, so I understood the basic layout of the area. One of the things I wanted to see this time was the Entsuin temple light display, in which the temple was lit up at night with various coloured lights, rows of lanterns and fire torches. I was a little inexperienced with my D90, but headed out anyways.

As is usual, I didn’t make the most of the day. I got down for about 2pm, and seeing as it is now winter, that gives me roughly two hours of sunlight left. Curses!

Still, I wandered around the islands that are close to the shore. Matsushima literally translates to ‘Pine tree islands’ (‘matsu’ being Japanese for ‘pine tree’ and ’shima’ being Japanese for ‘island(s)’). The main attraction is over 100 islands of various shapes and sizes that adorn the coast of Matsushima, covered in Pine trees, temples, shrines and other tidbits.

I’d taken photos on and around the islands before, so this time, I wanted to focus on getting the most out of my camera, doing some sunset photography and getting some night photography done with the lights that were on display at Entsuin temple. I’m going to include a few photos from my previous trip too, so you can get an idea of the place.

One of the first things I took was this little critter here. I’m pretty disappointed, I managed to snap a quick shot of it, but I was being carried along with the crowd and I didn’t have a dedicated macro lens with the camera (I used the Fujifilm Finepix 9100 which is like a DSLR, but still a point and shoot and the lens can’t come off). I would have loved some time to get some good close shots, but alas I moved on. Light was starting to dim so I didn’t have time to diddle-dally about.

The bay has a small harbour and a nice park, and the main street runs parallel to it filled with omiyage shops (gifts/souvenirs) and restaurants specialising in the local meibutsu [名物 - specialities], beef tongue and fresh oysters. Cross the main street and you start going up hill slightly, reaching a number of small temples, including Entsuin temple I mentioned earlier. Next to the harbour by the pier is a tiny red bridge leading to a small islet housing the small temple hall ‘godaido’, which seems to have become a symbol for Matsushima.

I went to some of the islands and took some shots, including going over a large red bridge to get to a larger island (the name escapes me). You can see some of the islands from a viewing platform from here, as well as a few shrines and temples. I imagine that these islands have all sorts of fawn and fauna that can’t be appreciated in the barren chill of winter’s grasp. I’ll return in the spring to see how much has changed.

By this time, the sun was going down, and it was sunset time. I took some shots, and played about a lot with the white balance, especially the feature that allows me to change the kelvin temperature compensation or whatever you call it (which is especially evident in the last shot!).

By now it was dark and about half 7ish. I crossed the main road and found the entrance to Entsuin temple. I got some photos of the lanterns that adorned the gates of the entrance to the temple. This is where I found out my camera likes to throw fits in the dark. The Nikon D90 is a nice camera, but even with my f/1.4 50mm lens, I had real trouble taking night shots. Not just getting them exposed properly, but merely things like getting focus, or getting the damn camera to take the bloody shot when I did get it focused. My advice is to either go full manual, or focus with auto, and then switch to manual to take the pictures. Also found out that the remote I brought isn’t so great as I thought it’d be. Meh, oh well. I tried taking a shot of the long pathway that was lit by small lanterns and candles, but nothing came out properly.

One photo I’m quite pleased with is this fire picture. Not really for the fire itself, the image isn’t unlike hundreds of flame containing photos on the internet, but it requires a second look. I found something in the photo, the image of a phoenix. Maybe i’m looking for it, but I can definatley make some bird-like creature with a long beak coming out of the right hand side, looking left and downish. Can you see it?

The temple itself was alright, there was a pre-planned route that you couldn’t stray from, and there was a cost at the gate (400yen if I remember correctly). There were lights placed around the trees and plants, and some different colours as well. Small candles, lanterns and luminous ropes of coloured neon were also found in certain places. Some of it was overkill, but there was a nice atmosphere. Someone playing the flute in traditional dress was standing halfway around the course, which set a nice mood. And there is a small pond near the end, which in the dark make a perfect mirror reflection of the trees and the lights around it. That was spectacular, although It was crowded and I didn’t have a wide angle lens at the time (I took my S9100 which couldn’t cut it, and only my 50mm f/1.4 Nikkor which scales to 75mm on my D90), so no pics . Speaking of which, the place was really crowded, so there wasn’t much time for photos. I had to wait just off the route until the crowds died down before I took any photos. And since 3 legged tripods are not allowed in the temple grounds (which is a rule in many of Japan’s temples/landmarks) which is all I had, it made things harder.

