Staying in a Typical Japanese Hot Spring Hotel - with Stunning Views of Mount Fuji

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Unseasonably chilly weather, together with lots of rain, has made for a miserable last few weeks, delaying the cherry blossoms, which are now expected to bloom this coming weekend (see here for the map). With university graduation ceremonies pretty much done - see here for a nice shot of my seminar students and me - and school spring break started, many families take a small vacation. Whereas in the UK, holiday camps, with on-site entertainment, activities, and facilities, are popular getaways, here in Japan hot spring resort hotels are beloved by young and old alike. Here I introduce one I stayed at recently in Yamanashi Prefecture, less than a 2-hour drive from Tokyo, called Hanayagi no sho Keizan (華やぎの章慶山). The hotel was featured in the 2022 edition of "100 Japanese Hotels and Ryokans selected by Professionals" (magazine cover pictured - see page 50). 

The hotel is located in the Isawa-onsen - onsen means hot spring - area of Yamanashi, north of Mount Fuji. It's a quiet little town surrounded by mountains and famed, as this site points out, for two things the Japanese love: hot springs and cherry blossoms! Despite being called Yamanashi (山梨）- literally mountain pear - the area is in fact famous for peaches and grapes. Indeed, with regard to the latter, there were two wineries within walking distance of our hotel. Arriving at the hotel, the first thing one is struck by is the service described in Japanese as omotenashi, a unique kind of Japanese hospitality where the needs of the customer are always anticipated. Thus, from the car park your luggage is taken and as you walk through the main entrance a bevy of nakai-san (hostesses) greet you and the head housekeeper (okami=女将）bows deeply and presents her business card (meishi=名刺). Then you are asked to choose a yukata (light common kimono) - as the picture shows there are various styles and sizes - before you and your luggage are guided to your Japanese style tatami room. Please note, tips are most definitely not needed - indeed the nakai-san would be rather affronted to be offered money just for doing their job.

These kind of hotels are a great base to do some sightseeing during the day - and then come back to relax in the evening. We drove down to the Fuji Five Lakes (Fujigoko=富士五湖), the region at the foot of Mount Fuji which give the best views of the sacred mountain. Whether you get a spectacular cloud-free view or not is all down to luck. On the first day, we visited the biggest of the five lakes, Yamanaka-ko (山中湖) and after cycling around the windy lake drove up to the best sightseeing spot - Panorama-dai (パノラマ台) - only to be disappointed with Fuji all but invisible behind the mist. But on the second day, we visited the most developed of the five, Kawaguchi-ko (河口湖), and got lucky - some of the best and clearest views of Mount Fuji that I've seen in my thirty-odd years in Japan!

After a hard day sightseeing, nothing beats going back to your hotel, slipping into your yukata and heading for the bath. Sometimes you will see the symbol for onsen (♨）but more often than not, as in the picture, you will see only the hiragana ゆ (pronounced "yu" and written 湯 in kanji) which literally means hot water. Usually this is written on a short split curtain (noren) at the entrance - navy blue signifies men, red women (the character for men=男 and women=女 is also written but this is typically quite small so be careful to go in the right one!). There are also various massage services and relaxation tools and chairs around. I enjoyed a quick 10-minute massage for ¥1000 (£5) before the bath and made use of the free foot massage machine afterwards. Inside the bath itself, I love to rotate between the regular hot baths (both inside and outside), the sauna, and the cold bath (for more on sauna and the concept of totonou see here; also see here for  some tips on bathing etiquette). 

After the bath, the next step is dinner - an incredible feast of washoku Japanese style food with multiple courses. The menu (okondate=おこんだて), pictured top right in the photo, shows just how varied the meal was, including sakura tofu, tuna sashimi, squid noodles, and chawan-mushi (steamed egg custard). Stuffed to the gills, you stumble back to your room to be greeted by a nice surprise - while you were eating a nakai-san had cleared away the table and chairs and put out the futons for you! There was no mention of this happening - it is another example of the silent omotenashi service that anticipates the needs of customers before they even voice their requests. Incredible!

