November 5, 2008Sarah

Naruko Onsen and Naruko-kyo

Day 4 of 13 Days (Wednesday)

We have breakfast at Dontour and eat mushroom sandwich at JR Sendai Station before taking a local train to Naruko Onsen (鳴子温泉). We decided against the highway bus since there are only two available time slots. The train is very slow. When it is about 50m away from Kogota (小牛田) Station, it comes to a halt as it let a cargo train passes by. This causes a stir of panic among the passengers as the connecting train departing for Naruko Onsen is only a few minutes away. When the train reaches the station, we quickly dash out crossing an overhead bridge to another platform, where the connecting train is. Yes, we are dragging our trolley bag. This is the main grouse I have about Japan whereby we have to cross an overhead bridge for connecting trains. How about the older folks.

It’s another mad dash when we reach Naruko Onsen Station. We are told by the Tourist Information Office that the bus scheduled for Naruko Gorge (鳴子峡, Naruko-kyō) is leaving in a few minutes’ time. All the lockers that our trolley bag could fit in are used up. We have to dash across the road, up a slope where there is a shoe shop that provides such service. With my limited Japanese, I manage to understand that the old woman says must pay first. Wahahaha.

Finally, we run up the bus but there is no more vacant seat. A young man “chopped” seats for his 2 other girlfriends 😦 So we have to stand until the first stop where they alight at the first stop. Hmm, looking at the map given by the Tourist Office, I am not very sure, this could be the stop. So I ask a helpful obasans who helps us to ask the driver too. Wahhahaa, we are going to the same place I thought. As the bus drives into the gorge, the beautiful autumn leaves are awesome. I heard sighs of “ki-rei-i”, which means beautiful in Japanese.

Finally, the bus reaches our destination. Wow, the picturesque scenery is exactly like those I saw in the magazines/websites. So breath-taking. I am busy snapping away. Walking around the area. Hehehe. And forget we haven’t had our lunch. Thankfully, this is an extremely touristy area. Therefore, we could find some snacks here. We eat grilled fish in a tent-area.

We are unable to hike at the bottom of the gorge area due to falling boulders. Then I figure what the Tourist Officer was trying to tell me now, certain sections of the Naruko-kyo are closed for safety reasons. As such, we have to hang around for a while since the next bus is quite some time away. It’s pretty difficult to figure out the location of a bus-stop unless someone starts queueing up

When we are back to Naruko Onsen Station, we checked into the quaint Yusaya Ryokan (ゆさや), after walking a distance. It’s a very old ryokan, about 370 years. We are shown to our room by a young woman and the ryokan is indeed very old, by the look of interior of the room especially. What put me off is I find used tissue in the pocket of the coat of the yukata, which is something I didn’t expect in clean Japan. Next horror find is “used tea leaves” in one of the tea bowl ;(

As we have booked the private open bath, we quickly change and not dwell much about the horror finds. Also, there is no private toilet as promised but we have to walk outside the room 😦 As it was already quite dark at about 5pm, we are given a ride up a rough-pebbles road (actually, it’s walkable distance but not with the pair of Japanese clogs lor) . Then we realise there’s nothing to see because it’s pitch dark!!! (only when we are back in Singapore then I realise that I should be able to see the autumn leaves 😦 ) When we are back, we also try the in-house hot spring.

D4A_05Nov2008

Back to the ryokan, we have a sumptuous dinner. A lot of food, I love the beef ;)~~ The saving grace of Yusaya is the friendly old woman 🙂 We rest for a while before heading to the next destination (or rather next door) to try Takinoyu (滝の湯),  it’s actually a very very small bathhouse with over a thousand years of history. Of course, it has a local flavour. In fact, it’s  a culture shock for me vs the other bath houses, because there is no showering facilities, we  just have to use the free-flowing spring water to cleanse ourselves. Out of Takinoyu, we go to a shop across our ryokan, in our yukata and clogs. I buy a Naruko Kokeshi doll (a wooden doll which gives a squeak when one turns its neck), supposed to be their local icon and region too.

We have a great sleep that night zzz….

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