I’ll leave you with the photos from the tour, after which I left for home, grabbing dinner from Mini Stop along the way. My current favourite is among them, the lantern used in the header image. It was such a quick shot, the staff were holding them and pointing people in the right direction, one of them put theirs down for a second and I siezed the chance! With the freedom of digital, you’ve got to try shooting anything your eye catches, even if the settings aren’t right. You’ll be surprised at some of the outcomes. Anyways, see you soon!

The reason I’m bringing this up? Being back in Japan I’ve started to notice a few eating habits of the Japanese, and I thought I’d share my findings.

1) The variety show

One of the first major differences you’ll notice when eating in Japan (aside from the different food), is the way the food comes. In England and most other western cultures, we tend to have our food in one container, usually in a bowl or on a plate.

Japan has a tendency to ship all it’s food to the connoisseur in small portions. Not only does this make an interesting change of pace (for us foreigners at least), but you soon realise how many different things are passed your way. Entrees, side dishes, pickled vegetables, salads, rice, all these come in small but carefully constructed portions. This happens in restaurants, and even in family homes. Most days you’ll get to try something new. It’s kind of like being at a permanent party buffet.

I suppose that despite being harder to manage if you live alone (lets face it, a simple donburi is much easier), its still a lot of fun, and it also allows (and encourages) more variety in your diet and probably more of the vitamins/minerals/vegetables and good stuff you need every day.

Mind you, I wouldn’t want to do the washing up…

2) Grapes of doom!

Your average Japanese Joe will happily scarf down a variety of foods with their outer layer on, whole shrimps with the shell and head still on, fish with the head/skin/bones et. al., octopus with the skin still attached (with it’s mucas-like membrane, yuk!). Nothing phases them.

Except grape skins of course.

Yes, it seems the Japanese populace cannot seem to devour a grape with the skin still attached. I have watched many a time, and probably close to 95% of the people I’ve seen take the grape and peel it until it is just the fleshy fruit, and then eat it, discarding the skin. It boggles the mind, I mean I know some people don’t like the skins, but this is a huge shift in numbers. You’d think with the things they eat, grape skins would be way down the list.

On a related note potato skins (sweet and normal) seem to be a no-no too. Yet, I’ve seen my students eat (to try and gross me out, mind) orange peel and banana skin. It’s strange to say the least.

3) Normal is as normal does

(Stolen from Peter Chong’s site via Google images!)

If you’re not familiar with Japan, you’ve probably no doubt heard of her ‘strange’ and ‘exotic’ cuisine. People will have no doubt said something along the lines of, “(eww), they eat raw fish all the time.” Whilst you do get raw fish sometimes with sushi and shashimi (as well as raw egg, raw beef, raw horse, raw vegetables, raw chicken to name a few), it’s not as common as some people think. However, these do make a part of the Japanese diet, and it’s interesting to note what is normal here compared to what is normal back home.

In a typical Japanese household, you’ll most likely get rice, miso soup and some kind of fish most days. The rice/miso soup combination is popular as breakfast. Yes, breakfast.

In fact, rice is usually a 3 times a day thing. On of the good things about the average Japanese diet is that despite all the crap that they have, they seem to balance it out with an incredibly balanced amount of veg and other healthy things.

4) Convieniently bad for you

OK, not so healthy stuff. Walk into any convenience store and you’ll find the magazines, toiletries and stuff. Everything after that is food and drink. Frozen ready-meal type food, soft drinks, beer, spirits, sweets, crisps (potato chips), pot noodles, beer snacks, canned coffee with enough sugar (real or fake) to kill a horse, cakes filled with cream, bread with chocolate, bread with strawberry cream, bread with cream, sandwiches with strawberries and cream in them, bread with fried foods in them, ready meals and bento, and a section of fried foods by the checkout.

The local convenience store is a dieters NIGHTMARE. With all this bad food at their disposal (and they buy it, I see them! I has proof!), it begs the question, “How do they stay so thin?”.

Aside from thinking the population of Japan has outgrown the need for food and merely puts this on for show, I’d say it’s a combination of other eating habits and factors of their lives. Always moving, exercising a lot, eating a lot of good stuff with the bad (vegatables and fruit for example), and most importantly (I think), a good dose of willpower (or upbringing) to not eat the junk food all the time.

