Day 10 -- Kusatsu, Gunma

I know I ended my last post just at the beginning of my 1 week in Chiba with my host parents. They have internet but I didn't want to keep asking them to use it every night in order to update my blog, so I didn't :P

Day 10 - Kusatsu, Gunma
Kusatsu was awesome! The weather was a bit cloudy and rainy, but it turned out alright actually. We took the JR bus from Shinjuku in the morning and arrived in the afternoon. We found our hotel, checked in, had some tea and then headed to the onsen at the ryokan. It was a very small and modest ryokan almost with a minshuku feel to it. Definitely homey and the hostess was incredibly friendly. Dinner came after onsen and we ate in the communal area along with another group of travelers. Dinner was AMAZING. Check out my pics on Flickr, Google, or Facebook if you get the chance :)

After dinner we went into the town centre to view Yubatake, the source of the hot springs, and take some pictures. We took a stroll and admired the lights around town. We headed back to the ryokan and popped into the onsen yet again before going to bed for the night.

The next day we took the bus to Mt. Shirane hoping that the weather had cleared up on the mountain as it had at lower altitude. We were disappointed as it was fog everywhere, chilly, with a sheer curtain of rain coming down at us :( My host mom and I sat in a nearby cafe nursing our hot coffee / lattes as we watched the tourists fight the fog to find a hiking trail. Oh well, I guess seeing the Yugama crater lake will have to wait until next time...

We bought o-chazuke that was a specialty in that area and hopped onto the next bus down the mountain. When we returned to the hotel, we dropped off some stuff and headed out to see if we could visit a store recommended by the hostess of our ryokan. I absolutely love Japanese textiles and patterns, such as those seen in chirimen, furoshiki, kimono, noren, etc. So this store was a place I just had to visit.

We arrived but found it closed! :( Apparently it closes on Tuesdays.. ugh. So right then and there we decided to change our bus ticket home to a later time so that we could go there the next day, spend some time there, and have lunch.

We changed our tickets and decided to check out the other sites. About 5-8 minutes away from Yubatake, was an outdoor onsen called Sai no kawara koen. It has the largest outdoor onsen in Kusatsu! Of course no pictures allowed but the scenery was beautiful!

After spending at least 30 minutes at the onsen, we did some window shopping along the streets and ended up at Netsu no yu to watch and take part in the Yumomi -- using long wooden boards, women flip the water back and forth, singing old folk songs, to cool down the hot spring water.

We had soba for lunch and walked around a bit. We made our way to the bus station and with a sigh of contentment (and a bit of regret) we hopped onto the bus to Tokyo.