But it wasn't quite time to sleep yet. In the lobby there was a taiko performance. Taiko (太鼓) simply means drum and has a long history in Japan but the kind of group drumming famous today - known as kumi-daiko (組太鼓) - is a post-war invention. The show started with a single strike on a massive hollow wooden drum, a physically tangible thunder-clap that reverberated through the audience. Indeed, it is said that the sound can reach up to 120dB, equivalent to the noise produced by a jet engine. There are thousands of taiko groups in Japan, and it can take years to perfect the technique and strength required to play. Enjoy a clip of the performance captured in the video below and do let me know in the COMMENTS how and where you like to take a break.

Skiing in Zao: Snow Monsters, Japow, and Jizo Statues

The UK may be famous for its ever-changing weather - "four seasons in one day" - but the weather this past week in Japan has been similarly unpredictable. On Tuesday (Feb. 20th) we had a high of over 23℃ here in Tokyo, with people in T-shirts and plum blossoms blooming all over. Record breaking temperatures of 25℃ in Chiba made this the official first "summer day" on Honshu this year! However, Friday (23rd) saw snow and a high of only 4℃, a drop of nearly 20℃! On top of that, we have also had the first wind of spring known as haru-ichiban (春一番), a strong southerly wind marking the change from winter to spring, characterised by a warmish day followed by more cold weather. Four seasons in a week if not a day!

© Zao Onsen Tourism Association (URL here)

Speaking of snow, recently I took a trip to Zao in Yamagata, two and a half hours on the bullet train from Tokyo, to get in a bit of skiing. Yamagata is located in Tohoku (東北) or Northeast Japan and was the first place I lived in Japan way back in 1992. I fondly remember getting the bus on weekends from Yamagata-City to Zao Onsen Ski Resort (蔵王温泉スキー場), a sprawling network of 25 trails and almost 1.9km of skiable areas with the longest run at 9km (official English site here).

Ropeway information in both Japanese and English

Zao is famous for "Snow Monsters" (juhyō=樹氷), not abominable snowmen but trees glazed with ice and snow due to water droplets in the cold air blowing from Siberia freezing. Even if you don't ski, you can ride up on the ropeway and see the Snow Monsters which are particularly impressive when illuminated at night. In recent years, though, as temperatures have risen, the Snow Monsters have not been as imposing as before. Indeed, one thing I noticed overall was how much warmer it was on the mountain, nothing like the freezing temperatures, biting wind, and low visibility of previous years. 

BritishProf with Snow Monsters

Rising temperatures and less snow does not seem to have put off tourists - in fact, it seems to have encouraged them - and visitors from Australia and Taiwan were noticeable in Zao. Indeed, the foreign "invasion" of Japanese slopes has been discussed at length, with Niseko in Hokkaido - named by some as the Japanese powder snow ("Japow") capital of Japan (link) - gaining special attention. Post-pandemic, foreign visitor numbers have well and truly recovered, encouraged by the weak yen, and foreign investment in the resort looks set to expand further. The downside is an increasing strain on the local infrastructure, especially transportation, accommodation, water, and food, with labour shortages and price increases a growing problem. Fortunately, Zao is nowhere near as crowded as Niseko and over-tourism is not such a problem - indeed, skiing over the east side of the mountain there were places when I was completely alone. Bliss!

Right at the top, we can see the amazing almost 250-year-old 2.3 metre Jizo Statue (地蔵尊), just below the 1736m Mount Jizo (地蔵山) peak. While the purpose of many Jizo Statues is to protect the spirits of children who have passed away before their parents (see here), this one serves to protect travellers from unforeseen misfortunes or disasters. Compared to past winters, when I remember only the head visible this time the snow was only up to the chest, reflecting changing temperatures. In the summer, of course, the full statue is visible and the surrounding area offers many lovely hikes. Thoughts? Do please share in the COMMENTS!