5) Natto

I was hesitant to put a picture of natto on the site because it repels me so much. As one of my friends commented about natto, “believes natto is so terrible it awoke his mental powers and was then offensive to all six senses”. Never was a truer statement uttered.

Natto, for those with the stomach to learn more after seeing the picture, are fermented soy-beans.

Aside from the horrid look, they smell like an 17th century French cheese market, and have the texture of, well, you figure it out. It’s all sticky and stringy and, well ewww.

Aside from that, if you can get over the initial look/smell/texture, then natto is actually palatable. In fact, they can be pretty nice. I just can’t get over the whole look/smell/texture issue myself.

And what the hell is this? Ewww, no, no, no, no, no-no-no NO!

(for those who can’t read it [although it is in English as well], that says ‘natto ice cream’.

*shudder*

It’s strange, I know, but I’m going to go through some banana related things in Japan you may or may not know. Regardless, it’s bound to be an education for you! Welcome to my top ten list of banana related Japan!

#1 Magical Banana

Magical banana is an pretty old game show and a game you can play with your friends. It’s a word association game, kinda structured like Shiritori. You’ve probably seen it before, on MTV’s Dirty Sanchez, although they play with canes and pain.

The premise of the game is simple. Someone starts saying the word ‘magical banana’. The next person then has to think of something to do with that. Then the next person has to think of something to do with the thing just said, and so on. For example, with two people:

Player 1: “Magical Banana!”

Player 2: “When I think of bananas, I think of yellow!”

Player 1: “When I think of yellow, I think of sunflowers”

Player 2: “When I think of sunflowers, I think of bees”

Player 1: “When I think of bees, I think of honey!”

Player 2: “When I think of honey, I think of…erm…” (and the game is over because they couldn’t think of something fast enough!)

An hesitation or an incorrect answer ends the current game, usually with some kind of penalty involved.

It’s a quick game, made even quicker in Dirty Sanchez where single word answers, a short time limit and getting hit in the head with a piece of cane for wrong answers make the cut.

Here’s a video of the original gameshow in Japanese. Unfortunately i’m not gonna sub it, because there’s a LOT, but you’ll get the gist hopefully.

#2 Banana King

Japan has all sorts of crazy products, with equally crazy adverts to promote them. Sometimes, even the simplest things, like bananas, need an extra boost of ‘crazy’ to help them sell above the norm. Nothing compared to the Dole adverts i’ll show later, this is the Banana King. He is king of bananas, and he declares it to the world. This vid in particular is a song that is pretty damn catchy, but it’s a great example on how un-serious Japan is, and how it builds up it’s brand names on crazy concepts. The whole thing is at Europeon/American standards of crazy, but the scary thing is that this is the norm in Japan.

This is actually one of the Banana king adverts I found. The one I saw today was a newer one. This one is pretty tame compared to the weird Japanese adverts that are on TV, even today. This has actually been turned into a full song, those who want more information go here.

Wanna know what they’re saying? Then check out these lyrics. I’ve tried my best to figure out what they said. Anyone who wants to correct me, please do so.

オレの皮で転ぶなよ！
“Don’t fall on my skin!”

バナナの王様、
バナナの王様、
完熟王！
“The banana king,
the banana king,
ripe enough for a king!”

完熟王！
“Ripe enough for a king!”

食べられちゃった．．．
“he’s got himself eaten…”

おいしいよ！
バナナの王様、
完熟王！
“They’re delicious!
The banana king,
ripe enough for a king!

(Some of you may notice the kanji on the pacakaging is 甘熟王 not 完熟王. This is a play on words. Kanjyuku (完熟) means to be fully ripened. Ama[i] (甘[い]) means to be sweet. Ama[i] can also be read as ‘kan’, so it’s replace the first part, to imply not only is it ripened, but it is sweet too. A kind of Japanese play on words.)

#3 Banana armour

Japan is full of crazy, unnecessary products. Some are quaint, some make you think “What was going through the designers mind”, or “who would think this is useful”. The banana guard is one of these products.

Sure, for little kids, it helps to keep banana off of their schoolbooks and in their bag and stuff. I’m sure that many parents will tell of the horrors of having to clear out mushed fruit out of their child’s bag when they get home from school. However, the idea of having a separate container for the banana seems a little inappropriate. It’s like Japan’s need to have everything packaged twice over using all sorts of different materials. It’s just unneeded.

