Only 2 hours from Kyoto. Enjoy snow and eating crabs in the Onsen resort founded 1,300 years ago

Kinosaki Onsen has a beautiful and nostalgic view with rows of willow trees along a little river. There are at most 7 public baths in the area and you can casually visit and enjoy them even without staying over at the local ryokan Inns. They are called “sotoyu”(open air bath) which is opposite of “uchiyu”(indoor bath).

A digital ticket for sotoyu is a convenient ticket for those who want to go around the sotoyu facilities and stroll around the town. It can be purchased at any of the 7 sotoyu. (Rate: 1,200 yen per adult, 600 yen per child). You can try all the seven sotoyu facilities with different constructions and atmospheres.

My recommendations are “Satono-yu” with fine view outdoor bath and “Ichinoyu” with a cave pool. Please note, when you stay at any of the local ryokan in the Kinosaki area, you can visit 7 sotoyu baths for free and also enjoy taking a walk around the town dressing in “yukata”. Kinosaki is a very yukata-friendly town. Actually it is considered as a dressing up style to wear Yukata and Geta in Kinosaki.

Both “Satono-yu” and “Kouno-yu” provide “Ashiyu” (foot baths) in front of the entrance where anyone can stop by. So you can enjoy Kinosaki hot spring even with your clothes on.

One of the great things about Kinosaki is you can enjoy it any time of the year. During Autumn or winter, Kinosaki offers a series of best crab dishes. Spring is a lovely cherry blossom season and in summer you can drive down to Takenohama beach just for 15 minutes.

The famous travel guidebook “Michelin Green Guide Japan” picks up Kinosaki Onsen with two stars as a place to stop by and a view from Daishi Mountain with one star. You can climb up the mountain by a cable car. They write about the street of Izushi city, their local “sara-soba” dishes, Eirakukan(old theater), nearby beaches such as Takenohama and Keinohama and much more. They also talk about local activities to conserve and protect wild stork in the column.

You can download the brochure about Kinosaki in Toyooka city from the below link.

English:
http://www.city.toyooka.lg.jp/kankou/pdf/english.pdf 

Chinese:
http://www.city.toyooka.lg.jp/kankou/pdf/china2.pdf 

Russian:
http://www.city.toyooka.lg.jp/kankou/pdf/russia.pdf 

Korean:
http://www.city.toyooka.lg.jp/kankou/pdf/russia.pdf 

Below are some more referenece links about Kinosaki Onsen.
http://www.kinosaki-web.com/en/ 
http://photo.kinosaki2.net/ 

————-

Deep Japan – Experienced Senpais living in and enjoying Japan offer inside-knowledge on how to make your trip real, interesting and above all, unforgettable.

Join the Deep Japan Senpai Team – Anyone currently living in Japan for a year or more who can write tips for visitors in English is welcome to register on Deep Japan as a writer.

The post Deep Japan – Kinosaki Onsen, only 2 hours from Kyoto appeared first on Jarman International KK.

Happy New Year! I Want to do O-toso Every Day.

You might not know how much pomp and circumstance takes place in a Japanese home on New Year’s morning.

Mom is bustling around the kitchen putting final touches to her O-sechi Ryori or special (very special) New Year’s Day (Oshogatsu) feast of sweet black beans, lovely O-zoni soup, Kamaboko, seki-han red rice and much more.

She uses long chop sticks to gently pack the soft tamago yaki squares in next to the delicately braised chicken or ham in the bright red Urushi lacquered boxes.

Urushi lacquer is one of Japan’s proudest traditional art forms and you can learn a bit about why Urushi lacquer is so special here:
http://www.pentrace.net/east/wajima/urushi.html 

Kayoko tells me to keep tradition Despite the Changes

Watch out if you try to take a tempting sweet bean or little taste of konbu seaweed wrap because her stink-eye look (“stink-eye” for all your non-Pidjin English speakers means “scary look” will tell you to wait until everyone is seated around the low and splendidly laid out table, chopsticks have been raised and the resounding “Itadakimasu” or “I receive” is proclaimed.

Keeping with the “I receive” theme of the biggest family meal of the year, there is one other tradition we never missed during the 20 New Year’s mornings I was married into a wonderfully amazing Japanese family. O-toso as pictured here is the simple, yet ornate sake set passed down through generations to share sweet sake on the morning of January 1.

Three sakazuki dishes of increasing size are passed around the table and each is taken in three sips, the first being quick, the second increasing in size and the final, larger, to finish up the sake in the dish. The dish is passed to the next family member and the person who just received now pours a bit of sake into the dish for their neighbor. The sweet, cool splash of sake is said to wash away and finish off the past year and receive energy and hope for the coming one. That was exactly how it felt during this celebration each year. What wonderful memories!

My friend Kojiro Yamanaka says his O-TOSO set has been passed down for two generations and one day he hopes to pass this down to his daughter when she marries so that one day she may give this to her children.
Here is his message in Japanese Culture & Style
https://www.facebook.com/japaneseculturestyle/photos/a.345386008806867.91948.344842138861254/803023193043144/?type=1&theater 

The sake pot is called Cho-shi and the three little dishes are called Sakazuki.
http://japanstylestore.jugemcart.com/?pid=1228629 

As I write this I feel my mother-in-law Kayoko Shiraishi looking down from heaven and wishing I maintained this tradition with her grandchildren. Excuses come up in my mind about no-longer being married to her son after the cruelty and sadness of divorce. I don’t feel as much obliged to keep tradition with my children since I so utterly miss and pine for the wonderful family life I had with them. But…..for Kayoko, as a traditional Japanese mother, wife and woman, those troubles we go through in life must seem petty, impermanent and meaningless from her view up top. All that drama must look pretty idiotic when you can see how everything, all of it, works together in the end.

The psyche of O-toso is to let the past experience be just that…a past experience that makes us stronger for tomorrow. That is why I wish I could have a little O-toso set in my room to remind me to keep and cherish the lessons I’ve learned, grow from them but yet let all the strife flow away.

Funny how three dishes are required! I am sure there is some deep meaning, but from my point of view, whoever developed this got it perfectly correct. Three strikes of sweet sake shared among family before a beautifully set and lovingly arranged array of delight? Well, that will definitely help strike out the pain and regret that so silently builds in our soul over the span of an hour, a day, a year or a lifetime. “Let it Go and Look Forward!” Kayoko insists.

Okay, so it’s decided. Instead of trying to wrestle the family O-toso set from my ex, I think I will pick one up for the Jarmans and start the tradition for my new life not only out for respect for Kayoko, but because I’ve learned hope never dies and there is always much sweetness awaiting us each and every morning.

————-

Deep Japan – Experienced Senpais living in and enjoying Japan offer inside-knowledge on how to make your trip real, interesting and above all, unforgettable.

Join the Deep Japan Senpai Team – Anyone currently living in Japan for a year or more who can write tips for visitors in English is welcome to register on Deep Japan as a writer.

The post Deep Japan – The sleek warmth of Otoso on an Early New Year morning appeared first on Jarman International KK.