Japanese New Year Foods and TV Gourmets

Happy New Year! New Year in Japan is very much like Christmas in the UK, a time for family, resting at home, and eating too much! I love the colourful decorations people put on their doors: known as shime-kazari (しめ飾り), these wreathe like adornments feature some combination of pine, fern, tangerine (mikan), and berries decorated with rice straw rope. Also of note are the decorations placed either side of a door or gate, often simply pine branches with Shinto inspired white jagged zigzag-shaped strips of paper (shide) but sometimes a more elaborate pair of kadomatsu (門松), huge pieces of diaganolly sliced bamboo, decorated with pine and sometimes plum (ume). Pine and bamboo are both said to symbolise longevity and strength/hardiness. 

Like Christmas in the UK, eating is a central feature of New Year in Japan. The food traditionally eaten over the first three days of the year is called osechi and consists of family favourites such as sweet black beans (kuromame), mochi (rice cake), and mashed sweet potatoes and chestnuts (kurikinton). These were typically foods that would keep well, since tradition had it that using a fire over this period was bad luck. Nowadays, however, osechi is spread over three days more as a way to reduce cooking and give everyone a break. Moreover, on top of the traditional staples, expensive and colourful seafood delicacies seem to have proliferated in recent years: crab, giant shrimp, sashimi, herring roe (kazunoko), lobster, grilled sea bream (tai), and fish paste slices (kamoboko). As the snap shows, our New Year's dinner was not particularly traditional, but did contain most of the things I like!

© Fusōsha Bunko (preview)

If more proof was needed of how important food is to Japanese at New Year, this year's holiday featured a non-stop morning to evening broadcast on TV Tokyo of the manga inspired series "Solitary Gourmet" (孤独のグルメ), a nine season classic about a traveling salesman dropping in at various restaurants around the country. There really is no plot as such, just the main character doing a little work and then suddenly declaring, "I'm hungry" (hara hetta=腹減った) before going off to search for a suitable restaurant. We then hear his inner voice pondering over what to order before finally describing in exquisite detail the food that comes out. The TV Tokyo website has an amazing collection of mouth-watering food photos while wikipedia lists all the dishes he has sampled over all nine seasons -  plus the specials!

© TV Tokyo/Yoshinaga Fumi/Koensha (original link here)

Whereas British TV is full of cooking programmes featuring celebrity chefs, while these exist in Japan (Iron Chef, a cook-off type program featuring guest chefs, is probably the most famous), Japanese TV is instead full of programmes featuring celebrities just eating and describing dishes in various restaurants. There are also hybrid cooking/eating shows, probably the most popular being the fictional drama What Did You Eat Yesterday? (きのう何食べた) which unsurprisingly aired a New Year special. Originally a Japanese manga series written and illustrated by Fumi Yoshinaga, the show centres on the relationship between a middle-aged gay couple living in Tokyo. The show typically features Shiro, a gourmand, cooking a dish as he explains the key points step-by-step and finishes with the two enjoying the meal together. Actual recipes can be downloaded from the website - check out one example here - reflecting the fact that the original manga also contained the recipe for the featured dish. Now in season 2, it has proved so popular you can even buy a set allowing you to recreate Shiro's recipes in your own home (ad pictured).

As a final aside, it is interesting to note that the restaurants featured in the "Solitary Gourmet" are all real restaurants. I recently tracked one of those down, a Burmese restaurant called Nong Inlay in Takadanobaba, Tokyo, which offers food eaten by the Shan ethnic group of Myanmar. Interestingly, this area of Tokyo is often called Little Yangon due to its 2,000 or so Burmese residents and the many Burmese restaurants and shops operating in the area. For those interested in more on Burmese - and other foreign migrants - living in Japan, I recommend checking out the films by the Japanese director Akio Fujimoto, who is married to a Burmese, especially the 2018 "Passage of Life" about a family from Mynamar living in Japan (trailer here) and the more recent "Along the Sea" about three Vietnamese migrant workers (trailer here). Both are based on true stories that highlight how Japanese people tend to turn a blind eye to the many non-Japanese living in their midst. If you have a COMMENT - or are just feeling hungry - do please drop me a line!