Unfortunately for some companies, such as the makers of the Banana Bunker, the product in various ‘hot’ colours look like something else.

#4 Ridiculously expensive fruit

Sometimes when at work, someone will come around with a box of apples or a big bag of pears and start handing out pieces of fruit on little sticks, much like party appetizers. This seems, quaint at first to the untrained eye, a nice small gesture.

When you’ve been here for a little while, you grab at these opportunities and realise something; these guys must be loaded!

Because my friends, fruit in Japan is expensive. I’m not talking a little bit, like “man, these apples are 10p more expensive that the other week!” kinda expensive. I’m talking about 3-4 apples costing about £10 expensive. I’m talking about a watermelon costing more that it does to fill up your car expensive. If you like fruit and you aren’t wealthy, don’t come to Japan!

Even bananas, which are such a staple fruit back home, are kinda expensive. Sure, $4-5 for a bunch of three bananas ain’t that bad, but when you see they’re really quite small an already over ripe, then you realise that the value of these things just went plummeting down.

#5 The Morning Banana Diet

Ah, the trend that started it all. Millions of Japanese women (and men for that matter) ran out to stores and supermarkets to buy up bananas after it was discovered that they were part of a miracle diet. And by discovered, I mean it came from a post on the Japanese website Mixi, after one of the posters claimed they had shed a number of pounds using this simple but effective diet. Rumours of it’s supposed effectiveness spread like wild fire. Hundreds of books have been written since.

So what is the secret to this diet. It’s simple. Have a banana for breakfast, a glass of room temp. water, don’t eat desserts or sweets and go to bed before midnight. Simply put, the premise for this ‘diet’ is to eat breakfast, drink water and don’t snack, the basic principles of any weight loss scheme. It has nothing to do with the bananas, and in fact they could be replaced with much better and (in Japan anyways), much cheaper produce.

[Although, bananas are good for breakfast. They have a lot of potassium and also digest really fast, so they are a great source of good, fast energy.]

#6 Banana adverts:

I don’t know what sane person thinks these adverts are a good idea. Sure, as a crazy parody every once in a while they can be affective. But in Japan they are so common, it’s just not right. It scares me that it’s not only the advert producers that come up with these ideas, but also the executives of the company and the broadcasting companies that think they are suitable to sell the product. One thing for sure, they do stick in your mind.

Strange dole advert.

Hmmmm, OK…

WTF Dole advert.

Wait…what?!

Alvin and the Chipmunks sing ‘Japanese Banana’

I don’t know, this seems ever so slightly racist to me. I think it’s the stereotypical Japanese music that they sing to. And apparently Japan doesn’t even have bananas.

Suggestive advert that isn’t selling bananas

OK this is Korean, but Olympus is Japanese and she’s singing about bananas .

#7 Banana Street English lesson

Welcome to Banana Street, where two misfits dress up like Bert and Ernie from Sesame Street and give out free English lessons. Unfortunately, these English lessons are just an excuse to make fun of the unsuspecting clients by taking advantage of their lack of English knowledge and making them say outrageous things. Even though it’s in Japanese, most of you should get the drift of things. It’s hilarious to say the least.

If you’re wondering about the happy birthday part, they say ‘tsuufuu’ instead of ‘to you’, which is a kind of pun. 通風 translates to gout. Also note, for those of you who speak or are learning Japanese, you may have noticed that the subtitles are in a mix of kanji, hiragana and katakana. This is intentional, it is to express that the person is speaking in a strange way. This is often used when subtitling foreigners, like Mr. James from McDonalds.

#8 Date Masamune Banana picture taking

Date Masamune is a pretty well known figure in Japan, especially in the north east of Tohoku. He’s the samurai who became famous and pretty much established the city of Sendai. He’s also pretty famous for having a crescent moon shape on the front of his helmet, which people often mistake (probably intentionally) for a banana. Hence, when it comes to celebrations and festivals that contain Date Masamune, you’ll often find people taking pictures of each other, holding bananas to their foreheads, in order to mimick Date Masamune and his crescent moon helmet. Here’s a picture of yours truly at the Date Masamune festival in Iwadeyama, Miyagi prefecture.

#9 Banana themed products

Alongside the banana guard, Japan has come up with many other banana themed products. Here are but a few of them:
 

Banana juice packaging

Now this I can dig. Not only is the packaging, by Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa, pretty awesome, but it’s BANANA JUICE!! I like this very much. More of this Japan, MORE!
 

Infinite banana

Hehe, OK, so I’ve tried the infinite bubble wrap toy, and it’s a blast (but nothing beats the real thing!). This, however, I understand, but it still sits a little weirdly. I suppose if you like that sort of thing.
 

Cellfoam banana holder

OK, I’m at a loss here. Simply put, the only reason you’d want one of these was if you had wacky stuff in your apartment, and it was all for show. End of. And the terrible pun of Cellfoam (cell ‘phone’ for those who don’t get it) is unforgivable. [OK, I'm not sure this is Japanese, but it fits in with the theme of things]

#10 Tokyo Banana

The Tokyo Banana is a type of sweet made in, you guessed it, Toyko. It’s a pretty popular omiyage (souvenir) to bring home if ever you’re in Tokyo. It’s like a sponge cake with a banana flavoured cream inside. Some have pieces of banana in there too. Americans, apparently it’s like a banana flavoured Twinkie, whatever the hell that is. The company that makes them also has other themed desserts, such as the Black Bear (i think) (黒べエ) and the Cheese Rabbit (チーズうさぎ).

勉強になるなぁ！

Unfortunately my camera hasn’t arrived from England, the weather wasn’t perfect and the trains run so infrequently that i’m going to have to give you a slightly condensed glossed over version. Still, I hope you enjoy!

I love hot springs. Both times that I have lived in Japan, there has been some famous hot spring location near me. Before it was Arima Onsen, now it is Naruko Onsen. This was one of the few places that I wanted to visit before I came to Japan, so now that i’m all settled in I took the plunge and paid the overpriced JR train fair to get there.

After waiting nearly two hours at Furukawa station for a train (told you they were infrequent!), I boarded the train and made my way to Naruko. The journey took about half an hour from Furukawa stopping off at about 8 stations before arriving at Naruko Onsen. There were various billboards reminding people of the Date Masamune fesitval in Iwadeyama posted at a few stations. I’ll blog about my experiences there later.

Naruko station is smaller than I imagined, but knowing how many trains pass through I can see why it doesn’t need to be big. Walking out of the station takes you to an array of taxi’s waiting to take you to your next destination. Turn around, and directly outside the station are a mirage of plaques (which are incidentally hotel advertisments!) and two foot spa pools for the weary traveller to soak their feet in and rest.

Situated on the mountainside and on top of an (active!) volcano, Naruko boasts a great location to build Japanese onsen (spas or baths) upon. Looking up from below, you can see the many vents that let heat and steam rise out from the mountainside below. It’s a sight to behold (although nothing compared the the geysers at Yellowstone National Park in America I feel).

Naruko is home to a woodwork native to the Tohoku region called ‘Kokeshi’. These Kokeshi dolls, long cylindrical dolls with large round heads, are supposedly meant to have originated from Naruko, although the debate rages on in Japan about where they actually came from. However, it is clear that Naruko has a strong relationship with these dolls. For starters, they are everywhere. Ornaments, souvenirs, parts of the village, shops, stalls and signs all bear the image of Kokeshi. Over 80 people still take on jobs as full time Kokeshi doll ‘craftsmen’. There are shops where you can see the dolls being made, have a doll made personally for you or even decorate your own!

As I said, they are everywhere! Unfortunately I missed the festival that happened not too long ago, but I’m not really interested in the dolls themselves. The hustle and bustle of the matsuri (festival) is what i’m after.

The big draw to Naruko however, is the baths. As I said, Naruko is situated on an active volcano, and the minerals and such in the ground mix with water flowing to and from the gorge, to rivers and streams far, far below. The end result is a soft sulphur infused water, which makes great bath water. It is supposed to ‘heal’ certain ailments, but as to the accuracy of that, I am not privy.

I took a long walk down one side of Naruko. The public baths are up in the center of Naruko, and there are hotels everywhere. Taking a walk down towards the police station, about a kilometre or two, you find some annexes to some of the hotels. Extra bath-houses, or just bath houses where they didn’t have enough space to build the hotel as well, are in this area. Often refered to as 日帰り onsen (day return baths), these offer bathing without having to book a hotel room. The two or so public baths Naruko have (Taki no yu for example), are often busy and crowded.

Luckly for me, I came to the bath just as the sole person inside it was leaving. So I had the whole bath to myself. As is usual with most bath houses, there is a mens only bath, and a womens only bath. Some places have family baths, and a few have mixed baths. They are usually indoors, although with some fancy hotels you’ll find outside (or partial outside baths, such as Mori no yu, which are great when there is settling snow outside and the air is chilly!). The symbol on the curtain is ゆ, ‘yu’, which basically means ‘hot water’. The other symbol is 男, ‘otoko’, which means ‘male’.

The bath houses usual have a small single changing room where everyone gets naked and gets into the bath. No shyness in Japan! Haha. There are baskets for your belongings (no lockers for the security concious here unfortunately, but then it’s a good thing Japan is one of the safest countries around isn’t it!) and line of vanity-style mirrors to do your hair and shave or reapply make-up or whatever.

The bath itself was rather small. Sometimes they provide small (and I mean small) towels that you can use to cover up your, erm, “Kokeshi doll”, but here they had none. Sometimes bath-houses or hotels provide more than one bath, usually with different waters or different temperatures. The decor can range from the rustic to the plain, to real rock or imitation. It really depends on the hotel or bath-house, rather than the location.

Washing, as many of you know, is done outside with showers before you enter the bath. This keeps the bath clean for the bathers, rather than having to sit in your own filth or kill everything with a tonne of chlorine.

This bath-house had an impressive collection of Kokeshi dolls, as do most of the establishments in Naruko. They really seem to pride themselves on this image, so you see hundreds of them lined up everywhere.

Outside in various locations you can ‘try’ the water. However, I wouldn’t imagine you could drink it, so the only thing to do would be to wash your hands with it. Nice touch though.

People walk about from their hotels in the evening wearing yutaka (like a light summer dressing-gown) and geta (traditional wooden sandals). With the ambient lighting, it makes walking round the village during an evening a very pleasant experience. Unfortunately the village is pretty small, so there isn’t much to walk around, but it’s a nice image none-the-less.

Some decent artwork upon the wall of, I assume, an izakaya (pub) of some sort.

Take a walk down the opposite way of the police station, and you’ll find the Kokeshi doll museum, which hosts hundreds of the little buggers. Seeing how much those things cost, (about £10 for the little ones and up to £100-£300 for the bigger ones), that museum must have a small mint inside. Outside are two massive Kokeshi dolls, about 20-25ft tall. Walk a little further and you come to Naruko gorge.

Unfortunately the gorge was very dissapointing. I was expecting some lush greenery and nature upon the hills, with a walkway going over the gorge. However, the bridge is big and ugly, and the view is small and pretty diminishing. Unfortunate, but I got a walk out of it. I wish I had eaten something before I came, because I hadn’t eaten anything since a single onigiri (riceball) for breakfast!

Walking back to town, I took a walk up the main part of Naruko where all the hotels are located. Certainly the busiest place, albeit not that busy this night. I brought some omiyage (souvenir presents for people back home) and a small crafted wooden doll (not Kokeshi!), located the big local bath-house Taki no yu and found the onsen shrine.

I took a stroll up the steps to the shrine, passing a torii gate made of stone. You can see the limitations of my hand-held camera; it wasn’t dark outside, just low evening light. Every other shot came out blurred. Since I hadn’t eaten for most of the day, and by that time I had walked about 10km, I decided to say ’sod it!’ and skipped the rest of the shrine (gives me something to de next time!).

I went for some dinner at a small restaurant. I am really surprised at the lack of public restaurants around here. I suppose most of the hotels do their own food. Part of the experience I suppose.

On the way back to the station, I found the foot baths empty, so I pulled up my trousers, pulled my shoes and socks off and had a quick soak. Ooooooooo, that felt good. If you do anything in Naruko, do that! Haha.

I had a short chat with a young girl who stopped off at the bath, but unfortunately I had to catch the train to get back so our conversation was cut short. First time I’d talked to a random stranger since I got here. Need more practice!

Anyhow, it was a short quiet trip back to Furukawa. I got back to my apartment far more worn out than I thought I would be. “Man, I need a bath after today’s excursion!” I thought.

Oh….wait…